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Wormholes Untangle a Black Hole Paradox

An anonymous reader writes: Like initials carved in a tree, ER = EPR, as the new idea is known, is a shorthand that joins two ideas proposed by Einstein in 1935. One involved the paradox implied by what he called "spooky action at a distance" between quantum particles (the EPR paradox, named for its authors, Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen). The other showed how two black holes could be connected through far reaches of space through "wormholes" (ER, for Einstein-Rosen bridges). At the time that Einstein put forth these ideas — and for most of the eight decades since — they were thought to be entirely unrelated.

But if ER = EPR is correct, the ideas aren't disconnected — they're two manifestations of the same thing. And this underlying connectedness would form the foundation of all space-time. Quantum entanglement — the action at a distance that so troubled Einstein — could be creating the "spatial connectivity" that "sews space together," according to Leonard Susskind, a physicist at Stanford University and one of the idea's main architects. Without these connections, all of space would "atomize," according to Juan Maldacena, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who developed the idea together with Susskind. "In other words, the solid and reliable structure of space-time is due to the ghostly features of entanglement," he said. What's more, ER = EPR has the potential to address how gravity fits together with quantum mechanics.

111 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. me dumb by Iamthecheese · · Score: 1

    Please to beggings for a version around which I can wrap my tiny brain? Something related to automobiles perhaps?

    --
    If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    1. Re:me dumb by I4ko · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The exhaust pile runs along the entire car, from the engine to the tail, and all other parts of the car stay together because they hold on to it.

    2. Re:me dumb by spacec0w · · Score: 1

      Or maybe a sports analogy please?

    3. Re:me dumb by hypergreatthing · · Score: 1

      So... basically.... the car has struts and shocks, which keeps it so that the main body doesn't come crashing into the ground and making sure your ride is comfortable.

    4. Re:me dumb by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Funny

      Really big things nobody really understands are surprisingly similar to really little things nobody understand -- with both groups exhibiting some really confusing long-distance connections we don't really understand.

      Beyond that .. I confess I don't have a clue, and you're on your own for a car analogy.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:me dumb by PPH · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Best analogy is Einstein's explaination of how radio works:

      "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    6. Re:me dumb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Please to beggings for a version around which I can wrap my tiny brain? Something related to automobiles perhaps?

      They're just saying that quantum entanglement and wormholes are basically the same thing. Kind of like when you see a car on the street and say "Wow, spiffy Chevy Tahoe you have there" when it's actually a GMC Yukon. The only thing different is the labeling.

    7. Re:me dumb by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Funny
      There are two strange issues in car-physics.

      1) The ER effect, is when you go with your dad to buy a cool convertible, but somehow comeback from the dealership with an beat up AMC Gremlin

      2) The EPR effect is when two cars that were once touching, continue to effect each other at a distance, the primary example of which is how when you are behind a slow car, when you move over to the fast lane, suddenly the slow car speeds up, leaving you in the distance.

      They have discovered that both of these effects are actually the same thing - it is fact the Gremlin that causes the previous fast lane to slow down.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    8. Re:me dumb by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      That explains the first paragraph, not the second .. which I must confess sounds like gobbledigook, and more or less says "the radio only exists because the cat (which we established isn't there) makes it possible, but don't ask us how".

      Then it's just a big WTF ... but, that's true of everything everyone ever says about Quantum anything.

      I distrust anything which even most physicists can't actually say they understand.

      Like pudding. Nobody has yet explained pudding to me. Quantum stuff is the pudding of the universe, it's just there. ;-)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    9. Re:me dumb by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Here's the cliff notes version:
      EPR = ER is true if Podolsky equals 1.

    10. Re:me dumb by neoritter · · Score: 1

      What's your problem with pudding?

    11. Re:me dumb by lgw · · Score: 5, Informative

      I can't explain the mathematics Leonardo is using (best nickname ever), but I can explain the basic idea.

      Wormholes can connect two arbitrary points in spacetime - this allows FTL travel, but that means time travel, with raises all sorts of paradoxes. The current understanding of this style (ER bridge) of wormhole is that they're inherently unstable - the math allows them to form, but they'd collapse as soon as anything interacted with them.

      Quantum entanglement says that two entangled particles have this oddball relationship that one somehow knows that the other has bean "measured" (any real interaction between two particles is a "measurement" in QM, it's not some special thing), in a way that's seemingly faster than light, but can't be used to send information.

      These two ideas dovetail nicely - if quantum entanglement means the two particles are connected by a wormhole, which collapses the moment either is "measured" (i.e., any time they interact with anything new), then you have a way for that communication to happen FTL, an then the two particles are disconnected and no longer have any special relationship. You don't get time travel paradoxes, because it's the nature of entanglement that you can't use it to send data FTL even though the effect is FTL.

      It sounds neat, but that almost counts against you in QM. The key is whether the math works. Exciting if true, however.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    12. Re:me dumb by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Funny

      The pudding is a metaphor, of man's eternal longing for an answer to the questions ... "what the fuck is that? You're not really going to eat it are you?"

      It just sits there, looking all gooey and non-Newtonian. It's just so wrong.

      *shudder*

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    13. Re:me dumb by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Mod up.

    14. Re: me dumb by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      Since "pudding" in the UK can mean any sort of dessert (as it is known in the USA), then the answer is "yes".

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    15. Re:me dumb by justthinkit · · Score: 1

      Or E = 0.

      Or R = 0.

      Or E = 0 and R = 0.

      --
      I come here for the love
    16. Re:me dumb by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      They have discovered that both of these effects are actually the same thing - it is fact the Gremlin that causes the previous fast lane to slow down.

