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Einstein's 'Spooky Action' Has Been Demonstrated On a Massive Scale For the First Time (sciencealert.com)

schwit1 shares a report from ScienceAlert: For the first time, scientists have managed to show quantum entanglement -- which Einstein famously described as "spooky action at a distance" -- happening between macroscopic objects, a major step forward in our understanding of quantum physics. Quantum entanglement links particles in a way that they instantly affect each other, even over vast distances. On the surface, this powerful bond defies classical physics and, generally, our understanding of reality, which is why Einstein found it so spooky. But the phenomenon has since become a cornerstone of modern technology. Still, up until now quantum entanglement has only been demonstrated to work at the smallest of scales, in systems based on light and atoms, for example. Any attempt to increase the sizes has caused problems with stability, with the slightest of environmental disturbances breaking the connection. But new research changes all of this, by demonstrating that this "spooky action" can indeed be a reality between massive objects. We're not talking massive in the black hole sense but in the macroscopic sense -- two 15-micrometer-wide vibrating drum heads. And the next step will be to test whether those vibrations are being teleported between the two objects. The research has been published in the journal Nature.

278 comments

  1. News to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Entanglement is a cornerstone of modern technology? Say what?

    1. Re:News to me by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Entanglement is a cornerstone of modern technology? Say what?

      Welcome to Slashdot.

      --
      No sig today...
    2. Re:News to me by AlwinBarni · · Score: 1

      Entanglement is a cornerstone of modern technology? Say what?

      Welcome to Slashdot.

      That's very right, would mod up if I had mod points left.

      However I suppose the original statement was based on the fact that quantum entanglement is basis for existing (being developed) technologies as quantum encryption and quantum computing. The former has been demonstrated over long distances between satellites and Earth, the latter is being actively researched at the moment and if mastered would be a game changing technology in e.g. medicine and metallurgy allowing people to calculate new drugs and alloys - not to mention other uses.

    3. Re:News to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time Traveler here - Yeah, sorry about that. Our company made an oopsie and this news got quantum entangled in such as away as to go back in time and be posted on your internet. So cornerstone of modern technology? Yes, but not yet. Well...not for the rest of you at least for awhile now.

    4. Re: News to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coward, step into my office.

    5. Re:News to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think they're referring to the tangle of cables behind our desks.

    6. Re: News to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Officer Tempus of the timeship USS Relativity here... you are not to reveal any more news about the future.

    7. Re:News to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, the quantum computers that are driving the crypto revolution.

      Gawd, you old people are like sooooo stupid.

    8. Re:News to me by martinfb · · Score: 1

      Just another journalist with large holes in understanding! Like politicians.

      Come to think, I realized this the instant you wrote your reply! Spooky!

      --


      Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
    9. Re: News to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is referring to simple semiconductor physics. Flash memory, for example, is possible because of quantum tunneling; transistor physics is strongly affected by it; heck, even the behavoir of the humble 1N4001 diode is only fully describable with quantum mechanics.

  2. "Massive" scale? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 5, Informative

    Massive is relative.

    15 micrometer is only 0.015 mm. Massive would be 1,500 meters.

    0.015 mm is massive compared to 10^-10 m.

    Context matters.

    1. Re: "Massive" scale? by Presence+Eternal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think that's something like 60 times larger than modern transistor architecture.

      Given we're used to entanglement involving single atoms, it is astonishing in size.

    2. Re:"Massive" scale? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Massive is relative.

      15 micrometer is only 0.015 mm. Massive would be 1,500 meters.
      0.015 mm is massive compared to 10^-10 m.

      Context matters.

      They meant massive in the same way politicians did about the increase to people's take-home pay after passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. As one woman tweeted (and Paul Ryan re-tweeted) it will pay for her annual Costco membership.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    3. Re: "Massive" scale? by cb88 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      technically we have the capability to assemble single 1nm transistors since 2016... you can fit alot of transistors in 1um even at larger scales. I wonder what happens though when you entangle two circults.

      http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2016/10/06/smallest-transistor-1-nm-gate/

    4. Re:"Massive" scale? by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Funny

      As one woman tweeted (and Paul Ryan re-tweeted) it will pay for her annual Costco membership.

      To be fair, Paul Ryan probably thought the Costco membership was like his exclusive golf/country club membership: many thousands of dollars per year.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    5. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Dude, big enough to be seen with a magnifing glass from the dollar store is pretty incredible

    6. Re: "Massive" scale? by mikael · · Score: 2

      It would be interesting to see if they could quantum entangle two MEMS resonant oscillators. Change the amplitude on one and the other changes amplitude. But how do you entangle them in the first place - beams of quantum entangled photons?

      --
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    7. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Massive is relative.

      15 micrometer is only 0.015 mm. Massive would be 1,500 meters.
      0.015 mm is massive compared to 10^-10 m.

      Context matters.

      They meant massive in the same way politicians did about the increase to people's take-home pay after passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. As one woman tweeted (and Paul Ryan re-tweeted) it will pay for her annual Costco membership.

      "massive" in the scale relative to your poorly conceived propaganda

    8. Re:"Massive" scale? by TWX · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Massive is relative.

      15 micrometer is only 0.015 mm. Massive would be 1,500 meters.

      0.015 mm is massive compared to 10^-10 m.

      Context matters.

      15 micrometers is bigger than the cross-section of a single-mode fiber optic cable core.

      If they can make this reliably work this could revolutionize communications. Manufacture two transceivers that are quantum-entangled, so four 'drumheads', one for each direction. Install these in the manner of SFPs in network switches or routers. Use them with no medium between them at whatever distance one needs. No more horizontal boring, no more trenching, no more fiber, no more intermediate points as repeaters, no more problems with disrupting all points in between.

      I do both networking and infrastructure for a living. Even if these things as a practical product were very expensive I would still welcome putting my infrastructure work for long-haul and trunking/backbone out of business.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    9. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sorry, they meant Yuuuuge!

    10. Re:"Massive" scale? by sconeu · · Score: 2

      No dice. Information still cannot be transmitted over the FTL channel.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    11. Re:"Massive" scale? by aquabat · · Score: 1

      That's heavy, man. What's your conversion formula from meters to kilograms?

      --
      A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    12. Re:"Massive" scale? by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Given this, why do they feel the need to test vibrations?

      two 15-micrometer-wide vibrating drum heads. And the next step will be to test whether those vibrations are being teleported between the two objects.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    13. Re: "Massive" scale? by Lanthanide · · Score: 5, Informative

      Entanglement is poorly understood. You don't "change one and the other changes".

      Entangled particles vibrate/spin/whatever the same way. You don't know what that way of movement is until you measure it. When you measure A and discover it to be spinning clockwise (or whatever), then you also know that B is spinning clockwise. Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled, there is no "change" involved, just the fact that measuring the spin of A lets you also know the spin of B.

      The bottom line is you CAN'T use this to transmit information instantly across distances: if it were the case that you could cause B to spin the same way as A by changing A's spin, then you could transmit information. That's not how entanglement works.

    14. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because they might learn something they didn't know before.

    15. Re:"Massive" scale? by cavreader · · Score: 1

      You left out a word at the end of your sentence. "Yet" With the world falling apart all around us I take solace in the fact that there are people actually working on pushing theoretical concepts off the whiteboard and into real world applications.

    16. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if it were the case that you could cause B to spin the same way as A by changing A's spin, then you could transmit information. That's not how entanglement works.

      Are you sure? I thought that was precisely how entanglement works.

    17. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha you cannot keep the entangled subunits from interacting with the world heat-bath ... ever ! Then they become classical as they always were anyway.

    18. Re:"Massive" scale? by TWX · · Score: 1

      And the funny thing about it is that we already have lasers produced in the millions that could probably affect change on the 'drumhead' and could read the 'drumhead'.

      I would be very amused if they managed to squeeze such transceivers down to SFP-size.

