Slashdot Mirror
Entangled Particles Break Classical Law of Thermodynamics, Say Physicists
New submitter Zex_Suik writes "Japanese physicists have used one of Maxwell's thought experiments and the ability to turn information into energy to extract more energy from an entangled system than should be possible according to the laws of thermodynamics (abstract). From the article: 'Imagine two boxes of particles with trap door between them. You want to use the trap door to guide the faster particles into one box and the slower particles into the other. In a classical experiment you would have to measure the particles in both boxes to do this experiment. But things are different if the particles in one box are entangled with the particles in the other. In that case, measurements on the particles in one box give you info about both sets of particles. In essence, you're getting information for nothing. And since you can convert that information into energy, there is clear advantage when entanglement plays a role. That's hugely significant. It means that the laws of thermodynamics depend not only on classical phenomenon and information but on quantum effects too.'"
I can create something out of nothing ?
... beforehand to entangle particles? And then put one from each pair into separate boxes?
Something tells me that energy conservation still holds...
Paul B.
Humans are now in the future.
When can we Star Trek?
So you have two particles which are entangled. One is moving fast, one is moving slow. You measure one, and you then get the speed of *both*? How does that work? Does the measurement instrument have two dials?
Also, maybe the entanglement itself is worth the extra energy :)
doesn't seem to match the rest of the article. TFA talks about how they can extract more usable energy from the system using entanglement, but it doesn't violate any physical laws. The only violation is in the title!
So.....when can we expect the electron pump ?
I get how two different entangled particles can share behavior, and how you can check one to test the other, but why don't things that affect one particle cause the entangled particle to also be affected?
And the other question I had on this is with the Brownian Motion. When you throw up a barrier to stop a particle from moving, and it hits the barrier, isn't that newton's 3rd law at work? Both deflecting the particle and providing equal but opposite energy to the barrier? How is this accounted for in this conservation of energy model? That would seem to be the missing input of energy?
Lets say that little invisible demon gets knocked back a little by the deflection of the particle. He eventually has to reposition himself back where he was, in front of the door. That requires energy. And I think there is where we are adding energy into the system that we think we're getting for "free".
(I'm no quantum mechanic, I only work on Fords)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
No information is gained, for the same reason that separating entangled particles by a great distance and then measuring one doesn't result in information traveling faster than the speed of light.
This is like saying putting a red ball in one bag and putting a blue ball in an identical bag, then shuffling the bags around, then looking in one bag gives you free information about the other bag. It doesn't.
Just sayin', before they start publishing data they should check their cables. /ducks
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
What about the energy you need to spend in order to entangle these particles? Or it comes for free? Like the beer? Oh, never mind, keep swimming...
Can I break thermodynamics with a lucky guess?
Everything is a mesmerade energy is your argument? Don't make me scoff! Your pseudoscience is merely a draconian procedure leading up to the events of Armageddon. Wow! Such a thing!
Agreed. Everything there is to discover about the physical universe is already well-known. Obvious troll is obvious.
Your post is awesome - can I use it when I want to sound insane?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
strawman. just because not everything is known doesn't automatically make pseudoscience correct.
If you make it can you break it? IE. If you can 'make' energy this way then can you 'unmake' it?
a cat somewhere dies to compensate. It all adds up.
Table-ized A.I.
When quantum mechanics get involved there is a big issue looming, more on a high level, dare I say philosophical level. For instance if the idea of parallel universes there is a question about where the energy\mass\etc come from. It a big issue in time travel theory. Infinite but different universe's imply on a basic level that there is enough energy\mass to account for all those. In one universe a hydrogen atom exists but in another it was obliterated into pure energy and ended up a carbon atom in the end. Yet there must be a hydrogen atom in universe A and a carbon atom in universe B. Either the universes operate by index (the fundamental particles are 'tagged') and each universe is differentiated by the index of what fundamental particles exists where\when\etc (conserving the mass of the universe in a way) or somehow we are creating alternate universes out of thin air... so to speak. Then you get into a real mess when you start having a conversation about time travel and "does the past exist" or is there only the current moment, if so then where is that energy in relation to it's future state. If I travel back in time to observe our hypothetical hydrogen atom and you stay in the present, then how can we account for the mass\existence of the hydrogen atom I am observing as you look at the carbon atom. Since I've travelled back in time, assuming the parallel universe approach, where did the universe in which I am observing the hydrogen atom get it's mass\energy from? Did it copy the universe with the carbon? It's ugly to think about.... Not saying this is hard science but there are some lingering questions about the fundamental laws once we start talking about quantum physics. FUCK YOU AND YOUR DAMN CAT!!! I'm getting a beer now...