      The GURPS_NPC Law: Sooner or later every difficult problem in physics is attributed to Gremlins.

    17. Re:me dumb by dunng808 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The quarterback and receiver are together when the play begins. As the play develops they remain entangled, even over an increasing distance, up until the moment the ball is caught. Some quarterbacks are better at entanglement than others. As for wormholes, fans manifest their existence every time they shout their disapproval at the officials -- as if they were standing next to them.

      --

      Gary Dunn
      Open Slate Project

    18. Re:me dumb by shoor · · Score: 1

      EPR is 'spooky action at a distance'. Two things are somehow connected in that if you do something to one, the other is affected, and the effect gets there faster than light (FTL). You can't communicate FTL though, because you can't set up something in advance with another party where you're going to affect one particle in a way that the other party, watching the other particle will know you did it to send a message.

      ER is wormholes, a way to send stuff around faster than light (FTL again) except there are gotcha's with it so you still can't communicate FTL. So, the idea is, that the spooky action at a distance happens because the particles are connected by a wormhole and that's how they do their FTL dance.

      Sorry, no car analogy, and maybe I've got it wrong since IANAP.

      --
      In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
    19. Re:me dumb by dunng808 · · Score: 1

      The Gremlin emits a field inside which time slows down.

      --

      Gary Dunn
      Open Slate Project

    20. Re:me dumb by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Einstein's explaination

      That's one of them urban myths. The earliest record of the joke is from 1866, albeit with a dog instead of a cat, cats having been invented by Jesus in 1892.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    21. Re:me dumb by Duhavid · · Score: 2

      Now we know why there is no spoon

      --
      emt 377 emt 4
    22. Re:me dumb by SQLGuru · · Score: 1

      But is it still not a pipe?

    23. Re:me dumb by Duhavid · · Score: 1

      There is no pipe either..

      --
      emt 377 emt 4
    24. Re:me dumb by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Here is the quantum algorithm:

      1. Do weird stuff

      2. If anybody starts to do something useful or interesting with my weird stuff, then STOP doing weird stuff.

      3. Go to 1

    25. Re:me dumb by marcello_dl · · Score: 1

      The problem is that people keep insisting that action at a distance is spooky because it doesn't match their model of how things behave, forgetting about the fact that the scale of our perception is different from parsecs or nanometers.

      What's wrong with particle A being entangled to particle B without nothing ever being between them? What's wrong with the same entanglement working with a positive or negative time delay, so the result is visible before the choice itself (which doesn't BTW imply the lack of free will)?

      This is like saying the rules of conway's game of life are not realistic because one dot can emerge from nothing. OK, doesn't model our universe, So What? All alternatives simulation rules are equally arbitrary, and we simply consider emergence from nothingness a problem because we don't see it happening in our world. If it happened we'd have other models of reality, they would work as well as those we have, and if somebody made a simulation where nothing gets created from nothing we'd scratch our head and say: "Why?"

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    26. Re:me dumb by Rob+Riggs · · Score: 2

      1. What new behavior does this theory predict?

      2. How can this theory be falsified?

      --
      the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
    27. Re:me dumb by lgw · · Score: 2

      It's early days for this idea. This is theoretical physics, so it's usual for it to take a while for someone to come up with a proper experiment. Compelling, convincing experiments that have demonstrated the Bell inequalities (the EPR paradox) really started in 1998, decades after the theory was broadly accepted.

      This paper was more about black holes than quantum entanglement, and that stuff is harder still to test. It's the implications for QM that are really the exciting bit. It may well be that this is just a different explanation for the same phenomena, and so will remain "just theory" until we find some way to observe black holes closely. But if in fact it works out that this would be a modification to the mechanics of entanglement, someone will devise an experiment for it, as entanglement is still an area of interest for the experimental physicists.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    28. Re:me dumb by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      I assure you, cats were created by the devil, MUCH earlier and 1892.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    29. Re:me dumb by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

      Wormholes can connect two arbitrary points in spacetime - this allows FTL travel,

      but that means time travel, with raises all sorts of paradoxes.

      Instantaneous state transfers which don't operate by means of propagation or the taking of shortcuts traveling less than FTL locally thru said mystical shortcut raise no paradox of any kind in any frame of reference. There is no grandfather paradox or inversion of cause and effect.

    30. Re:me dumb by goombah99 · · Score: 1

      Bells theorem happens

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    31. Re:me dumb by goombah99 · · Score: 1

      BOOOOOOOOO! S.A.a.D.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    32. Re:me dumb by lgw · · Score: 2

      OK, I tried to read your first sentence 3 times, and I still can't parse it, so I'm not sure what you're saying. Naturally, slower-than-light state transfer doesn't introduce paradox. FTL state transfer does allow inversion of cause and effect - the clear examples of this involve two pairs of wormholes, moving quickly relative to one another, which allows you go send a signal out through one pair and back through the other, and get the signal before you sent it.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    33. Re:me dumb by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

      OK, I tried to read your first sentence 3 times, and I still can't parse it, so I'm not sure what you're saying. Naturally, slower-than-light state transfer doesn't introduce paradox. FTL state transfer does allow inversion of cause and effect - the clear examples of this involve two pairs of wormholes, moving quickly relative to one another, which allows you go send a signal out through one pair and back through the other, and get the signal before you sent it.

      The only thing that matters is propagation. Lets say I can only go 10 spaces in 10 ticks.