      It took Corning and partners decades to develop fiber optic cabling, and it has taken decades to refine it down to 9 micron cores. For 40 Gigabit I believe the effective distance is 40Km, a little under 25 miles. That means every 25 miles there has to be some kind of active equipment to either boost the signal, or more likely for fiber, to receive and then retransmit the signal. That means building secure vaults or shacks every 40Km, running power to those points, purchasing expensive equipment, setting everything up, monitoring it, and going out to repair it when needed.

      I'm going to hazard a guess that it'll take decades to make such a viable product, but there is significant incentive to try.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    19. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The delayed choice quantum eraser experiment disagrees with you. It shows that not only can you change things about 1 entangled particle and affect the other, but also that the change is not necessarily sequential. retroactive changes at a distance is too spooky for many so they close their eyes and try to find reasons why it "can't" be but experiment trumps personal preference.

      don’t worry though, much of the easily available info on the topic of entanglement really makes it sound exactly like what you said.

    20. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Context matters.

      I'm not a physicist, and I haven't been following this, but I suspect that "massive" could refer to something that actually has mass (i.e. not a photon).

    21. Re: "Massive" scale? by novakyu · · Score: 2

      Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled

      You are describing a hidden variable theory, which has been ruled out by Bell's theorem and subsequent experiments (well, the local version has been, and no one but Bohm is kooky enough to believe in non-local theories).

    22. Re: "Massive" scale? by pdms · · Score: 1

      Yup, the scale keeps increasing. Now if they can get vibrations to conduct, we might get FTL communication.

    23. Re: "Massive" scale? by pdms · · Score: 1

      We'll see.....

    24. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That experiment only measures correlation. The particles would correlate no matter when they were measured. The experiment confirms that the particles correlate no matter when they were measured.

      Which is more likely, that there is a causal relationship between the particles and that causal relationship transcends time, or that there isn't a causal relationship between the particles?

      The only reason this garbage hasn't been disproven is that it isn't falsifiable. In other words, the idea that entanglement involves particles affecting each other from a distance is not science.

    25. Re: "Massive" scale? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 0

      You can't control the result of the measurement, just perform the measurement, which forces the related results at both locations at what looks like faster than light.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    26. Re: "Massive" scale? by jetkust · · Score: 1

      I don't know all that much about Quantum theory, but it does appear that you are contradicting what quantum entanglement is about. Quantum entanglement is not two particles spinning the same way, but two particles that are the opposite of each other and when combined cancel each other out (when combined have a spin of zero). If you could change the spin of A then the spin of B is the opposite. That IS transmitting information.

    27. Re: "Massive" scale? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 0

      The Chinese supposedly built a satellite to test using this system to generate uncrackable one-time crypto pads. It's also not interceptable because if someone could listen in, they'd disrupt the measurement and the pads wouldn't match.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    28. Re: "Massive" scale? by Lanthanide · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Changing the spin of A breaks its entanglement with B.

      Based on current knowledge, you cannot transmit information using entanglement.

    29. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep sucking on what the GOP stuffs in your mouth, chump.

    30. Re:"Massive" scale? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Even theoretically, you cannot transfer information faster than light.

    31. Re: "Massive" scale? by HiThere · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sorry, but Bell's Theorum only rules out local hidden variables. Non-local hidden variables are still within the bounds of the theory. But they're a bit weird, as they're non-local in time as well as space. I don't think the theory puts a bound on *how* non-local they can be, but a hypervolume of light years would be difficult to test. (OTOH, I'm no expert in this area. I believe that Boehm thought they were global rather than just non-local...but that was decades ago, and things may have been found out since then. OTOH, perhaps it's really implied by the theorum.)

      Still, my favorite interpretation is EWG multi-world rather than hidden variables. For parsimony I add a supposition that I can't justify which is that in addition of the state space transitioning to all possible futures, it also arrives from all possible pasts, giving a lattice rather than a tree. I've got a vague feeling that this may determine the existence and strengthening of dark energy since all the pasts still exist in the hypervolume of the universe. You just can't go into the past because all of your particles have an inertial velocity along the time axis resulting from the big bang. If this *can* be made sensible, somebody much better at that kind of math than I am would need to tackle it. But it explains the rotation of the space-time axis as you accelerate near to the speed of light, or at least I think it does. I'm not quite clear how many dimensions this idea of the universe would require, but I'm sure it's less than the 16 that were used in deriving relativity, so it could probably fit into the same framework.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    32. Re:"Massive" scale? by TWX · · Score: 1

      Where did I say it would be FTL?

      How would not being FTL make it worse than current communications systems?

      Even if it's not FTL, as long as it's basically as fast as light, it should be a pretty damn awesome replacement for all that fiber optic cabling.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    33. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mommy what's massive, well soon basically, if it weighs more than your mom, throw it back

    34. Re: "Massive" scale? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      A drop of water 0.015mm across contains about 100 trillion molecules.

    35. Re: "Massive" scale? by HiThere · · Score: 2

      Well, not quite. You change the state of an atomic particle when you measure it, but that's because your sensor is so gross when compared to the mass of the thing being measured. I'm not sure what would happen with things microns in diameter.

      Also, you don't change the state of the other particle, by measuring one particle you KNOW something about the state of the other particle. You can't really say you've changed it, since you previously had no idea of its state. And in the traditional examples by selecting which feature to measure, you determine which feature of the other particle is determined. Sometimes this seems spooky to me, and sometimes it seems trivially obvious, and I'm never sure which time I'm closer to understanding what's going on. I think (at the moment) that if I think of quantum actions as random, then it's spooky, but if I think of them as deterministic then it's trivially obvious. Several times I've heard claims (by people who should know) that quantum actions are deterministic in a higher dimensional space that seems random when we look at them because of the loss of information in the projection onto the lower dimensional space. At least I think that's what they were saying. OTOH, these claims never seem to get much acceptance by other people who should know. I'm not expert enough to have a defensible opinion.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    36. Re:"Massive" scale? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      You cannot entangle two objects while they are at a distance. You entangle them first, then separate them, then you measure them. The measurements are random but correlated. You cannot, not even theoretically, transfer information over the channel at the time of measurement.

    37. Re: "Massive" scale? by HiThere · · Score: 2

      I don't think anyone has designed a system that could, even in principle, use entanglement to transmit communications FTL. I know at least one person tried, and didn't succeed while I was in contact with him.

      Please note: I'm not saying they didn't succeed in building such a device, I'm saying that, assuming they had a bunch of entangled bits in separate locations, they still couldn't design a device that would work. Some people have claimed that this is, in principle, impossible, and they may be right. Being used in a science fiction story isn't really much of an argument for it's plausibility.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    38. Re: "Massive" scale? by Memnos · · Score: 1

      Yes, and we probably never will, except at a great expense of energy. C, well it's a pretty stern barrier. It's the basic ratio of space to time, and there's no getting around it that we can see.

      --
      I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
    39. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The article you linked doesn't mention that a silicon atom has a Van der Waals radius of 210 pm.
      Sort of relevant for people wondering if transistors can shrink further.

    40. Re: "Massive" scale? by Memnos · · Score: 1

      Ok, I'll bite. Citations if you will?

      --
      I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
    41. Re: "Massive" scale? by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      That only refers to the size of the Gate, not the width of the transistor which is the dimension that is used when manufacturers specify "size".

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    42. Re: "Massive" scale? by Zorpheus · · Score: 1

      There is no way to measure things without breaking the entanglement. Even the interaction with a photon breaks. That's basic quantum mechanics of coupled states.

    43. Re: "Massive" scale? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      The Chinese supposedly built a satellite to test using this system to generate uncrackable one-time crypto pads. It's also not interceptable because if someone could listen in, they'd disrupt the measurement and the pads wouldn't match.

      Quantum is identical to an infallible key agreement protocol with all of the same underlying baggage. It is no more or less valuable than that and hardly uncrackable.

      No matter what all parties to the communication are required to guard classical sources of trust using classical means of leveraging that trust to authenticate the channel. All of these things are subject to classical attack.