Japanese physicists have used one of Maxwell's thought experiments and the ability to turn information into energy to extract more energy from an entangled system than should be possible according to the laws of thermodynamics .
I never studied law.
-Bugs Bunny
totally trivial and uninteresting. they just defined information wrong. there's no information for free. the total information of two entagled particles is less than that of two un-entangled particles. duh. so what? also, 2+2=4.
conservation of energy and information still holds just fine. this is just a trivial example _of_ conservation.
Lisa, in this house, we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!!!!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Pffft, they're just looking for an excuse to play Pong all day (in reverse-paddle mode).
Table-ized A.I.
also breaks the Laws of Thermodynamics. Just sayin'.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
heretofore, the unbeknownst particle becomes an ion.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
I wager it takes just a bit more energy to entangle the particles than they are getting out. I also wager it takes at least "just a bit more" energy to obtain information on where entangled particles are, assuming you did not create them yourself.
The summary is very misleading. This work is purely theoretical. They have not actually succeeded in doing it, contrary to what the summary would make you think.
It will be interesting to see whether someone can actually make this work in practice.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
And with our love of all things military, what would an Information Bomb look like? It took Einstein to barely get us to believe Mass to Energy. Information to Energy just has a whole other creepy ring to it.
Since we and the **AA have had fun lately with modern topics in Information, I'll even let the Copyright problems (!!) go for now - how many conversion does it take to convert information from a safe source to a bomb? With the obligatory facetiousness, could someone build a bomb out of a Justin Bieber MP3?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Your post is awesome - can I use it when I want to sound insane?
Just get an ear bud for your cell phone, and stand on the street corner during telephone conversations.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Ok I don't know anything about entanglement, so here is my question: Does it take double the energy to change the spin on an entangled particle?
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
why is this posted under physics?
the article describes little more than mathematical masturbation.
Neato.... what's the theoretical minimum number of joules it takes to represent a bit?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Excellent! Now we have to figure out how to entangle all the information the NSA, CIA, FBI, Dept. of Homeland Security and local police forces have gathered on unsuspecting people and we can have an unlimited source of power. I love it when a plan comes together.
TFA talks about "Entangled Particles" breaking the law of thermodynamics, seemingly getting something out of nothing
I am not good at all on particle physics, but I believe that particles in their ordinary state do not come "entangled", right?
So, in order to get particles that are already in the "entangled" state, something must have happened to ordinary particles, first, right?
If so, what's the cost (in term of energy) to get originally un-entangled particles to be "entangled"?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
it is called 4chan
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm hardly qualified to argue, but perhaps there is only one state, shared through different aspects by the two manifestations called entangled particles? If State (information) is The Thing (energy), particles may be their distorted doppelgangers as they appear in this universe.
Thought Experiment
"...if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
- Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorne%E2%80%93Hawking%E2%80%93Preskill_bet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
Bringing new meaning to the term "TMI".
An information bomb? A science fiction author by the name of Nick Harkaway answered that question in his book The Gone-Away World. It's probably my favorite book that I've read in the last five years (and I read a lot of books.) You should go read it.
There's already an entire website specifically for that purpose.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
You have to know in advance that the particles are entangled. That extra bit of information is needed. Thus when you measure one particle, you do get that extra bit of information about the other particle. So the information about the other particle is not free but is the direct result of the apriori information about entanglement.
I haven't read TFA, but it sounds like they rediscovered the Jarzynski (in)equality.
Basically, if you slam a system with a high free energy into a state with a lower free energy, you actually have a chance to get out more work than you should in equilibrium, offset by a chance of getting less. On average, however, the expected work from the system should agree.