      - - - - - - - - - -
      1.................10

      Now lets try covering the same external distance through a wormhole:

      - - -
      1.................3

      Well I went 3 spaces in 3 ticks... but the rest of the universe thinks I went 10 spaces...silly fools.

      You just think FTL propagation because your losing track of the configuration of space through which the propagation is being done. Your assuming the result matters when what really matters is HOW you got there.

    34. Re:me dumb by lgw · · Score: 1

      Well, there are several "kinds" of wormholes. In one, the distance really is 3 ticks, in every way that matters, and the fact that there's also a 10-tick path (which used to be the shortest path before the wormhole) means nothing, as there are an infinity of circuitous paths. But that's not this kind of wormhole.

      Me
      A1----------A2
      B1>>>>>>>>>>B2

      To see the problem, imagine 2 wormholes, A and B, each with widely separated endpoints. In my reference frame, the endpoints A1 and A2 are stationary - I'm standing by A1 and can send a message instantly to A2. The endpoints B1 and B2 are stationary relative to one another, but are moving close to c relative to A. In B's reference frame, my message goes back in time.

      If my message gets relayed A1-A2-B2-B1 just as the endpoints pass, I'll get it before I send it. In my reference frame, A1-A2 is instant, but B2-B1 goes back in time. In B's reference frame, A1-A2 goes back in time, and B2-B1 is instant. Either way, it's a causal mess.

      A simpler example: you can get a straightforward time machine simply by accelerating one end of a wormhole up to relativistic speed for a few years, and then bringing it back, parking it at rest near the other end. Like the twin who visits a distant star and returns, one end will be "younger" than the other. Now the wormhole moves you back (or forward) in time by a few years when you traverse it.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    35. Re:me dumb by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      The Gremlin emits a field inside which time slows down.

      The Higgs Gremlin? [*rimshot*]

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    36. Re:me dumb by PPH · · Score: 1

      It just sits there, looking all gooey and non-Newtonian. It's just so wrong.

      This could be the next thing. Forget vegan/vegetarianism.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    37. Re:me dumb by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      To see the problem, imagine 2 wormholes, A and B, each with widely separated endpoints. In my reference frame, the endpoints A1 and A2 are stationary - I'm standing by A1 and can send a message instantly to A2. The endpoints B1 and B2 are stationary relative to one another, but are moving close to c relative to A. In B's reference frame, my message goes back in time.

      Sounds like adding vectors while neglecting Lorentz. When you travel thru such a wormhole you gain only incidental mass and potential energy as observed by an external frame stationary to wormhole, you don't see the universe contracting to a point, your observers don't see your mass increasing or your clock slowing. No observer ever gets to see your mass/energy dwarfing the rest of the universes and there isn't any backwards time travel. You can't add or subtract the apparent external velocity of messages thru wormhole with the differential velocity of another wormhole whizzing by.

      A simpler example: you can get a straightforward time machine simply by accelerating one end of a wormhole up to relativistic speed for a few years, and then bringing it back, parking it at rest near the other end. Like the twin who visits a distant star and returns, one end will be "younger" than the other. Now the wormhole moves you back (or forward) in time by a few years when you traverse it.

      I agree that one end will be younger but later after they are parked traveling through it won't send you backward in time and you'll only go as forward in time as it actually takes the travel through.

      To violate ordering of cause and effect you need to actually exceed C not just *appear* to exceed it.

      If I were to magically snap my fingers and magically materialize between "earth" and "earth2" 100 light years away without having propagated thru space I am free to make whatever measurements I want between either planets and leak all the information I can find and at no point will any observer in any frame be able to detect an inversion of cause and effect.

    38. Re:me dumb by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      but that means time travel,

      NO IT DOESN'T. I REALLY wish people would stop saying these things.

      Using traditional methods of propulsion to accelerate in normal space-time causes time dilation.

      The formula entirely falls apart when you hit the speed of light which according to the formulas in question require infinite energy.

      FULL STOP.

      Leaving one location and arriving at another faster than light traveling through normal space does not require that you do exactly as specified above.

      If you can avoid the acceleration portion, its a whole new ball game.

      If you can avoid traveling in normal space-time, then you've just potentially solved the problem entirely.

      Neither of these two things have been proven impossible, although very improbably for the former.

      A blackhole is already not normal-space time, the formula in fact breaks down inside a black hole. A wormhole (which can mean any number of things) connecting two black holes? Thats pretty far from normal-space time and certainly, in theory, allows for things such as leaving point A and arriving at point B before the light traveling between the two does.

      Light does not travel in time at all from its perspective.

      You can't fly a 747 by shooting a jet of water from the top of it up into the sky, you can make it fly using all the other normal aerodynamic principles that keep us as happy fliers. Just because you know it won't work one way doesn't mean their isn't a way we haven't discovered yet to accomplish the same thing from a practical perspect, and you really should stop implying that FTL == Time Travel. The equations that produce that 'theory' break down at the speed of light, so you can't use them to make assumptions about what happens after that.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    39. Re:me dumb by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      It's more like a digital copy sort of thing. A particle gets sucked into a black hole. But there is radiation (emanation) on the edges of it that send the particle back into the universe, except it is quantum linked to the particle that's still inside. That link is a wormhole.
      Therefore the black hole seems to sample the particle (maybe adds some drm to it) and spews out a particle linked to the particle that got sucked in.

      So now we've got all these linked particles floating around space, quantum linked with particles inside a black hole. Weird.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    40. Re:me dumb by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      If I were to magically snap my fingers and magically materialize between "earth" and "earth2" 100 light years away without having propagated thru space ... at no point will any observer in any frame be able to detect an inversion of cause and effect.