    44. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is that any different than: Someone made two things spin the same way, then separated them and later I tested the spin of one of them and just logically inferred the spin of the other based on prior knowledge that they were the same.

      I mean, if the two things were both spin-left, entangled and then separated, then messing with one of them either affects the other or it doesn't or maybe it just potentially affects it with some probability.
      If it doesn't affect it, then in what sense were they entangled?
      If it does affect it, then did we not just convey information?
      If it just might affect it, then couldn't we do this a lot of times to raise the probability a lot and add error correction, hence convey information?

    45. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still, my favorite interpretation is EWG multi-world rather than hidden variables.

      Multi-world spectacularly fails the simplest explanation test. It's nothing more than a ridiculous untestable fantasy.

    46. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Informative? A guy who rejects modern science because he thinks physics ended with Newton?

      Sorry, dude. It's pretty well established that those properties don't exist until measured. Yes, it's weird, but who cares? Science doens't exist to appeal to your intuition. Reality doesn't care if you're comfortable with how things are.

      Get over it or go join up with the creationists, flat-earthers, or other science deniers.

    47. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Amazing. He wrote a single sentence and you didn't read it.

      As for the nonsense that is the rest of your post, you're right about one thing: you're no expert in the area.

      Also, did you seriously just use the word 'parsimony' in reference to many worlds? Talk about absurd! Under MW, just in the room I'm in alone, there are countless quintillions of new universes popping in to existence every microsecond. It is the height of absurdity! All for what purpose? To avoid something that makes you uncomfortable? Shouldn't MW bother you much, much, more?

      As for the rest, that's timecube level crazy.

    48. Re: "Massive" scale? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Entanglement is useful for created shared encryption keys that cannot be undetectably intercepted. While you can't control the information being sent (it's random, which is fine for encryption keys) you are transmitting that information to a remote receiver.

      --
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    49. Re: "Massive" scale? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      I think that's something like 60 times larger than modern transistor architecture.

      LOL! You you made my day, thanks!

      --
      No sig today...
    50. Re: "Massive" scale? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Nope.

      If there's a way to transmit information using quantum entanglement then it means the speed of light doesn't apply.

      (and the Universe will collapse)

      --
      No sig today...
    51. Re: "Massive" scale? by jrumney · · Score: 1

      You thought you were safe with quantum pairs, but the Chinese are ahead of you, and have the triplicate safely locked away in Xiyuan.

    52. Re: "Massive" scale? by ByteSlicer · · Score: 2

      Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled, there is no "change" involved, just the fact that measuring the spin of A lets you also know the spin of B.

      Actually, no. A key property of quantum particles is that their quantum states are undetermined until locked down by measurement.

      So at the time of entanglement, A will have undetermined spin S and B will have undetermined spin S'. Once S and S' are measured, they will turn out to be strongly correlated. Measuring S will randomly determine its value (and that of S') within the probabilities set by the wave function of the entangled system (A, B). Because the wave function collapse is random, it's impossible to set a value at either side, and thus transmit information.

    53. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The bottom line is you CAN'T use this to transmit information instantly across distances: if it were the case that you could cause B to spin the same way as A by changing A's spin, then you could transmit information. That's not how entanglement works.

      Only because we don't know how to influence the spin of A or B.

    54. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice theory, but wrong.

    55. Re: "Massive" scale? by cstacy · · Score: 1

      You've got your stories mixed up. It's not the Chinese, but rather the Russians who are interfering with the |i>

    56. Re:"Massive" scale? by Megol · · Score: 1

      Because they may learn something? Because having an entangled near light speed channel would be very useful? Because they have some time left until vacation time and have to do something?

      I couldn't understand anybody that wouldn't want to do that experiment given the equipment...

    57. Re: "Massive" scale? by Lanthanide · · Score: 1

      Yeah, you're right.

      I was just giving an off-the-cuff answer based on YouTube videos I've watched on the subject (coincidentally just watching one now about Bell's theorem), in response to the frequently-seen misunderstanding that entanglement could be used to transmit information.

      Saying "Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled" was my (poor) explanatory way of showing how measuring the spin of A cannot 'change' the spin of B - we've discovered some information about A and through entanglement also know that same information about B, but we didn't actually change A's state (except insofar as the waveform was collapsed, as you state).

    58. Re: "Massive" scale? by swillden · · Score: 2, Informative

      Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled, there is no "change" involved, just the fact that measuring the spin of A lets you also know the spin of B.

      Nit: They have opposite spin, not the same spin.

      You're citing the "hidden variable" theory, which has been definitively disproven. An oversimplified-to-the-point-of-being-wrong explanation: There are multiple possible axes of measurement and it's impossible for the two particles to have opposite spin in all of them. Yet when we measure one particle in one axis, then measure the other in the same axis, we find that they always have opposite spin, regardless of which axis we picked.

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    59. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bohm was hardly a kook. It just depends on what kind of 'silliness' you're okay with. Either your okay with non-local hidden variables like used in (modern) Bohmian Mechanics or you're okay with faster than light (and sometimes even retroactive) information flow like Copenhagen Institute's mechanics implies. A good visualization and reference for my claim is the Quantum Eraser Experiment (PBS SpaceTime on youtube has a great video on it.) Personally, I don't believe in the collapse of the wave function. If you look at the work they've done with "walkers" (tiny beads of oil suspended on top of standing waves) you can see many of the weirdness of quantum events explained in the macro world that makes sense to us.

    60. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You would have to convert their output to something you could entangle.

      But then we are back at these experiments - entangling light or tiny matter constitutes.

      But as long as you could reverse the results back into the other oscillator... It would look cool.

    61. Re: "Massive" scale? by ras · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In most ways it's not different. All these "entanglements" are just the basic laws of physics in action. So for example spin is conserved, so if two photons are created and speed away in opposite directions the laws of physics their spins must add up to 0. Therefore you measure the spin of one as 1, the spin of the other must be -1.

      The issue as the physicists see it is a quantum variable is doesn't exist until it's measured, where "doesn't exist" means can have no effect on the universe. Although instead of "doesn't exist or has no value" they like to say it is a superposition of all possible values. Another way of saying the same thing is the particle has no idea what it's quantum values are because if it did it would behave differently. The classic example is the double slit experiment, where a photon very confused about where it is and forms an interference pattern. But if you measure where it is before it gets to the slits so it (and you) know the values of quantum variables, the pattern disappears.

      The point is, before you measured it the spin on your photon didn't have a value. And that's true for it's entanglements partner too. Then you measure it and now you know. But it's entangled particular also knows its spin at the same instant, and starts behaving like it does. (Because if it didn't the laws of the universe would break down, eg charge or momentum wouldn't be conserved.) But if it's outside the light cone how could it know what the value it must take on to so the laws of universe aren't broken? It can't, so it must be spooky action at a distance.

      The term "local hidden variable" is an explanation for how this happened. It means the photon knew all along what's spin was, but it was cleverly hiding it in this hidden variable. The key point here is it's value was computed at the moment of entanglement. It was hidden from then on until you measure it, but the value was agreed upon when the particles were entangled, and entanglement always happens when they are together, communicating. Global hidden variable is another explanation - it means the whole universe knew, which when you think about is means there is communication fast than light, because otherwise how could it be "global"?.

      The local hidden variable sounds like the simplest explanation. The original reason said they said is doesn't work is Bells inequality. It may be still only be Bells inequality - I don't know if anybody has actually seen the double slit effect disappear for an entangled photon when it's mate is measured. I hope there is something more convincing now, because Bells inequality is a subtle argument.

