Human Eye Could Detect Spooky Action At a Distance

KentuckyFC writes "The human eye is a good photon detector--it's sensitive enough to spot photons in handfuls. So what if you swapped a standard photon detector with a human eye in the ongoing experiments to measure spooky-action-at-a-distance? (That's the ability of entangled photons to influence each other, no matter how far apart they might be.) A team of physicists in Switzerland have worked out the details and say that in principle there is no reason why human eyes couldn't do this kind of experiment. That would be cool because it would ensure that the two human observers involved in the test would become entangled, albeit for a short period time. The team, led by Nic Gisin, a world leader on entanglement, says it is actively pursuing this goal (abstract) so we could have the first humans to experience entanglement within months."

Comments

Entanglement? Sounds cool!

[ScrewMaster]

I'm thinkin', me, and Halle Berry ... or maybe Famke Janssen.

Yeah, okay, so I just watched X-Men on cable.

Re:Entanglement? Sounds cool!

[MSZ]

In LAB COATS!1!

Re:Entanglement? Sounds cool!

[dangitman]

More likely to be a professor of physics, with breadcrumbs and tuna stuck in his beard.

Re:Entanglement? Sounds cool!

[Hurricane78]

I want them wrapped. Same as my gifts.

Doesn't mean they will stay wrapped for very long. ;)

uh oh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I sense a host of new bad pickup lines coming in the near future.

Re:uh oh ...

[Concerned Onlooker]

And even worse posts in 3, 2, 1...

Re:uh oh ...

[CopaceticOpus]

Baby, I feel so connected to you. Almost like we simultaneously (from the perspective of a fixed point midway between us) observed a set of photons with quantum properties amplified from the quantum properties of a single photon, that single photon being one of a pair of photons with linked quantum states, so that by observing the photons we caused their probabilities to collapse into a single observed state which was not predetermined but which was shared by both photons, a result which we later confirmed by comparing our observations using a conventional method of information sharing which propagated at less than the speed of light. Ya know, entangled. Don't you feel it?

Actually, I've heard of worse pickup lines.

Re:uh oh ...

[ozphx]

Bad pickup lines? They certainly worked well enough when I became entangled with your mom last night!

Re:uh oh ...

[aliquis]

Your moma so fat even if I'd entangle with her no information would be able to leave her event horizon.

Re:uh oh ...

[Plutonite]

Nobody has managed to put gravitation and QM together yet, and you want to do it in a your-momma-so-fat-joke? Wow.

It takes two to tango

[flyingfsck]

It may be a first, but lets hope they keep it boy-girl. Same sex entanglement can't be much fun.

Re:It takes two to tango

[g1zmo]

I thought "flamboyantly gay" was one of the quarks.

Frogs

[dachshund]

I've heard that frogs have the ability to detect single photons. This is from a cryptographer who jokingly proposed a frog-based system for quantum key distribution.
But on a more serious note, what does it really mean for two people to become entangled? And does it matter that the photons are detected by a human retina? Could the entanglement just as easily happen if the photons were fired into my left butt-cheek?

Re:Frogs

[ScrewMaster]

I've heard that frogs have the ability to detect single photons. This is from a cryptographer who jokingly proposed a frog-based system for quantum key distribution.

So I'm guessing that the unit of measurement for frog-based quantum encryption is the "ribbet".

these guys don't get out much?

[zappepcs]

so we could have the first humans to experience entanglement within months

I'm guessing the avalanche of crazy whacked out girlfriend stories is about to start...

Re:these guys don't get out much?

[zach_the_lizard]

Avalanche of crazy whacked out girlfriend stories? Sorry to disappoint, but this is Slashdot. We don't have the regular girlfriend stories!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to stalking this one chick....

Re:these guys don't get out much?

[karvind]

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to stalking this one chick....

Sorry to disappoint you. That is a guy with female login-id.

Re:these guys don't get out much?

[pyrrhonist]

Not here, I never saw my crazy (ex) girlfriend coming...

For people who are about to post an immature, snide comment about this being the possible reason for HartDev and his girlfriend's estrangement (ostensibly due to HartDev's ineffectual sexual performance) or how they have personally witnessed the orgasmic pleasure of HartDev's ex-girlfriend (insinuating that they not only were able to locate the ex-girlfriend of a virtually anonymous poster, but have also succeeded in obtaining coitus with her and moreover had satisfied her pure animal lust one warm summer night with the moonlight playing upon her silken hair, her nipples erect on her firm heaving breasts, while every thrust of the throbbing manhood penetrated deep within her quivering quim bringing her ever closer to a screaming climax the likes of which only the mythical consorts of the Greek gods have ever experienced), please take note:

HartDev is blind, you insensitive clods!

Re:What it'd be like to be entangled:

[MentlFlos]

no, that is Freaky action. This is about Spooky action.

SI Units

[cizoozic]

And eight of those would be a ribbyte?

I shudder at the thought of kibiribbits.

Re:SI Units

[Rhinobird]

Are we gonna have to start using Kermit again? ...and I was getting used to high speed connections.

Re:Ah, but once entangled...

[Max Littlemore]

That's what mirrors on the ceiling are for.

Re:Pickup Lines

[Anonymous Coward]

When trying to use on a female quantum physicist the pickup line both works and doesn't work. But once the quantum states collapse you'll get slapped regardless. Those chicks are extra spooky!