      Only if it took 100 years for you to make the trip. Otherwise you will be moving backward in time for some possible observers.

    41. Re: me dumb by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      See what I'm on about?

      Not all puddings are puddings, but we still call them puddings.

      The existential nightmare which is the pudding is completely inescapable, and intrinsic to the human condition.

      It's fucking puddings all the way down.

      Bastards!!

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    42. Re:me dumb by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      What worries me is the concept of deconstructed foods. Applied to pudding it would go something like this presentation:

      1 Plain, unflavoured cooked flour+egg pudding
      2 A side of pudding flavoured sauce, like apple sauce
      3 The missing bulk sweet ingredients that should have gone in the pudding e.g. vanilla essence, dried fruit and spices all mixed up as another side.

      To eat it, you get a bit 1, a bit of 3 and a bit of 2.

      As a metaphor, it describes the human condition, but you always wonder if the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    43. Re:me dumb by DrJimbo · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure I understand what prevents me from transmitting FTL. If I take it to the extreme and use very distant particles, what happens between when I measure one and the time at which light would reach one from the other?

      The part you are missing is that the effect is very subtle. It only shows up in a statistical analysis after the fact. You can only notice/measure the effect if you repeat the experiment many times and compare the statistics of what is happening with particle B to the measurements made on particle A. If you look only at particle B then you have no clue about what was going on with particle A and if you only look at particle A then you have no clue about particle B. It is only when you combine information from particle B with information from particle A, after the fact, that you see any effect at all.

      To learn more search for "EPR paradox". Basically what happens is that quantum mechanics violates locality without violating causality. This violates our common sense which is based on classical mechanics. Since wormholes are also non-local, connecting entangled particles with wormholes is more appealing to our common sense (for certain values of "common sense"). The interesting thing is that quantum mechanics already explains (predicts the outcomes of) entanglement experiments without any wormholes. So if you add wormholes (in any meaningful way) then you might need to change quantum mechanics. This is interesting because it might lead to a way of combining relativity with quantum mechanics which has been the unobtainable holy grail of theoretical physics for many years.

      The chances of this working out are very very small. The chances of getting a Nobel prize if it does work out are very high.

      --
      We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
      -- Anais Nin
    44. Re:me dumb by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Only if it took 100 years for you to make the trip. Otherwise you will be moving backward in time for some possible observers.

      Superluminal propagation of the light cone is needed to invert cause and effect and that did not occur in my scenario.

      The information I took with me simply took a more efficient path. The consequences of that never propagated superluminally.

    45. Re: me dumb by HybridST · · Score: 1

      In one of Susskind's lectures he refers to EPR where R = 1. I don't recall in which of the hundred or so lectures I have watched he says it though.

      --
      Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
    46. Re: me dumb by zaphirplane · · Score: 1

      Doesn't the quantum, particle entanglement and black hole , worm hole all sound like a Bronze Age philosophy explanation of rain, Gravity or other scientific observable .
      It's too weird to be true more a convoluted explanation of an observation

    47. Re:me dumb by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      The consequences of that never propagated superluminally.

      So you went 100 light years in less than 100 years. That's basically the definition of superluminal. It doesn't matter how it's done.

      Superluminal propagation of the light cone is needed to invert cause and effect...

      I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. "Magic" or not, you'd be travelling outside of your future light cone, and that's exactly the problem - to you and people on Earth it would appear instantaneous, but for some observers you would be traveling backward in time.

      On other words, "instant" travel is nonsense because spatially separated things can't happen "at the same time" for all observers. Relativity of simultaneity and all that.

    48. Re:me dumb by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. "Magic" or not, you'd be travelling outside of your future light cone

      There is no traveling. One moment here the next 100 light years away without propagation through 100 light years worth of space to get there.

      and that's exactly the problem - to you and people on Earth it would appear instantaneous, but for some observers you would be traveling backward in time.

      You use the word "traveling" which is not occurring. Superluminal "traveling" = backwards time travel. If you don't propagate information superluminally there is no backwards travel.

      On other words, "instant" travel is nonsense because spatially separated things can't happen "at the same time" for all observers. Relativity of simultaneity and all that.

      Yes instant travel is nonsense. Instantly appearing out of thin air without traveling through intervening space is what I'm talking about.

      The distinction is important because when traveling through a shortcut consisting of region of negative density (wormhole) you are not traveling 100 light years you might be traveling only a mile as agreeable to all relatively stationary observers to the shortcut. It might be hard or impossible to actually see you moving only a mile... many may be tricked into thinking you went 100 light years... but that didn't actually happen.

      Lets say there are two points in space and two ways to get there.

      Normal distance between Point A and Point B is 100 light years.

      Shortcut distance between the very same Point A and Point B is 1 mile.

      If you were to travel through 100 light years of space in 4 minutes to get to Point B.. that would be crazy and all the superluminal time reversals in all applicable reference frames are legitimate.

      If however you were to travel to Point B from Point A traveling through just a mile worth of space at a comfortable 15mph.. nobody sees a time reversal in any frame of reference.

      How you got from point A to point B made all the difference in the world.

    49. Re:me dumb by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

      Ah man, what's wrong with gremmies?

    50. Re:me dumb by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      There is no traveling.

      If you were to travel through 100 light years of space in 4 minutes ... nobody sees a time reversal in any frame of reference.

      You're at two events events (leaving one place and appearing at another) separated by what in relativity is called a space-like interval - and by definition there are observers that 'see' them happen at the same time, others that 'see' one happen first, and others that 'see' the other happen first. This isn't a problem because (as far as we can tell) those events can't affect each other.