      It arises because quantum values are distinctly weird. Take spin for example. In the classic worked, you can look at something spinning and see what axis it is spinning around. In quantum world you can't do that. All you can do is point a ruler in a direction, compare the axis the photon spinning around to the direction this ruler is pointing. (You have to adopt an convention that describes the direction of spin - say ruler pointing up means spinning clockwise, down means counter clockwise on the same axis.) Worse when you point the ruler and ask the question, you force the photons spin to align with the ruler - so the measurement changes the thing being measured. But you do get something out of it - you are told whether the spin now (after it was changed by you observing it) agrees with the direction your ruler is pointing (up or down). So you get a single boolean answer, and that's all you get. But your measure is real and repeatable in the sense that if you do it again with the ruler aligned in the same way, you will get the same answer every time (because remember the spin is now aligned with your ruler). And if you measure it a again with the ruler pointed in the opposite direction (eg up instead of down), you will get the reverse answer every time. This sounds intuitively correct, and it's also somewhat intuitive that if you ruler isn't parallel it isn't entirely obvious

    62. Re: "Massive" scale? by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      entangled near light speed channel

      So there is theoretically a way to communicate through the entangled channel? It just cannot be FTL?

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    63. Re: "Massive" scale? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      No. The channel is always instantaneous. There cannot be any communication.

    64. Re: "Massive" scale? by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      So the test is to see if the theory is correct?

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    65. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "alot"? Is that the opposite of the other non-word, "alittle"?

      Or perhaps you meant "a lot", which is proper grammar and spelling... things that help lend legitimacy and respect to any point you're trying to make in your writing.

    66. Re: "Massive" scale? by GuB-42 · · Score: 5, Informative

      A very important part of the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment that is not always mentioned is the coincidence counter. And this is what prevents instant transmission of information.

      The experiment is often described as "create a pair of entangled particles, do weird stuff and see where each particle go". But the truth is: most particles involved in the experiment aren't actually entangled, so if you just look at the detectors, the only thing you see is noise. You need the coincidence counter to tell you that two blips in the noise pattern are actually two entangled particles, but only after the two have arrived. That's the important part, you only know after the fact, you can't watch the thing happen.

      You can't use a delayed choice quantum eraser to build a useful machine that allows you to transfer data faster than light. With the current understanding of physics, it is simply impossible, and no experiment disproved that. The "information traveled back in time" interpretation is just one of many.

      Currently, science isn't settled on a correct interpretation of quantum mechanics. In fact, scientists have no fucking idea how all that stuff work. The maths work, experiments match predictions, engineers put it to good use, but we don't know how to interpret the results.

    67. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However far apart physically, If the entangled pairs property is connected via a channel (or "dimension") where it is close, I guess that counts as non local? I also presume this would not be the same as the extra dimensions that string theory likes so much as they would be jumping on it as evidence for the theory?

    68. Re: "Massive" scale? by Baloroth · · Score: 2

      If you won't, I will: they didn't succeed in building such a device. They can't, entanglement just doesn't work that way. See the no-communication theorem, which mathematically proves that entanglement is a no-go as far as FTL communication is concerned. Actually, it's worse than that: entanglement alone cannot send information, any information, ever (you can with quantum "teleportation", but that relies on using a classical channel as well as entanglement, and those always travel at or less than the speed of light).

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    69. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Massive also just means "involving higgs bosons". The context is scientists choosing words. I'm still skeptical that they've demonstrated anything other than the ability to put identical playing cards in to two envelopes then mail one to China and know the instant it's opened which card is inside.

      Quantum teleportation is like cold fusion, or quantum computers, or countless other things that get flaunted every few years: Investor hype. Someone is going to get a research grant or something out of this.

    70. Re: "Massive" scale? by jd · · Score: 2

      Incorrect.

      Quantum entanglement may be limited the same way the Pauli exclusion principle is.

      Second, if ER=EPR, and that seems likely, then the speed of light is not violated except in the long-obsolete pre-relativity 3+1 model of the universe.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    71. Re: "Massive" scale? by thomst · · Score: 1

      Lanthanide misspoke:

      Entangled particles vibrate/spin/whatever the same way. You don't know what that way of movement is until you measure it. When you measure A and discover it to be spinning clockwise (or whatever), then you also know that B is spinning clockwise. Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled, there is no "change" involved, just the fact that measuring the spin of A lets you also know the spin of B.

      Err ... no.

      Your explanation is exactly backwards (see the second paragraph). Quantum-entangled electron pairs spin in opposite directions, not "the same way." Determine the spin of one, and you know the other spins the opposite way.

      That's not how entanglement works.

      Hey, at least you got that right ...

      --
      Check out my novel.
    72. Re: "Massive" scale? by jd · · Score: 1

      Assuming ER=EMR, and assuming information has effective energy density, then you cannot transmit net information. Net effective energy must be zero or less.

      This implies that you could transmit information as long as there was an equal negative energy to the effective energy. Entanglement would not break.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    73. Re: "Massive" scale? by jd · · Score: 1

      If the spin is always the opposite, you can't argue chance.

      The Pauli exclusion principle obviously allows leptons to interact, so it's just not good enough to say it's a meaningless correlation when it comes to other particles.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    74. Re:"Massive" scale? by thomst · · Score: 1

      religionofpeas remonstrated:

      Even theoretically, you cannot transfer information faster than light.

      If you consider a wavefront to be "information," then, in at least one specific instance, the Universe begs to differ ...

      --
      Check out my novel.
    75. Re:"Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Context matters.

      Are we not even reading the summary anymore? Because context was provided.

      We're not talking massive in the black hole sense but in the macroscopic sense -- two 15-micrometer-wide vibrating drum heads.

    76. Re: "Massive" scale? by Normal_Deviate · · Score: 1

      When you do the measurement, you send the message, "I did the measurement." This message demonstrably can be received, because it is received by the entangled particle. The no-information-transmission claim appears to be, "no information can be sent except that I did the measurement." But no other information is needed, because, "I did the measurement" is a binary bit. This is so obvious, why does nobody see it?

    77. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gosh, I'd like to see your source for that information. Last I heard, any physical object had to "fit" in a volume, not a linear length.

    78. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Len Susskind described entanglement using the analogy of having a dime and a nickle. You've got one of each. You have someone put one of them (unbeknownst to you) in your pocket and the other in your desk. You travel from LA to NYC and upon arrival you reach into said pocket and you instantly know what the coin is in your desk in LA. Spooky action at a distance, my ass. The only "spooky" thing is the amount of time wasted to first mischaracterize then discuss such rubbish.

    79. Re:"Massive" scale? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      If you consider a wavefront to be "information,"

      It isn't. Only the waves can be used to transmit information, and they are not going faster than light.

    80. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled, there is no "change" involved, just the fact that measuring the spin of A lets you also know the spin of B.

      Nit: They have opposite spin, not the same spin.

      You're citing the "hidden variable" theory, which has been definitively disproven. An oversimplified-to-the-point-of-being-wrong explanation: There are multiple possible axes of measurement and it's impossible for the two particles to have opposite spin in all of them. Yet when we measure one particle in one axis, then measure the other in the same axis, we find that they always have opposite spin, regardless of which axis we picked.

      Best explanation I've heard:

      1. Ask somebody to put a pair of gloves into two boxes, one glove per box.
      2. The state of the gloves is "entangled" with the boxes.
      3. Send one box to Japan, send the other box to America.
      4. Perform a "measurement" on the box in Japan (i.e.: open it and look inside), find the left-hand glove inside.
      5. You know the box in America has a right-hand glove inside of it.

    81. Re: "Massive" scale? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      A silicon atom is about a quarter of a nanometer across. Aren't we getting into some physical limits?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    82. Re: "Massive" scale? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      There is no known way to use any of this for FTL communication, and good reasons to think it probably impossible. In addition, FTL and "retroactive" are the same thing, assuming that Special Relativity holds.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    83. Re: "Massive" scale? by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      I'm not an expert, but I won't let that stop me.

      We know that there is no local determinism, from Bell's Theorem and subsequent experiments. Those sorts of theories are hidden-variable theories. It's possible that everything's determinate on a global scale, but that goes a bit too far for most physicists. If particles were multidmensional things that have apparently random behavior when projected into our spacetime, the multidimensional things themselves aren't deterministic.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    84. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They didn't disprove anything about hidden variables. The proof would be solid, but it relies on the false premise that it's impossible for the two particles to have opposite spin in all of them.