This would appear pathologically in such a small-scale system that is changing states so quickly.
So I can free get air-con from an entangled box somewhere on Antartica and heat from an entangled box somewhere in Death Valley. Great!
I would expect that the energy comes from the "closed system" that includes the extended system of BOTH entangled particles. The laws of thermodynamics only pertain to a closed system.
If you have two separate closed systems you cannot draw more energy out of one in disobedience of the 2nd law.
However, if you have two entangled particles, one in each separate closed system, the two previously closed systems are now together via that entanglement. You can therefore take more energy out of one in APPARENT disobedience of the 2nd law because you have a second sink for entropy/energy source in the second system.
Alice^h^h^h^h^h Taco doesn't live here anymore.
This actually implies that the energy extracted from entanglement is equal to or greater than the energy required to entangle and separate. This doesn't violate classical thermodynamics, because it isn't really a closed system.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
It would be the perfect weapon - Justin Birber MP3's, not matter how bad, are always hits.
Not answering to one particulary. However as usually the slashdot crowed is overestimating the "srength" of the "laws of thermodynamis"
The reason might be that in the enlish speaking world all fundamental "laws of nature" are called "law".
In german this is not the case. We distinguish between laws, like "law of gravity" and "principle theorems".
Laws for instance are prooven to a certain extend and considered "always true".
The "laws of thermodynamics" are divided into a set of "principle theorems" and related or derived theorems. In other words, most of them are mind constructs that are considered usefull. But they are far from that solid as e.g. laws of gravity or laws of atomic decay are.
Keep in mind that even the most fundamental laws are no laws at all, but theorems or axioms. The law of energy conservation e.g is not a prooven law but a general agreed on principal theorem. The same is true for the law of impulse conservation.
The above said: I wont be surprised if someone finds an effect that is not predictable by thermodynamic laws (or even disprooves them) but I will be shocked if someone finds contradiction in the law of gravity e.g.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It means that the laws of thermodynamics depend not only on classical phenomenon and information but on quantum effects too.'"
You mean they didn't already know that?
Geez!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
The though experiement only shows that "classical mechanics " definition of the law of thermodynamics is incomplete. It is a standard view held in physics since many years that thermodynamics can only be defined meaningfully in quantum mechanics. So this though experiment is a nail in the coffin of classical thermodynamics and emphasis the correctness of the quantum mechanis view of the world.
More precisely the though experiment show that when defining entropy of two entangled particles using only the classical definition you arrive at a certain value, which allows you too extract you a certain amount of energy (E classical).
When considering entanglement you can in principle extract more energy than in the above (E classical). When you on the other hand define entropy using the additional information stored in the entaglement itself, you arrive at a diffrent entropy which is in line with the energy you can extract.
Therefore the "classical" entropy of the system give you an incorrect picture, but the quantum mechanically defined entropy gives you the correct value.
This doesn't hardly break thermodynamics at all.
They say themselves that they derive the energy from Brownian motion.
Ergo, they're simply taking energy out of the larger system.
Hey guys, guess what? If you look at only the Earth itself, it violates the laws of thermodynamics all over the place. THAT ISN'T HOW THERMODYNAMICS WORKS. You have to consider THE ENTIRE system. The earth only works by feeding off the constant output of the sun, so it doesn't violate thermodynamics.
Similarly, this may generate an increased local temperature, but the larger system balances out.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
From the slashdot piece, it's clear that the energy available is, in absolute terms, the sum of the two boxes (minus the energy of Maxwell's Demon that's opening and shutting the door). Therefore, if you include *both* of the boxes, thermodynamics is preserved.
mark
... one fundamental aspect, so let's get this out of the way: Yes, information is physical.
Which gravitational law are you talking about? Quantum gravity or General relativity
DEAR GOD NOES NOT AN AGING FIELD! It would be impossible to safely contain by putting it on a tower in the middle of nowhere or something like that! And imagine the horror if such a thing got near a supercomputer!
Even your bullshit is full of bullshit.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Information bomb, where units of measure are in Baghdad Bobs.
It would probably be pink and ugly, cry and soil itself often.
I am genuinely curious, especially if I think about all the spaghetti code I have available here.