      My best guess as to what you're trying to say is that because you don't end up in your own past light-cone (i.e. the events don't have an inverted time-like separation) there are no paradoxes, no violations of causality, etc. Which is true if this kind of trav ... er ... 'changing position' is one-off, or fairly strictly limited in certain ways.

    51. Re:me dumb by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      You're at two events events (leaving one place and appearing at another) separated by what in relativity is called a space-like interval - and by definition there are observers that 'see' them happen at the same time, others that 'see' one happen first, and others that 'see' the other happen first.

      Events can appear at same time or not regardless of whether they occurred at the same time or not however there is never an observable ordering disagreement.

      My best guess as to what you're trying to say is that because you don't end up in your own past light-cone (i.e. the events don't have an inverted time-like separation) there are no paradoxes, no violations of causality, etc. Which is true if this kind of trav ... er ... 'changing position' is one-off, or fairly strictly limited in certain ways.

      If I appear back on "earth" from "earth2" and announce discovery of a supernova 100 years before that information reaches earth such information at no point traveled superluminally. It went with me thru my shortcut slower than light. Any observer astute enough to know this would not see a problem. Those who see problems are naively drawing out a diagram and concluding a problem because they know only points in space and time without knowing or considering the history of what actually took place.

      A much different example of this are twins in rocket ships starting off together yet each going away on separate space adventures. Later they turn around and meet back up in the same place they started. Clocks in each spaceship will read differently based on which spacecraft actually does acceleration and has experienced associated inertia acting upon it. You need the full inertial histories of both crafts to calculate what those time difference would be. In the same way an outside observer needs the full path history that information actually propagated to know whether FTL propagation has actually occurred.

      If one of the spacecraft were to go through a wormhole their inertial history would not be changed as a result and neither would their clock or energy not in their frame or relative to their twins frame or anyone else's as a consequence of traveling through the wormhole.. not when their inside of it nor when they emerge on the other end of it.

    52. Re:me dumb by fisted · · Score: 1

      This at +5 Interesting made my fucking day. Hahahahahaha.

      Exhaust pipes -- miracles of modern engineering and a fundamental piece of the stability and stiffness of every car!

    53. Re:me dumb by fisted · · Score: 1

      But does the tail meow when you pull the head?

    54. Re:me dumb by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      Events can appear at same time or not regardless of whether they occurred at the same time or not however there is never an observable ordering disagreement.

      This is true only for things that are separated by time-like (and, being the edge case, light-like) intervals. For events that are separated by space-like intervals they might be simultaneous in my frame of reference but not in yours - i.e. simultaneity is relative.

      It went with me thru my shortcut slower than light.

      You mean didn't exceed the local speed of light, which is fine. But that doesn't change the fact that in some other reference frame you arrived 50 years before you left. And if there was a return wormhole at rest in that frame of reference you could come back to earth 50 years before you left.

      And that's why scifi and popular science are so keen on warp drives and wormholes - they obey the well-demonstrated limits on high-speed travel while (purely in theory) allowing FTL and time travel.

    55. Re:me dumb by lgw · · Score: 1

      It seems like you're missing a key concept here: "simultaneous" depends on reference frame. If two events separated in space, A and B, happen at the same time in my reference frame, there's a reference frame in which A happens before B, and a reference frame in which B happens before A. There's no one true order of events.

      This causes no paradoxes in relativity, precisely because you can't send information, or cause an action, faster than the speed of light. The propagation delay between A and B ensures cause precedes effect in every reference frame, and the order of events can't quite shift enough to overcome that propagation delay.

      But moving FTL breaks all that. If I move "instantly" in my reference frame, then there's a frame in which I move back in time, and a frame in which I jump forward in time. I don't move back in time in my own reference frame, sure, but I really do in another. And if you're moving quickly relative to me, I can use that to relay a message from you to your past self - either by a series of accelerations between the frames, or by using a friend in your reference frame who can teleport as well.

      If I want to visit my own past self, I would need to teleport some significant distance, accelerate up to relativistic speed, again teleport a significant distance, then accelerate again to match location and speed with my former self - elaborate, but possible. Or, if I could travel a great distance, say 1 billion light years, "instantly", then I don't need much acceleration at all, just the difference in velocity the Earth achieves in 6 months as it makes half an orbit would do it.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    56. Re: me dumb by lgw · · Score: 1

      You seem to think the QM guys cooked up this really weird story while particularly high one night, then went looking for a way to make it fit the universe. It's the observations themselves that bring the weirdness. Sure, the universe at these scales far from human experience doesn't fit with our intuitions, but that shouldn't surprise, as our intuitions are based entirely on human experience. Sure the math is intricate, far from simple or elegant, but there's no actual reason to believe the universe is simple and elegant, other than it would be nice if it were so.

      Is this all some complex expression of some simpler, underlying truth that we just haven't found yet? Certainly everyone working in the field hopes so! But the horrible, crufty Standard Model just keeps making accurate predictions, and all the clever ideas of physicists to create a simpler underlying model that could explain everything we measure keep failing to do so.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    57. Re:me dumb by lgw · · Score: 1

      If you can avoid traveling in normal space-time, then you've just potentially solved the problem entirely.

      That doesn't help in the least. It doesn't matter how you travel: two events, separated in space, that happen "at the same time" in my frame of reference don't do so in another. If I depart A and arrive at B "instantly" in some reference frame, then I have travelled backwards in time from another. There's no getting around that: we live in a relativistic universe.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    58. Re: me dumb by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      And a large number of non desserts. Blood pudding isn't a dessert.