      Normally after measuring pairs of particles that always have opposite spin regardless of which axis was picked the conclusion would be that it probably isn't impossible to have opposite spin regardless of which axis was picked. Instead they concluded that it might as well be voodoo magic.

      Only mathematics can be proven. Science can be disproven but not proven. Entanglement cannot be disproven, therefore it is not science.

    85. Re: "Massive" scale? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      That's how science works. Somebody comes up with a theory, and other people make deductions from the theory and test them, typically hoping that they'll break the theory because that's more fun and gets a better reputation.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    86. Re:"Massive" scale? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Quantum teleportation of information works, and it's worthwhile trying to find out exactly how it works. That it works on a macroscopic scale (on a criterion like "can be seen by visible light") is interesting but expected. Quantum computers work, but right now we can't make them with enough qubits to do much that's interesting. People are trying to figure out how to make them bigger. Cold fusion does not appear to happen.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    87. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if I take a block of cheese, cut it in two pieces and send one to my uncle George who lives on the other coast then all George needs to do to discover what kind of cheese I have in my fridge is to taste the piece I sent him.

      Yap, we're all scientists.

      I don't know much about quantum entanglement, but I am pretty sure that Einstein wouldn't call it "spooky" if it was as trivial as my cheese experiment.

    88. Re: "Massive" scale? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Spin is only one of the things that can be entangled, and also spin can be measured along more than one independent axis. I'm not really sure what spin means in this context, as it couldn't mean what it means in a larger object, but it's a quantum number. (OTOH, perhaps I'm improperly combining two separate experiments about entanglement, as what I'm thinking of seems to match the polarization of photons...which is another property than can be entangled.) Clearly with drum-heads they aren't measuring spin, but perhaps phase of vibration or some such.

      I think you're taking one classic experiment and using it as a mold for what the terms mean, when they actually mean something that was more generalized, and of which the experiment was a single instantiation.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    89. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're citing the "hidden variable" theory, which has been definitively disproven.

      How? Where? Citation?

      Relevant journal article authors indicate that entangled particles which do not show the expected spin are rejected as failed either in the entanglement process or through transmission. In experiments the percentage of these failures are very high. If any particles which do not show entanglement in the expected way are rejected as not being entangled, how could the hidden variable theory ever be proven definitively wrong?

      This is a common thought in academia and why the hidden variable theory as a temporal, not a spatial cause, remains strong.

    90. Re: "Massive" scale? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      That's sort of what I meant, but "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" seems to imply that that's not quite what is actually meant. I've got to admit I didn't really understand it. Also, I don't think any of our experiments justify making the kind of global claim that simpler interpretations give rise to. So non-local doesn't seem to me to necessarily be the same thing as global. It's a reasonable assumption to keep the theories simple, but you can't really claim that there is evidence supporting it.

      Actually, IIUC, the experiments would be consistent with a theory that limited the locality to, say, a 4th power drop-off with a half-strength reached at (arbitrarily picked) a light year separation in space-time. (I picked 4th power because this is supposed to be non-local in time as well as space, and to measure the separation I'm using the Einsteinian variation of the Pythagorean Theorem for space-time, because we're measuring separation of events.) Lots of arbitrary choices picked here, but it's not being proposed as a real theory, but only as something that, AFAIKT, would be consistent with current experimental evidence, and not wildly incompatible with current theory.

      Again, this isn't my favored interpretation. I don't favor hidden variables, as they seem too ad hoc. But some forms of them seem to be consistent with all known evidence as far as I know.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    91. Re: "Massive" scale? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Yes, but you'd need to use the classical channel to get the entangled bits to separate locations. So you've already used a classical channel. Admittedly, this is using the classical channel before you send the message, so perhaps the theorem still applies. But because of that I'm only willing to say "I haven't seen or heard of a design that would work.".

      I don't really understand the "no-communication theorem", and in any case, as Einstein said " As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.". What he didn't say was "but that's the way to bet".

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    92. Re: "Massive" scale? by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      Sounds like quite a step to take with a naked assertion.

    93. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because you send that message over classical means. The result of your quantum measurement is probabilistic. Youâ(TM)d know what the counterparty likewise reads(plus error), but you wouldnâ(TM)t be able to control the outcome. Thus all the classical information transferred would be over classical means and at a maximum velocity of c.

    94. Re: "Massive" scale? by novakyu · · Score: 1

      In his defense, technically I wrote two sentences (the second sentence being my parenthetical remark about Bohm's absurd ideas).

    95. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't really provide real arguments as to why this is not science. Many very intelligent people believe in quantum physics and many billions of dollars of investment and going into researching it.

      Do you really think your line of reasoning is sufficient given the weight of intellect and capital backing this research? Have you done -any- research to try and address your misunderstanding before commenting here?

    96. Re: "Massive" scale? by novakyu · · Score: 1

      Well, in seriousness, I do know professors who were impressed by Bohm's pilot-wave theory (it was more of a throw-away joke about how it is not widely accepted). I frankly don't know which interpretation of quantum mechanics I personally believe in. I think decoherence idea has to play a significant role somewhere, but I don't think there is a single interpretation that has a monopoly on how they use decoherence to explain the quantum weirdnesses.

    97. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This does explain why Trump seems completely illogical, but it really must be future generations punishing us for destroying the earth by electing Trump.

    98. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled, there is no "change"

      According to quantum theory they were not always spinning clockwise, but in a superposition of states. They were both spinning clockwise and counterclockwise. It wasn't until they were observed they collapsed into one state. Because of entanglement it causes the other particle to also collapse into a final, single state. We are able to know the state of B by observing A as a result.

      Superposition is also why quantum entanglement can't be used for instantaneous communication. You'd have to communicate via normal C speed limit channel the state of the particles. Otherwise A and B have no way of knowing what changed when either particle was observed.

      The idea they were always in some state was disproven. There are no "hidden variables." There is an intrinsic link to the properties of entangled particles such that one can't be described without the other, even if they are physically separated by an arbitrary distance.

    99. Re: "Massive" scale? by Normal_Deviate · · Score: 1

      No, I did not send the message over classical means. The distant measurement instantly collapsed the local wavefunction. Hence, the local wavefunction received the message, "I did the measurement," which was transmitted from the distant entangled particle via instantaneous, "spooky action at a distance." Discussion of this issue invariably focuses on the measured value, when the whole point is the effect of performing a measurement.

    100. Re: "Massive" scale? by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 1

      When you measure A and discover it to be spinning clockwise (or whatever), then you also know that B is spinning clockwise. Both A and B were spinning clockwise from the time they were entangled

      After entanglement, but before measurement, the particles are in a state of superposition. They're spinning clockwise and counter-clockwise at the same time. Once you take a measurement, that collapses the wave function and you observe either a clockwise or counter-clockwise spin.

      The spin is not determined when the particles are entangled, it's determined when the measurement occurs.

    101. Re: "Massive" scale? by CSMoran · · Score: 1

      To see that your local wavefunction collapsed, you must measure some observable. Once you do that, your wavefunction collapses to an eigenstate. How do you distinguish a wavefunction that collapsed due to the distant measurement ("1 bit") from a wavefunction that collapsed due to your measurement ("0 bit")?

      --
      Every end has half a stick.
    102. Re: "Massive" scale? by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      You're making a categorical statement based on a theorem that "proves" a claim.

      How do theorems prove things?

    103. Re: "Massive" scale? by Kulahan · · Score: 1

      So what's the point? Some kind of security application? If you can't control the spin, but only tell if the entanglement has collapsed, I'm not sure how you'd potentially use it in the real world... but I'd love to hear if you know!

    104. Re: "Massive" scale? by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      So, can I put the cat in the box now?

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    105. Re: "Massive" scale? by mikael · · Score: 1

      https://www.nbcnews.com/scienc...

      he new experiments aren't the only ones to show superposition states.

