Alan Stonebraker/American Physical Society Posted on 12/04/2013 8:21:43 AM PST by Red Badger
Quantum entanglement, a perplexing phenomenon of quantum mechanics that Albert Einstein once referred to as “spooky action at a distance,” could be even spookier than Einstein perceived.
Physicists at the University of Washington and Stony Brook University in New York believe the phenomenon might be intrinsically linked with wormholes, hypothetical features of space-time that in popular science fiction can provide a much-faster-than-light shortcut from one part of the universe to another.
But here’s the catch: One couldn’t actually travel, or even communicate, through these wormholes, said Andreas Karch, a UW physics professor.
Quantum entanglement occurs when a pair or a group of particles interact in ways that dictate that each particle’s behavior is relative to the behavior of the others. In a pair of entangled particles, if one particle is observed to have a specific spin, for example, the other particle observed at the same time will have the opposite spin.
The “spooky” part is that, as past research has confirmed, the relationship holds true no matter how far apart the particles are – across the room or across several galaxies. If the behavior of one particle changes, the behavior of both entangled particles changes simultaneously, no matter how far away they are.
Recent research indicated that the characteristics of a wormhole are the same as if two black holes were entangled, then pulled apart. Even if the black holes were on opposite sides of the universe, the wormhole would connect them.
Black holes, which can be as small as a single atom or many times larger than the sun, exist throughout the universe, but their gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape from them.
If two black holes were entangled, Karch said, a person outside the opening of one would not be able to see or communicate with someone just outside the opening of the other.
“The way you can communicate with each other is if you jump into your black hole, then the other person must jump into his black hole, and the interior world would be the same,” he said.
The work demonstrates an equivalence between quantum mechanics, which deals with physical phenomena at very tiny scales, and classical geometry – “two different mathematical machineries to go after the same physical process,” Karch said. The result is a tool scientists can use to develop broader understanding of entangled quantum systems.
“We’ve just followed well-established rules people have known for 15 years and asked ourselves, ‘What is the consequence of quantum entanglement?’”
Karch is a co-author of a paper describing the research, published in November in Physical Review Letters. Kristan Jensen of Stony Brook, a coauthor, did the work while at the University of Victoria, Canada. Funding came from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
For more information, contact Karch at 206-543-8591 or akarch@uw.edu
Alan Stonebraker/American Physical Society
This illustration demonstrates a wormhole connecting two black holes.
So you have to wreck the entanglement to read its state? Bummer. Also then how would you even prove they were entangled? Read both simultaneously?
Way back in the 'old days' of RS-232 serial communications, they had this same problem.
When a 'sender' was at a different baud rate than the 'receiver' all you got was a bunch of useless bits.
Then they standardized the communications formats so everyone could use fixed baud rates.
But there was still a problem: The format of the communications itself. So they came up with 'parity' bits, 'check' bits, 'start' and 'stop' bits that would frame the 'data' bits to form bytes that actually contained the information to decode into an 'A' or 'H' or a '1' or a '5'.
At this stage, the scientists need to develop a system similar to this that can decode the seeming randomness of 'entangled' bits.................
Yes, you have to wreck the bill so you can see what's in it...........;^)
“So you have to wreck the entanglement to read its state?”
I don’t think you wreck the entanglement. If you change the state of your particle by observing it, the other particle’s state should still be changed the same way. The problem is uncertainty. In trying to read the state, you cannot be certain that what you observe is the state the particle was in before you observed it. Unless... you get a message using subluminal means from the other observer telling you exactly how they changed their entangled particle. Of course, that negates the usefulness of the scheme for faster than light communication.
So, party A changes his particle by reading it. Then if party B had read his particle at the same time... should the reads always be in sync?
I guess you are saying there is no such thing as a write to the particle by A that can be unmistakably seen by B.
“The way you can communicate with each other is if you jump into your black hole, then the other person must jump into his black hole, and the interior world would be the same,” he said.”
So My Theory is that we humans are currently residing in the Interior world of two or more black holes.
Sounds like a great story line for “The Big Bang” tv show.
We can laugh as Sheldon and Leonard try to explain this to Penny!
“and vice versa.”
Abdo-lutely!
Eggs Ackley!..............
“So, party A changes his particle by reading it. Then if party B had read his particle at the same time... should the reads always be in sync?”
Interesting question. Any act of observation potentially changes the state of the particles, but if the particles remain entangled, then observing them at exactly the same time should yield identical observations, I think. The states could have been altered twice, by the two acts of observation, but the observed state should be the result of both those alterations.
“I guess you are saying there is no such thing as a write to the particle by A that can be unmistakably seen by B.”
Yeah, or at least not unambiguously seen. You could see the particle has changed, but you would not know if that was due to an action by A, or by your own observation (unless you get a phone call from A saying “I just made this specific change”).
It surely is much stranger than we’re able to comprehend...at this time. But, someday. I had never heard that Albert Einstein referred to entangled particles as “spooky action at a distance.” That’s so perfectly descriptive, it’s going to keep me smiling all day.
“At this stage, the scientists need to develop a system similar to this that can decode the seeming randomness of ‘entangled’ bits.................”
They have already devised such a system, but you are going to be disappointed by it. It involves sending the “check” bit type elements through subluminal communication, and the entangled message is unreadable until that arrives.
‘What is the consequence of quantum entanglement?’”
Marriage?
Children?
Divorce?
They also determined that no matter what you did, when you transmit information from one place to another, you will see 'random' errors, which is the 'why' of the parity and check bits. There was a story about this in the book "Chaos" by James Gleick. It was determined that it a fundamental property of the universe, that when information is transmitted and received, something is always lost, hence the eventual need for CRC checks ans whatnot.
STDs.................
I used to have to use one of these:
http://www.testequity.com/products/826/
to test communications switching systems...............
It would be nice if Physicists could figure out how the action on one gets the information tot he other, but so far we haven't figured that one out. ... BUT we will.
“You mean you haven’t figured out how to transmit useable info.”
Well, I mean, under our current understanding of physics, it is impossible. You would really need to come up with a different model of physics to make it even appear possible, and at that point, you are dealing well beyond a simple hypothetical “we haven’t figured it out yet” scenario.
“The very fact that action on one effect the other regardless of distance between them means that a communication exchange can be exploited, if one figures out how to array and read the changes at either end of the paired particles.”
It’s beyond that. The observer effect is a real physical effect that has been experimentally verified. It happens no matter what method of observation we attempt to use. We may not understand exactly why it happens, but we can’t pretend that it does not. So, unless you can get around that, it won’t matter how you try to “read the changes”, it will have the exact same effect of garbling any message you tried to send.
Now, scientists have come up with methods to use this to communicate, however it doesn’t allow superluminal communication. At best, it functions more like data compression, as it requires a superluminal and subluminal packet to be used together. The subluminal packet can be small, and unlock a larger superluminal packet. Yet, you can’t unlock the superluminal packet until the subluminal one arrives.
But the fact does exists that there is faster than light communication and that is just not allowed in the physics of out universe.
There is all type of hypothesizing about what happens in higher D or multiple Dimension beyond our 4-D, but not to much about a lower D universe and its' influence on us.
Just might be that some of the *screwy* things we observe are brought about by a lower D universe that exists with ours.
I look at time and distance as entangled themselves, in a way of putting it, where one can not exists without the other.
On a quantum level you would be reading both and neither simultaneously and at different times.
If you can wrap your head around that, you have the makings of a quantum physicist.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.