The atrocities committed during the Second World War by the National Socialists are well known and have been meticulously documented by historians. Far less known, however, are the mass deportations that took place almost two years after the conclusion of the war, this time orchestrated by the Allied governments. In the years after 1945, over 12 million German5 speaking citizens of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland were dispossessed, packed into trains, and left to fend for themselves in newly defeated and impoverished Germany. What allowed for this mass exile— the largest forced migration in history—was the confluence of political motivations on the part of the key players. The expelling countries of Eastern and Central Europe were especially keen on punishing Germans for the horrors of the war—though, 10 of course, their own German-speaking populations were hardly responsible for Germany’s actions—and on increasing the ethnic homogeneity within their borders. The Allied powers, too, had something to gain. The Soviet Union, intent on capitalizing politically on German’s defeat, aimed to irrevocably undermine relations between Germany and Poland, especially by ceding German territory to Poland and emptying it of its inhabitants. Britain, weary from the 15 war, hoped the resulting mass suffering would reinforce the completeness of Germany’s defeat. And the United States, in turn, was attempting to cosy up to the nations of Eastern and Central Europe in the hopes of keeping them away from Soviet influence. The result of the deportations, however, was the death of at least 500,000 people and Germany’s acquisition of a homeless population far greater than that of any other industrialized 20 countries. The death toll was not far worse, furthermore, only because the Soviets’ ambition to cripple Germany was unsuccessful. Following the war, Germany underwent what is known as its “economic miracle,” which made it possible to house, feed, and employ the mass of exiles. That this episode is practically excised from the history books in some countries, however, is surely corroboration of the platitude that history is written by the victors.

Consider each of the answer choices separately and indicate all that apply.

Quantum mechanics is a relatively new field of physics that was developed in the early 1900s. Although we classically think of a particle as a fixed object, quantum mechanics describes particles as waves using properties such as position and energy. The quantum mechanical wave describes the probability of a particle to attain certain values of these properties and measures the particle samples from this probability. Take, for example, the analogy of rolling a six-sided die. For each role, there is a one-in-six chance that any single number will result. After rolling, however, only one single number will be observed. If the die is rolled enough times, one can deduce that the die has six sides and that each side is equally likely. However, one can never be completely sure, because rolling dice is probabilistic in nature. Quantum mechanics states that the same is true of the position (and other properties) of a particle. A particle trapped in a closed box has some finite probability of being at any location within the box. Open the box once and you’ll find the particle at only one location. Open the box enough times and you’ll see all the particle locations and the frequency at which they are achieved. From this, one can deduce the original properties of the quantum mechanical wave, just as one could deduce the properties of the die. The counterintuitive properties of quantum mechanics, that the attributes of a particle cannot be known in advance of measurement, initially provoked many strong philosophical debates and interpretations regarding the field. In fact, Einstein was deeply troubled by the idea of nature being probabilistic and commented famously that, “God does not play dice with the universe.” Over the last 70 years, however, irrefutable evidence has abounded that verifies the truth of the theory of quantum mechanics.