Etymology

spooky action at a distance

Today it means: Synonym of quantum entanglement. Full definition →

German spukhafte Fernwirkung
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. German · calque ofspukhafte Fernwirkung
  2. English todayspooky action at a distance

Calque of German spukhafte Fernwirkung. Coined by Albert Einstein in a letter to Max Born on March 3, 1947 to express his skepticism about quantum mechanics, where two particles may interact instantaneously over a distance.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.