      In 2010 scientists at the University of California at Santa Barbara built a resonator — basically a tiny tuning fork — the size of the pixel on a computer screen, and put it into a state of superposition, in which it was both oscillating and not oscillating at the same time. But that wasn't as extensive a system as those in the two recent papers.

      "That experiment corresponds to one quanta," said Nicolas Gisin, a professor at the University of Geneva, who led the Swiss research team. "Imagine a nano-mechanical motor showing no oscillation and 500 states. That would be ours."

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    106. Re: "Massive" scale? by Lanthanide · · Score: 1

      Nature doesn't have "a point", it just is.

      If you're asking for practical applications of this effect, I'm not aware of any. But I'm hardly an expert - my knowledge is for youtube videos from physicists explaining this stuff.

    107. Re: "Massive" scale? by Normal_Deviate · · Score: 1

      I agree. "How do you distinguish a collapsed waveform" is the big engineering question. The obvious method is to look for self-interference. (That is, look for interference between the superposed states.) For example, as I recall, the two-slit experiment can be performed with a single electron, and the two possible states (left, right) will interfere with each other. But this is just an engineering question, because the local entangled particle does in fact receive the message that the distant particle had been measured. Ergo that message is receivable. More broadly, there cannot be "action" without information transfer, because the fact the action has happened is itself information. Something is wrong here.

    108. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Asshole detected.

    109. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't transmit information faster from A to B faster than the speed of light.

      But you can coordinate A and B such that, when they compare notes afterwards, they discover they have coordinated as if they had been able to transmit information faster than the speed of light.

      The distinction is verrrrry interesting to anyone who believes such pseudo-telepathic quantum games could be mapped to an financial markets arbitrage strategy.

    110. Re: "Massive" scale? by mikael · · Score: 1

      Some time ago, they described a method of deducing the shape of a photon in space. The researchers took a high-energy source like a soft X-ray photon, and fired it through a field of inert atoms (Neon/Argon). While the X-ray photon wasn't an absorption frequency of the inert atoms, it did have enough electrical/magnetic energy to push/pull an electron into a higher energy orbit due to quantum flux, where the electron then jumped down an energy level and gave off a photon of it's own. Ergo, they "saw" the X-ray photon travel through space.

      If I had my own Physics lab, I combine this with the classic monochromatic light source / slit experiment.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    111. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be spooky if after turning your slice of cheese around in the dish, your uncle George discovered his slice of cheese has turned around in the opposite direction.

    112. Re: "Massive" scale? by Zorpheus · · Score: 1

      Well, the energy of the electron must come from the travelling photon, so there must be some kind of interaction.
      It could fall into the group of weak measurements, which I recently read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    113. Re: "Massive" scale? by mikael · · Score: 1

      It could be something like a cloud chamber. Looks random here:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      But there could be some underlying deterministic process inside that lump of uranium like reaction-diffusion equations creating rolling waves of energy. When some point crosses a threshold, nuclear fission occurs, and then the process repeats.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    114. Re: "Massive" scale? by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Sure, I understand science. I just thought this was well settled.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    115. Re: "Massive" scale? by CSMoran · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the right way to view this is that measurement at distant A only *reveals* the information at local B, but you still had to transport that information earlier, at sub-light speeds, by bringing the photon from A to B (or B to A), because they had to be at the same spot when they got entangled? So again, no FTL information transfer.

      --
      Every end has half a stick.
    116. Re: "Massive" scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not "Interesting", Slashdot, it's total nonsense. He might as well have been discussing crystal healing!

    117. Re: "Massive" scale? by Kulahan · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sorry - I was referring to the point of the research. Obviously there's the benefit of a greater understanding, but I wasn't sure if this work was being done with a particular goal in mind or not.

    118. Re:"Massive" scale? by JohnStock · · Score: 1

      The context was given in the article when it mentioned that earlier experiments were single photons or atoms. 15 micrometers is very much "massive" compared to those.

  3. "Spooky Action" by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

    Hey, maybe we're on the verge of (re?)discovering magic is real and something we can harness!

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    1. Re:"Spooky Action" by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's just our 12-dimensional overlords toying with us.

    2. Re:"Spooky Action" by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      It's just our 12-dimensional overlords toying with us.

      We'll have to give Buckaroo Bonzai a power-up. He's only gotten up to the eighth dimension. :)

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    3. Re:"Spooky Action" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, maybe we're on the verge of (re?)discovering magic is real and something we can harness!

      And thus rises D.O.D.O.

    4. Re:"Spooky Action" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahem. Clearly, there are thirteen steps in the Illuminati pyramid on the U.S. dollar bill.

      Understandable you'd miss the full structure of their universal control though, as the final, overlord dimension is naturally perfectly hidden by these masters of self-concealment.

      Ewige Blumenkraft!

    5. Re:"Spooky Action" by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 1

      Nah, "magic" is figuring out a hack to jailbreak the simulation in some way. Whenever someone does it, the entities running the simulation say "Oh, crap, not again!" and patch the hole.

      Then, the next time you try it, it's "That's funny, it worked before..."

  4. Soooo spoooooky? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    >which is why Einstein found it so spooky

    Which is why you have no clue what Einstein was talking about. He wasn't spooked you knucklehead, he was mocking it as magic.

    1. Re: Soooo spoooooky? by Presence+Eternal · · Score: 1

      This is SchrÃdinger's cat all over again. Perhaps there is value to this though. One might use the misinterpretation of non-political thought experiments as a nominal baseline for all kinds of political bias.

    2. Re: Soooo spoooooky? by Presence+Eternal · · Score: 1

      I try and I try, yet this phone still uploads the wrong characters. :(

    3. Re: Soooo spoooooky? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 1

      I think it's more of some variant of Poe's law where a well-written mockery ends up being more compelling than the arguments of sincere proponents.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    4. Re: Soooo spoooooky? by Pfhorrest · · Score: 1

      It's not your phone, it's Slashdot, which doesn't support Unicode and so turns two-byte characters like that vowel in the scientist's name into different two-byte characters in a different encoding.

      --
      -Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
      "I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
    5. Re: Soooo spoooooky? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Schrödinger

    6. Re: Soooo spoooooky? by Presence+Eternal · · Score: 1

      Thank you, but yes, it's the phone that's wrong. Unicode is an abomination.

  5. Cornerstone of modern technology? by Pulzar · · Score: 2

    But the phenomenon has since become a cornerstone of modern technology.

    Did I miss a bunch of modern technology development?

    --
    Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
    1. Re:Cornerstone of modern technology? by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      But the phenomenon has since become a cornerstone of modern technology.

      Did I miss a bunch of modern technology development?

      Perhaps they actually meant the bleeding edge of modern technology, like quantum computers.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    2. Re:Cornerstone of modern technology? by Pseudonym · · Score: 2

      "Cornerstone" is probably stating it a bit strongly, but superconductors are mainstream now, and SQUIDs in particular are very important to the modern world.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    3. Re:Cornerstone of modern technology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In other words, some writer who got a degree in Basket Weaving is writing an article on science, and failed to understand that "cornerstone" is not the same as "bleeding edge".

      That sums up journalism - the liberal arts infecting the rest of the world with its nonsense.

    4. Re:Cornerstone of modern technology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, they hear the word "quantum" and their brain, trained with lame internet memes as gifs on Twitter, immediately associates it to "Quark" the DS-9 character featured in many such lame gifs, and then they think "Oh, that's been around for *ages* so it must surely be a cornerstone by now!"

      It sort of has a logic to it.

    5. Re:Cornerstone of modern technology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But superconductors do not employ quantum entanglement, do they? Cooper pairs and all that.

    6. Re:Cornerstone of modern technology? by novakyu · · Score: 1

      Yeah. You missed the hoverboards and self-driving cars.

    7. Re:Cornerstone of modern technology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the idea is other quantum phenomena modern, classical electronics rely on to work are possible because of quantum entanglement. While we don't currently have a use for quantum entanglement only, it allows other phenomena to happen that we do use such as quantum teleportation of information and quantum tunneling. Without these phenomena, electrons wouldn't be able to tunnel through doped silicon and other materials, nor could particles communicate/relay information. It's only quantum entanglement by itself that doesn't have a direct application outside of quantum computers, yet. It would be like saying we can't apply the weak force by itself as the cornerstone of technology. However, it allows other interesting things to happen which we can use.

