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Testing Einstein's 'Spooky Action at a Distance'
smooth wombat writes "Travelling to a time in the past is, as far as we know, not possible. However, Einstein postulated a faster-than-light effect known as 'spooky action at a distance'. The problem is, how do you test for such an effect? That test may now be here. If all goes well, hopefully by September 15th, John Cramer will have experimented with a beam of laser light which has been split in two to test Einstein's idea. While he is only testing the quantum entanglement portion, changing one light beam and having the same change made in the other beam, his experiment might show that a change made in one beam shows up in the other beam before he actually makes the change."
But we've already done it: Elitzur-Vaidman bomb-testing problem
At the bottom, it says that the equivalent experiment has already been performed, and TFA sounds like it is nearly the same experiment.
Look, posting this article made this other article from June 12 with exactly the same content get posted!
The theory works!
How we know is more important than what we know.
Does this mean that once the effect shows up in the one light beam, before he does it in the other light beam, he is somehow locked in to his future actions? If not, what happens if he just turns off the device?
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
Spooky Action at a Distance describes my sex life exactly.
John Cramer, the designer of the experiment, is really quite a colorful guy. He last got the attention of the press by simulating the sound of the big bang using Mathematica. Useless research of course, but who wouldn't laugh hearing that the big bang sounded like "large jet plane 100 feet off the ground flying over your house in the middle of the night?" At heart this guy is a physics hacker (in the true sense of the word hacker).
He also writes science fiction, so you can tell he completely enjoys science. Betcha anything he's doing this experiment, not because he thinks it will work, but just 'cause he wants to see what will happen. I can totally agree with that. It's the right reason to do research.
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Qxe4
Quantum teleportation and entanglement have been proven bunches of times. It's the basis for quantum computing, too -- I doubt folks would be wasting their time on THAT if it wasn't valid.
I, myself, am a time traveler from the past. I've been journeying into the future at a rate of sixty seconds per minute.
Suppose an astronaut travels away from the earth at 99.9% of the speed of light. According to relativity, if he ever returns then everyone on earth will have aged considerably more than he has. But he has to turn around at some point in order for this to happen, hence he has to accelerate. And it doesn't take any reference points to judge that acceleration, so you can in effect say that he has travelled into (Earth's) future, and that the entire Earth has not travelled into the past.
so I've just sat down and made myself a nice cup of instant tea. The list of ingredients on the teabag's packet say it contains 'Thiotimoline, resublimated, product of China.'
Einstein formulated the theory with 2 colleagues, Podolsky and Rosen.
It's called the EPR Paradox in the scientific community.
Einstein was no fan of it, and he believed it was a way to point out how silly the idea of Quantum Mechanics was, but he was very much the discoverer of it.
This is as important to understanding Einstein as "God does not play at dice", his basic objection to the probability implications of QM and EPR.
Sure, we got the results years ago. But if this guy doesn't do the experiment, then we *won't* have got the results...
Actually no. This new experiment is VERY interesting. The new experiment proposed by John G. Cramer aims to test an idea that might allow quantum signaling.
See this:
http://www.analogsf.com/0612/altview.shtml
The idea is to see if an interference pattern will spontaneously change from a single slit to a double slit merely by moving the position of where entangled photons are destroyed.
I think there is a reasonable chance this will work. This is interesting as it in principle allows FTL communication.
After that his ideas get REALLY interesting.....
Unless you'd like to avoid this, of course, in which case I take payment in Visa, Mastercard, or hookers.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.