    59. Re: me dumb by cygnwolf · · Score: 1

      This is why I shouldn't read the comments section at work...

      --
      Free Pie! The Pie is Also Evil!
    60. Re:me dumb by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Events can appear at same time or not regardless of whether they occurred at the same time or not

      "At the same time"? Are you postulating some sort of absolute time? If so, you're throwing out Special Relativity, the basis of a lot of modern physics.

      If one of the spacecraft were to go through a wormhole their inertial history would not be changed as a result and neither would their clock or energy not in their frame or relative to their twins frame or anyone else's as a consequence of traveling through the wormhole.. not when their inside of it nor when they emerge on the other end of it.

      At this point, we need to understand what a wormhole is, since (according to General Relativity and well-established experimentally) the curvature of spacetime can affect the clocks. If there are two geodesics to the same place (whatever that means) that start very similarly, and one is far longer than the other, I'd expect there to be some sort of gravitational effect involved.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. I have a depressing feeling about this... by rbrander · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...in fiction, basic discoveries of this magnitude promptly lead to anti-gravity, flying cars, space travel, and replicators.

    In real life, some PhDs are pleased with themselves and now understand why we exist and aren't a cloud of random particles - but I *still* don't get a damn jet pack.

    Oh, well: the announced today that they have asthma figured out at last and can probably cure it soon. I don't have asthma, but I'm glad we also got a practical discovery.

    1. Re:I have a depressing feeling about this... by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 1

      Yes some people like to exercise their imaginations outside of textbooks that will almost certainly be rewritten by this time next century, depressing stuff indeed. I've even heard that some of the cretins even enjoy such flights of fancy!

      The horror.

  3. Take THAT Michelson-Morley by Insanity+Defense · · Score: 2

    Finally proof of the existance of the Ether. Now onto the subether. R.I.P E.E. Smith. ;)

  4. P=1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    There, solved it for you. Where's my grant money?

  5. Can we use this? by PPH · · Score: 2

    If quantum entanglement is a manifestation of 'communications' through a wormhole, then can we create an entangled particle pair, drag one far, far away and start poking it (with some signal). Then, we should be able to observe it's paired partner and extract that signal.

    Even if this doesn't give us faster-than-light communications, it has uses. Imagine a submarine with one of a pair of particles in a transmitter. Wiggle (bounce, or whatever) that particle and watch its partner on land. You now have a comm link (possibly at a high speed) from or to an environment that isn't affected by the r.f. propagation problem. Also, untappable optical (or whatever) links. Because there is no physical medium between the endpoints for the NSA to tap.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Can we use this? by itzly · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Quantum entanglement cannot be used to send information.

    2. Re:Can we use this? by DraconPern · · Score: 1

      Yes, the idea you described is being used in Quantum key distribution as part of Quantum cryptography. It can never lead to FTL communication (because you are moving something (information, particle, etc) at the speed of light), but does make the key unbreakable.

    3. Re:Can we use this? by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately observing these type of quantum interactions has a tendency to break links thanks to Heisenberg Uncertainty principle I believe. So you get one bit of info.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    4. Re:Can we use this? by itzly · · Score: 2

      Yes, of course. Just like gravity causes two objects to attract each other, right up until some fellow shows the force sometimes repels.

    5. Re:Can we use this? by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Just like gravity causes two objects to attract each other, right up until some fellow shows the force sometimes repels.

      Yes.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    6. Re:Can we use this? by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Can we use this for FTL communication? Short answer: no.

      Longer answer: you can only observe the state of a pair of entangled particles, you can't control the state. So, you can't "wiggle" one particle to force the other entangled particle into a complementary state at will.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    7. Re:Can we use this? by JMZero · · Score: 2

      No, they weren't in that state the entire time - the results of real experiments don't correspond with that, or with "hidden variables".

      It's complicated, but the Wikipedia article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... seems like a good place to start.

      --
      Let's not stir that bag of worms...
    8. Re:Can we use this? by Nutria · · Score: 1

      In the same way that differential air pressure "repels gravity" to keep a plane in the air???

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    9. Re:Can we use this? by __aabppq7737 · · Score: 1

      Scott Adams already talked about this many decades ago in The Dilbert Future

    10. Re:Can we use this? by johanwanderer · · Score: 1

      Imagine you have two marbles, one red, one black. Put both of them in a bag, shake it up, and pick one out to put in your pocket. Don't look at it.

      Now send the bag with the other marble inside somewhere. Across the country, to the ISS, to Mars, next star system, where ever.

      Now pull out the marble in your pocket. If it's red, the other one must be black, and vise versa. However far they are apart.

      Replace marbles with particles, and colors with spins.

      You have been able to determine the other particle's properties instantly over vast distance, yet you have not transfer any information.

    11. Re:Can we use this? by __aabppq7737 · · Score: 1

      Maybe that is why there are no aliens, FTL rips their system to shreds.

      Hello, I'm a human and you're alive.

    12. Re:Can we use this? by JohnStock · · Score: 1

      I think you missed the whole meaning of "can't be used to send information". You acknowledge this at the start and then decide to ignore it at the end.

    13. Re:Can we use this? by smaddox · · Score: 1

      Quite true about not being able to control the state. However, quantum mechanics requires either nonlocal effects or no hidden variables (no well defined state). The latter is consistent with the Copenhagen interpretation, in which Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead until you observe it. In the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics, all particles have a well defined but unknown state and "entanglement" is actually an inherently nonlocal effect that occurs when a "measurement" is made (the "measurement" causes a nonlocal perturbation).

