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Physicists Create Quantum Link Between Photons That Don't Exist At the Same Time
sciencehabit writes "Physicists have long known that quantum mechanics allows for a subtle connection between quantum particles called entanglement, in which measuring one particle can instantly set the otherwise uncertain condition, or 'state,' of another particle—even if it's light years away. Now, experimenters in Israel have shown that they can entangle two photons that don't even exist at the same time. Anton Zeilinger, a physicist at the University of Vienna, says that the experiment demonstrates just how slippery the concepts of quantum mechanics are. 'It's really neat because it shows more or less that quantum events are outside our everyday notions of space and time.'"
At some point, science just got too weird. We had this nice model of the universe with atoms, some laws of motion and thermodynamics. The universe was basically a giant billiards match. It made sense. It was easy to explain. Then we get into quantum mechanics and everything is crap shoot. Multiple universes. Particles that behave differently when being observed. Spooky action at a distance.
Let's all pretend the last 80+ years of science didn't happen and we live under Newton's ideas of how everything behaved. Who's in?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Hey guys, Einstein just called me using GravePhone(tm) and he had the following to say:
"Okay, maybe God does play dice, but I still stand by the law of conservation. God doesn't just make shit up. Now if you'll excuse me, Aristotle wants some one on one on the basketball court."
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's just astounding how many times the very same insight can get repackaged and sold as new.
And that my son is why you will never work for the patent office.
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
And Leeloo.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
Yes! Subspace communications!
Multipass!
Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.
Robert A. Heinlein
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
They could only be connected to other particles that existed in their lifetime and then they would have to perform a good deed before being able to connect to a different particle. Oh boy
But what if someone later decides to NOT do the after step, even though the before step has already happened and its answer is in the sealed envelope?
That's when you let the cat out of the box!
QM is not so hard, once a person realizes that quantum mechanics is all about semantics and has nothing to do with physics.
For instance, the difficulty in understanding this quantum entanglement of photons separated by time collapses into meaninglessness as soon as one accepts that "time" is an attribute of "observation" and has nothing to do with reality (whatever that might be).
As soon as you get past the desire to structure your memories in a simplistic linear fashion, you will realize that was zen, this is tao.
[Did author of this post intend to convey any kind of meaning to the reader? That doesn't matter--- what matters is whether the reader extracts any kind of meaning from the words of the author. Confused? Good. To be other than confused in this universe is to deny the reality of what you observe.]
Will