  6. Fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    >"In quantum teleportation, properties of physical bodies can be transmitted across arbitrary distances using the channel of 'spooky action at a distance'," says one of the team, Caspar Ockeloen-Korppi from Aalto University in Finland.

    This is a fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement. It is not a mechanism for teleportation, it is a dual destination verification mechanism (ie. one must be opposite the other if they maintain entanglement). You cannot set the value at one end and have it appear on the other.

    1. Re:Fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement by FranklinWebber · · Score: 2, Informative

      You are right about quantum entanglement. But the team member was talking about quantum teleportation, not just entanglement, and I suspect that you misunderstand the difference.

      'You cannot set the value at one end and have it appear on the other.'

      Right, about entanglement.

      'properties of physical bodies can be transmitted across arbitrary distances'

      Right, where the properties are quantum states.

      'This is a fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement.'

      No, it's not. Quantum teleportation depends on having an entangled state, which is used to move some other quantum state from here to there. It also depends on sending some information from here to there in another communication channel, possibly classical (i.e., non-quantum). I suggest you read more about quantum teleportation, e.g.:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    2. Re:Fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement by vtcodger · · Score: 1

      "(ie. one must be opposite the other if they maintain entanglement)...."

      For those of us who are a little slow, how does one know entanglement has been maintained?

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    3. Re:Fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement by FranklinWebber · · Score: 1

      Good question (nothing 'slow' about it!). The short answer: Statistically.

      Longer answer: Suppose you prepare a system in a quantum state you suspect is entangled. By definition, that system will have parts that can be measured separately. Because the parts are entangled, some measurements of the parts will be correlated. A single measurement of the parts might show that the correlation is violated, in which case you've learned that the state is *not* entangled (possibly is was entangled but that entanglement has been lost). But no single measurement can confirm entanglement. To confirm entanglement, you need to prepare the system in same state multiple times, measure each time, and confirm the measurement correlations are as predicted by quantum mechanics.

    4. Re:Fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement by vtcodger · · Score: 1

      Thanks, I was afraid that might be the answer. I should think that'll kind of limit the practical utility of quantum entanglement unless loss of entanglement is uncommon..

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    5. Re:Fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mean, it is pretty useless even then.

      Quantum entanglement is a lot like source management.
      You make a copy of a source file, they are now entangled and will remain so until one of them is modified.
      The person with the other file will not know that the first is modified.

      Quantum teleportation is like if the person making the modification creates a diff file and sends it to the one with the entangled file. That person can now apply the diff to the file and they are both in the same state again.

      You don't get any FTL communication or any other magic science fiction stuff out of it.

      The one use it might have is for keeping several qubits in a quantum computer in the same state.
      If you entangle them first you can make sure that they remain in the same state by applying the same operation on them.

    6. Re:Fundamental misunderstanding of entanglement by jimmydevice · · Score: 1

      What a stupid analogy

  7. Spooky? by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1
    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    1. Re:Spooky? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  8. Damn by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I so wanted to make a "spooky action at a distance" dick joke, but they said "massive scale". :-(

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your dick IS a joke.

    2. Re:Damn by EETech1 · · Score: 1

      It must be massless because otherwise it would be defying the law of gravity by standing up like that!

  9. Is this faster than light? by Beeftopia · · Score: 1

    Two separated items simultaneously communicating/sharing state information/controlling each other? I thought light speed was the fastest the simulation could update. The Simulators get a new algorithm or swap out some chips or get a faster HD or something? Or no?

    1. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Good question.

      The angry "evangelists" will say to you "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE AND IF YOU DARE TO THINK THIS AGAIN I KILL YOU!!"

      I will say "we should find a way to test this, maybe send the same message over a long distance using the entanglement AND a conventional radio (or fiber) link to see if both messages arrives the same time?"

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    2. Re:Is this faster than light? by tonique · · Score: 1

      From what I've read, determining eg. the polarisation of one quantum entangled particle, the other changes as well, and it happens faster than if the effect of measuring propagated at light speed. Ars Technica had an article touching on this in 2012. Okay, that was the first I found and it doesn't seem very fulfilling.

    3. Re:Is this faster than light? by Trogre · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actual physicists, please correct me if I'm wrong:

      Yes it apparently is faster than light in a vacuum, but it doesn't seem to matter. The change in spin happens instantaneously at both places, but since you can't deliberately change the spin yourself, merely observe it, no information is actually propagated. Thus you're not transmitting anything faster than light, and the universe therefore doesn't explode.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    4. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the time inside the sim is as the inside observers perceive it, the sim can run things faster or slower or even pause w/o being noticeable from inside. With a sim, there is no actual distance, only data - so there can be no actual speed. i.e. how fast was your car actually going last time you played GTA? it never moved at all, it's just data, the speed and movement is only for those on the inside. MyBigToe explains these and many other "spooky" things quite nicely IMHO - you can find most of it on youtube in Tom Cambell's channel in his Marseilles conference (day 1 - part 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2sYIORYb7Y)

    5. Re:Is this faster than light? by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or try this older-technology test, which is equivalent:

      1) Obtain two empty boxes
      2) Into the first box, place a red marble and a blue marble
      3) Put on a blindfold so you can't see anything
      4) While blindfolded, reach into the box with the marbles and take out one of the marbles, and put it into the other box
      5) Close both boxes and seal them shut
      6) Remove the blindfold
      7) Mail one of the boxes to Alpha Centauri
      8) When it gets there, open the box you didn't mail, and note what color marble is in it
      9) Enjoy the "faster than light communication" -- you just "instantaneously" learned the color of a marble located four light years away!

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    6. Re:Is this faster than light? by Dorianny · · Score: 1

      Nobody knows how entanglement works. The mechanism might very well be faster than light communication but because *we* can't use it to transfer information faster then light, the rules of physics as we know them, get to live another day

    7. Re:Is this faster than light? by rgbatduke · · Score: 1

      Yeah! What you said!

      Won't do any good, though. And don't forget the time reversal -- On alpha centauri and earth, people but the red and blue marbles in their respective boxes, they zip backwards in time (with rocket fuel magically appearing in space and being sucked up into the engine to store itself unoxided the tanks) to be opened by somebody wearing a blindfold so he can't see which marble was in which box who ends up with a red and blue marble in his hand. Like that, too.

      That's the part that most folks don't even think of. Measurement requires the spontaneous exchange of information and increases entropy, but entropy is in some sense an illusion in time-reversible microdynamics, and people do tend to forget that there is both an advanced and a retarded component to relativistic reversible interactions.

      --
      Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    8. Re:Is this faster than light? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      This is faster than light in a non-communicative way. If you shine a really powerful laser pointer at the moon and then flick your wrist you can make the red spot on the moon move from one side of the moon to the other faster than light... but you can't communicate FTL that way either.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    9. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're contributing to the misunderstanding that the anti-science nuts here have that the entirety of QM can be explained in classical terms.

      It's a nice way to explain that entanglement doens't allow for FTL communication, but implies that the "entangled marbles" have the "color" property prior to measurement.

      A little more precision is warranted. The "skeptics" here are more than a century behind on their physics.

    10. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 0

      His example is flawed.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    11. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Adendum: It's very important to note in my example above that the two scientists, the one on Earth and the one in Alpha Centauri, do not know in advance which color one of them will choose to set on their marble. What they know is that if one of them measures the color of the marble and gets red it will be because the other scientist must have set his marble to red (because of entanglement), the only problem in the idea is if it is possible to measure the color of the marble without the measurement itself causing the color change.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    12. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Actual physicists, please correct me if I'm wrong:

      Yes it apparently is faster than light in a vacuum, but it doesn't seem to matter. The change in spin happens instantaneously at both places, but since you can't deliberately change the spin yourself, merely observe it, no information is actually propagated. Thus you're not transmitting anything faster than light, and the universe therefore doesn't explode.