      However, because the entangled particles cannot be moved faster than light (FTL), even the nonlocal effects in the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation do not allow FTL communication.

      As a side note, the similarities between this ER=EPR conjecture and the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation seem quite interesting. I wonder if the two could be equated.

    14. Re:Can we use this? by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      Quantum entanglement cannot be used to send information.

      But it doesn't need to. A reflection IS information.
      Are you saying that an entangled quantum particle pair cannot be observed?

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    15. Re:Can we use this? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      There are many variations of this. One I *think* works (but I don't have the skill to check) is that the universe is "sort of" like a simulation, where only macroscopic items have a defined state, but the macroscopic items have defined contents and a defined energy spectrum, and when you arrange to "look closely" at one of those items, it alters the state of the rest of the item in a computationally conservative way, such that you can't detect the difference until you start getting really close to the limits of the simulation, at which point you get results that are statisticly chosen to confirm the conditions of the macroscopic item. So if you split off a bound pair of subatomic particles, they are so pair has defined characteristics, but there is no definition of the components until you look.

      Think of it as a way of simplifying the model so that it can run faster on the host computer. The actual "host computer" may not really exist, but if it did, this would be the most efficient way to program it.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    16. Re:Can we use this? by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      Again that is all just theory. Nothing has ever actually shown it.

      Well, except for all those experiments...

    17. Re: Can we use this? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      A one-time pad is also unbreakable. What makes quantum cryptography any better?

      In some ways QC is worse than OTP because quantum crypto still requires classical basis of trust to authenticate communication partners.

      What makes QC useful is it allows production of new OTP material from a provably private well completely "disconnected" from the classical communication channel.

      There are a number of methods for re-keying without QC but they are based on deterministic algorithms where if you were to get your hands on the "previous" state you would stand some chance of being able to derive subsequent states... with QC that chain is broken.

      Quite frankly I doubt it really provides much in the way of any real world benefit because a system is only as good as its weakest link and you still have to bind the quantum system using classical cryptographic methods subject to the same attacks we're all quite familiar with already. Keep a massive OTP codebook secret or keep a smaller secret and use QC... same problem either way.

    18. Re:Can we use this? by JMZero · · Score: 1

      I don't know why I'm continuing this, but if you're going to just reflexively gainsay, you might at least say why the experiments I linked to don't prove what scientists say they do. Bell's work was a long time ago, and while it's still not 1000% nailed down it's very solid. The experiments are all on that side - the only thing on the "alternative" side is vague "I don't think the universe would work that way" crap that has to be very convoluted to match up with experimental reality.

      --
      Let's not stir that bag of worms...
    19. Re:Can we use this? by PPH · · Score: 1

      You acknowledge this at the start

      No, I don't. That would be proving a negative, which is a logical fallacy.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    20. Re:Can we use this? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      There are many variations of this. One I *think* works (but I don't have the skill to check) is that the universe is "sort of" like a simulation, where only macroscopic items have a defined state

      Favorite simulation analogy paints entanglement as the consistency contract of some sort of transactional memory controller.

      People are forbidden from seeing sausage being compiled because conveyance of this knowledge violates the consistency contract leading to undefinable behavior and is frankly gross. "Dirty read" = NMI = BSOD = Matrix Reloaded.

    21. Re:Can we use this? by JohnStock · · Score: 1

      "Even if this doesn't give us faster-than-light communications"
      You acknowledge communications are impossible using QE pairs (which is correct as passing information via entangled particles is not possible)

      "Imagine a submarine with one of a pair of particles in a transmitter. Wiggle (bounce, or whatever) that particle and watch its partner on land. You now have a comm link"
      Then you go on to contradict yourself by discussing communications using QE particles, which is not possible.

      It's also *not* proving a negative as there is no proof of absence involved here.

    22. Re:Can we use this? by PPH · · Score: 1

      "Even if this doesn't give us faster-than-light communications"

      You acknowledge communications are impossible using QE pairs

      You do understand why these are not equivalent statements.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    23. Re:Can we use this? by mattpalmer1086 · · Score: 1

      It doesn't work like that, the parent poster is right - you cannot send information using quantum entanglement.

      If you measure a property of an entangled particle, then *you* know the other particle has the complementary property. This doesn't help the man on the submarine, or vice versa. He will measure his property and see a value, and know that *you* have the complementary property to his.

      But since you can't fix the result of the measurements in any way, each measurement is just an independent random value for both of you. You just know what the other guy will find when he looks.

    24. Re:Can we use this? by mattpalmer1086 · · Score: 1

      I believe hidden variable theories still aren't entirely ruled out, but you'd have to have non-local variables.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Either way, the experiments show that reality isn't explained by a deterministic bunch of particles bouncing around space in time.

    25. Re: Can we use this? by mattpalmer1086 · · Score: 1

      Well, OTP also ultimately requires a *very* classical basis of trust to authenticate communication partners!

      Keeping a smaller secret you can re-use to establish an extremely secure session seems a better proposition than keeping a very large amount of difficult to transport data which, if compromised also breaks all prior and future communications.

      But we have pretty reasonable key agreement protocols right now... I'm wondering how vulnerable they are to quantum computers...

