Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: FredZarguna
Equality in this equation holds only for massless particles, which travel the shortest distance paths. The geometry of our universe requires that this quantity is the same for all observers in every inertial frame. Events lying outside of a hyperspatial spacetime "light cone" [for which (ct)2 -x2 -y2 -z2 < 0] cannot be causally related. This includes quantum events connected by so-called "entanglement."

Trying to understand, are you saying that massless particles (photons) and quantum events (entanglement) exists only outside of our hyperspatial spacetime "light cone"/referance frame?

148 posted on 12/09/2013 12:07:07 PM PST by The Cajun (Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Louie Gohmert......Nuff said.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 142 | View Replies ]


To: The Cajun
are you saying that massless particles (photons) and quantum events (entanglement) exists only outside of our hyperspatial spacetime "light cone"/referance frame?

No. for two different reasons.

First: Lorentz invariance is true in all inertial reference frames, not just the one we arbitrarily assign to ourselves at any given moment. For example, it is typical, but not always true that a frame of reference in which we believe ourselves to be at rest is the most convenient to do calculations. In a laboratory where you are accelerating particles at each other at near lightspeed, it's usually more convenient to pick a frame of reference in which the center of mass of the colliding particles is at rest. In both of those frames (ct)2-x2-y2-z2 is the same. So, the choice of an (inertial) frame of reference doesn't matter. That's a good thing. It means that physical laws don't change from one observer in motion with respect to another.

[In this particular example, everybody measures the same distance [sqrt((ct)2-x2-y2-z2)] in spacetime, but there are other quantities, like the four dimensional momentum that have the same property.]

Photons are not outside of the light cone. Massless particles define the absolute boundary of the light cone. That's where it gets its name. They travel on the "null" plane, or surface of the cone. And, they must always travel there, as long as they're massless.

Second: You have to be very careful with entangled quantum states. There is virtually nothing you can say that is intuitively correct, except Bell's Theorem, to wit:

No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.

What does this mean in careful laymen's terms? It means there isn't another quantity like energy or angular momentum or classical electromagnetic field or distance that we can measure locally that's allowing entangled quantum states to simultaneously collapse when one of them is measured.

Again, being very careful, one interpretation is there is another nonlocal dimension which is not like space or time through which entangled quantum states could communicate.

This is one hypothesis, and there are some problems with this. But there are some problems with every alternative explanation, because at the end of the day, you arrive at a very interesting paradox, which is at the heart of why you have to be careful with entangled states: however the entangled states are "keeping in touch" with each other, they cannot impart any information to each other except the nature of their quantum states.

Now this sounds weird, because something is being communicated. And the answer is, there is but it's not "news you can use." It's quantum mechanical information, and it can't be used to affect local reality outside of the entanglement. [this is a statement accessible to laymen on very thin ice.]

There is actually a famous theorem called The No Communication Theorem which says that not only can't quantum information be used to transmit superluminal messages, it can't, in fact, be used to transmit classical information at any velocity at all.

This is head-scratching stuff for the best physicists in the world.

Here is a very bad analogy: bad because it doesn't describe the physics, but good because it describes how two events with spacelike separation could be correlated. Suppose you and two friends are each two light seconds away from each other, at the corners of an equilateral triangle. Two of you are listening to a baseball game broadcast in a city at the center of the triangle, the other is not. When McCutchen hits a homerun, you both fire off fireworks. Your friend will see both of your fireworks at the same instant of time [two second later,] which seems like a superluminal communication. [Because he doesn't know you're listening to the game, he thinks there should be at least two light seconds between one fireworks and the other. One should take four seconds to reach him.]

So the "Second" short answer is: some quantum entangled states may transmit strictly quantum information in a spacelike way [that is, outside the light cone.] But they do not transmit any information that you and I can use in that way.

151 posted on 12/09/2013 2:37:44 PM PST by FredZarguna (The sequel, thoroughly pointless, derivative, and boring was like all James Cameron "films.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 148 | View Replies ]

To: The Cajun
One other thing: existence, which you asked about, is a separate question. There are events in our universe that are separated by spacelike distances. These events both exist, but one cannot be the cause of the other.

For example: the moon is about 1 light second away. If I fire off a rocket -- or even a laser -- toward the moon at 9:00:00.5 AM and see a dust cloud on the moon at 9:00:01 AM, the event of shooting and the event of dust-cloud cannot be inside of each others light cones. [Hence they are spacelike separated.] They both happened. But there is no frame of reference in which an observer would claim that one caused the other.

153 posted on 12/09/2013 2:51:35 PM PST by FredZarguna (The sequel, thoroughly pointless, derivative, and boring was like all James Cameron "films.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 148 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson