The Nobel Prize in physics in 2022 went the scientists who, for over 40 years, have carried out a series of experiments indicating that, contrary to materialist expectations, physical entities do not have standalone existence but are, in fact, products of observation. This result is extraordinarily relevant to our understanding of the nature of reality, and so Essentia Foundation, in collaboration with the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Vienna, of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (home to Prof. Anton Zeilinger, one of this year’s Nobel Laureates in physics), organized a conference discussing the implications of this result. The conference was hosted by IQOQI-Vienna’s Dr. Markus Müller and featured seven other speakers.

In this presentation, Prof. Caslav Brukner, PhD, also from the IQOQI-Vienna, discusses what it may be like to be Wigner's friend, the famous character of an important thought experiment in foundations of quantum entanglement.