  6. A Flamm bridge? by Ice+Tiger · · Score: 1
    --
    "Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
  7. murder mystery analogy with chickens by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a chicken's butt. picture it. Okay hang onto that thought because we'll come back to that later.
    There's a house made of rubber with a lot of rooms. While all the guests including the butler are gathered in the living room, the guests hear the sound of the master of the house being murdered in his bedroom which is at the end of a distant series of hallways. They also notice that at that moment the butler is missing, but a moment later he's back. It's too far from the dining room to the bedroom for the Butler to have walked there and walks back, so he's not a suspect. But we have two mysteries
    1) how did the butler vanish and re-appear. Very suscipicious. could he teleport?
    2) how did they hear the scream of the master in his distant bedroom.

    The second fact seems to clear the butler since no one wants to believe in teleportation.

    Then they discover the house is U-shaped and there's a secret passage directly connecting the bedroom to the living room. The spooky actions and effects at a distance are explained by a wormhole. Also it's the secret passage way that holds the rubber house in a U-shape.

    Now remember that chicken butt? I thought so. See if you can get it out of your mind.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:murder mystery analogy with chickens by Nutria · · Score: 1

      Why didn't the rubber absorb the sound, so that no one heard the master's scream?

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:murder mystery analogy with chickens by sparkydevil · · Score: 1

      The Chicken didn't do it because it had already crossed the road.

  8. Is there any news here? by jfengel · · Score: 4, Informative

    All I'm seeing is "some guy posted a blog entry about a three-year-old paper". Surely it must have been on Slashdot before, though I can't actually find it with Google.

    1. Re:Is there any news here? by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Surely it must have been on Slashdot before, though I can't actually find it with Google.

      It's entangled with its dupe. Finish observing this one and the other should show up via Google.

    2. Re:Is there any news here? by mykepredko · · Score: 1

      Thank you for the great analogy of what's happening in this situation - It should also be co-moderated as "Informative".

  9. The gist of the article and it's a streach by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here’s the heart of their argument: If a black hole’s event horizon is a smooth, seemingly ordinary place, as relativity predicts (the authors call this the “no drama” condition), the particles coming out of the black hole must be entangled with particles falling into the black hole. Yet for information not to be lost, the particles coming out of the black hole must also be entangled with particles that left long ago and are now scattered about in a fog of Hawking radiation. That’s one too many kinds of entanglements, the AMPS authors realized. One of them would have to go.

    1. Re:The gist of the article and it's a streach by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Where is the triple entanglement, I don't follow. Left what long ago?

  10. Sliders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
  11. Re:Quantum entanglement = wormholes by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here it is, the FSM:

    https://www.quantamagazine.org...

  12. Unquestionably by Ksisanth · · Score: 1

    This is, without doubt, the most intelligent and informative Slashdot conversation I have ever read. HAND.

  13. "spatial connectivity" that "sews space together" by hey! · · Score: 1

    ... now all it needs is a light side and a dark side.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  14. Re:Quantum entanglement = wormholes by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 1

    I have been entangled by His Noodly Appendage!

    --

    Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

    Vote for Bernie in 2016!

  15. Re:Quantum entanglement = wormholes by Livius · · Score: 1

    It's noodles all the way down.

  16. here's a dumb question by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    Why can't we just assume that since there are 9 dimensions, the connection between quantum entangled particles travels through a higher dimension. Doesn't that solve everything more tidily? In fact, I don't remember if NASA's experiment with entanglement on the space station disproved faster than light communication (I think the rocket with the experiment onboard blew up) but it would even explain that if it were true. It travels faster than light because it doesn't, it shortcuts through a higher dimension and rejoins normal space.

    1. Re:here's a dumb question by itzly · · Score: 1

      The question is : can you make the math work out, and agree with all observations ?

      If yes, please collect nobel prize. If no, don't bother. If you have no clue, why even speculate ?

    2. Re:here's a dumb question by Livius · · Score: 1

      If no, don't bother.

      Science (and civilization in general) wouldn't make much progress if everyone had that attitude.

  17. Can't prove quantum entanglement is real. by master_p · · Score: 1

    Science has not proved and cannot prove that Quantum Entanglement is a real phenomenon, because it cannot be measured: as soon as one measures the particles, the entanglement is destroyed.

    Furthermore, science has not proved that quantum entanglement is particles linked or particles created symmetrically. For all we know, entangled particles may be born in symmetrical state and not be linked at all.

    Thirdly, we haven't even proved that a single photon is a wave. We have shown that a stream of light particles acts as a wave, through the double slit experiment, but not an individual photon.

    We also have not proved that the interference pattern we are seeing in the double slit experiment is not due to spacetime ripples that create certain paths for photons to travel to instead of photons being waves.

    In the double slit experiment, if the slits are turned sideways or become circular or rectangular, the interference pattern on the projector changes accordingly.

    However, if the slits are enlarged, the interference pattern ceases.

    This means that what actually happens is that there is a collision of photons with the slits, when the slits are small enough. When the slits are enlarged, there is no collision, and therefore no interference pattern.

    When we put a detector between the electron/photon gun and the slits, the electron/photon emitted by the gun is absorbed by the detector and reemmited from the other side of the detector in a straight line, because the detector and the slits form a straight geodesic line, and thus the emitted electron/photon goes straight through the slit and does not collide with the slit walls.

    I bet that if the detector is placed right where the opening hole of the electron/photon gun is, and the slits are moved slowly away from the detector, the interference pattern will reemerge, showing that there is no wave function to collapse, and thus proving that QM is the best error mankind ever did.

    1. Re:Can't prove quantum entanglement is real. by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Thirdly, we haven't even proved that a single photon is a wave. We have shown that a stream of light particles acts as a wave, through the double slit experiment, but not an individual photon.

      The double slit experiment works fine with one photon at a time. If you do not measure which path the photon takes, then each photon takes both paths and interferes with itself.