This failure of the classical view was one of the conclusions of the EPR thought experiment in which two remotely located observers, now commonly referred to as Alice and Bob, perform independent measurements of spin on a pair of electrons, prepared at a source in a special state called a spin singlet state. It was a conclusion of EPR, using the formal apparatus of quantum theory, that once Alice measured spin in the x direction, Bob's measurement in the x direction was determined with certainty, whereas immediately before Alice's measurement Bob's outcome was only statistically determined. From this it follows that either value of spin in the x direction is not an element of reality or that the effect of Alice's measurement has infinite speed of propagation.