      Are you sure about this part? if I had a laboratory for that, that's what I'd be trying to figure out how to do right now (and also how to read the state without destroying the entanglement in the process or causing an unwanted state change).

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    13. Re:Is this faster than light? by Megol · · Score: 1

      Simulators?

    14. Re:Is this faster than light? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You have two laptops, one of which has Windows installed, the other Linux. You give two Tesla drivers a laptop each and one of them drives to Mars. The one who switches on the laptop and finds it has Windows is the loser.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    15. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you can make the red spot on the moon move from one side of the moon to the other faster than light

      Sure, but why go that far? Since the spot doesn't consist of an actual photon in your example but rather is an abstraction we use for the continuous stream of photons we could use other abstractions that doesn't need to involve the moon.

      Say for example a grain of sand at one edge of Sahara. It is pretty much the same a grain of sand on the other end so as long as we don't care about them being the exact same grain it is equally correct to say that we teleported the sand from one end to the other faster than light.
      It is no fashion less FTL than your example.

    16. Re:Is this faster than light? by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      You ignores the very basic idea of entanglement that is: "If I change a property of a entangled particle (spin, polarization, etc), that state automatically reflects on the other particle".

      That's not how it works. You can read a property of a particle, and learn something about its entangled pair.

      But if you change a property, you break the entanglement.

    17. Re:Is this faster than light? by null+etc. · · Score: 1

      Your example is completely wrong, and the fact that you have been moderated up shows how low Slashdot goes these days

      The irony is that your observation only applies to your own post, which is so wrong as to be hilarious.

    18. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      And you are sure about that? I ask because I'm kind of tired of seeing answers given by "fanatics" about a subject that in fact no one is really sure how it really works (not even me, so I try to keep an open mind about the possible explanations)... If I had a laboratory I would now be trying to find out if I can set properties of the particle (spin, charge, etc) without breaking the entanglement.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    19. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is both an advanced and a retarded component to relativistic reversible interactions.

      It does sound like the latter.

    20. Re:Is this faster than light? by Cacadril · · Score: 4, Informative

      Improving the analogy a little:

      1. Get two WHITE marbles, each with the property that if you shake it, it will randomly turn blue or red.
      2. Put the marbles in boxes and mail one box to Alpha Centauri. Wait until you know it has arrived.
      3. Open your box and shake your marble, and watch it become red. Now you know that the other marble will turn blue, or already turned blue as your fellow Alpha Centauri scientist shakes or shook his marble. This is because of a law of nature dictating that the total number of blue and red marbles in the Universe must balance.

      Nobody can tell in a meaningful way who shook his marble first. Depending on the velocity of the observer, it could be either one of you who "instantly" programmed the other marble to assume the opposite color. (This is the part that most people forget when describing the spooky instantaneous, FTL action at a distance.)

      Remember once more, none of you had any control over what color your marble turned.

      Anyone of you may instead paint your marble to force it into the color of your preference, but that breaks the quantum spooky action at a distance. If/when your fellow shakes his marble, it may assume any color. But your fellow won't know the difference until you tell him that you cheated.

      If you later communicate with your fellow and learn that his marble turned the wrong color, it just means that the marbles failed to become properly entangled.

      --
      There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
    21. Re:Is this faster than light? by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      I've said it before: Slashdot needs a moderation category: incorrect.
      (Some others have called for a moderation category "wrong", but "incorrect" starts with "in-" and is therefore more correct.)

    22. Re:Is this faster than light? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      We are not sure of anything, but that's the theory. And all the experiments we've done match the theory.

    23. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. It is not "apparently" faster than light, Nor is it actually faster than light. We can create a system of entangled particles in which the particles have a relationship to one another (up-down spin-pairing is the common example) and then separate the particles to an indefinite (as near to infinite as you care to get) distance and probe one of them to "instantly" "determine" (i.e. know) the spin of the other. Even after 100 years, we still haven't developed the (general) language (and why should we, this stuff isn't generally discussed by Joe or Mary Average) to differentiate between changes in a physical system and changes in our knowledge about a physical system. We confuse what we know (or can measure) about a system and what state the system is in...except "state" is a word loaded with assigned meaning (information) so perhaps "nature" is better...We confuse what we know about a system with the system's nature (at any given instant). You also appear confused about what can and can not change. What change in spin are you referring to? Any interaction with either particle will have statistically random result (that is, will disentangle said particle pair). When you interact with the system, all you've done is determine the state (nature) that the system WAS in. At the sub-atomic level, there is zero semantic difference between a measurement and a change in the system.

    24. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Nobody can tell in a meaningful way who shook his marble first. Depending on the velocity of the observer, it could be either one of you who "instantly" programmed the other marble to assume the opposite color. (This is the part that most people forget when describing the spooky instantaneous, FTL action at a distance.)

      I also thought about this problem... It would be necessary to develop some means of identifying when the marble changed color because of you (error correction? better control of local conditions of the container?) or because of the other scientist.

      Remember once more, none of you had any control over what color your marble turned.

      That's the point I'd like to research/try more: Try to find means to set the color of the marble without breaking the entanglement, if this is not currently possible.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    25. Re:Is this faster than light? by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      Not exactly, you are describing the hidden-variable theory that Einstein favoured. This is not what Nature is doing. With quantum entanglement, here is what happens (simplified):

      The color of the marble is a combination of RGB values between +1 and 0. This mean your marble could have a Red component, a Green component and a Blue component. So it could be totally black or totally white, it could be also blue, red, or green but also magenta, yellow and cyan. However, you cannot observe the three colours simultaneously. You have to decide whether to look the blue channel, the red channel or the green channel, or at your convenience, a fixed linear combination of all three. You have no idea regarding the true Color of the marble whatever you do.

      What quantum mechanics says is that if you have in your two boxes two entangled marbles, one on Earth and the other on Alpha Centauri, their colours are not fixed until you observe them. And then you have to decide what channel to look for in advance.

      Say that you and your friend decide ahead of time to look at the green channel. Quantum mechanics says that at the moment that one of you look at that channel, then the other will see the negative of this observation. If you observe that your marble has a green component (it may then be pure green, or white, or cyan, or yellow) then the other observes that it does *not* have a green component (it may be black, pure red, pure blue, or magenta).

      However, the other components are not only unknown, they are actually random and not related. In other words, the observation disentangles the two marbles but only fixes one of the components. The other components are chosen randomly and are not related.

      Einstein thought that if you observe one marble, all three components would be flipped between Earth and Alpha Centauri. I.e if the marble on Earth was actually cyan (blue+green) then the other would be pure red, but this is not what happens. Only one component is flipped, the one you actually observe first, and the observation causes the flipping. The flipping is instantaneous.

      I'm simplifying a great deal. In reality one observes a spin with 3 components and only one component can be observed, but it is not binary, but essentially this is similar to what happens.

    26. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an Arse

    27. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if they also add a category for "Technically Correct"--which is the best kind of correct.

    28. Re:Is this faster than light? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The answers to your two questions are "no" and "no", according to quantum mechanics. If you set one property, you change the property and break entanglement. If you measure one property, you change it. Assume you have an electron scheme, and you divide the stream into electrons with up and down spin. Now, take one of those streams, with uniform vertical spin, and measure their left-and-right spin. Take one of those streams and measure up and down spin, and it'll be 50-50. People have done this sort of experiment. It's not that difficult.

      I mean, it's conceivable that there could be some such effect, but it completely disagrees with everything we know about quantum entanglement. It would be entirely new and unsuspected science.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    29. Re:Is this faster than light? by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      Actual physicist here.

      Most if not all the weird phenomena in quantum mechanics more or less come from the same thing: There is less measurable "information" in the state than the size of the state space. Entanglement isn't any weirder than anything else in quantum mechanics, and is a natural part of it. The measurement problem is the strange thing here. If you measure the spin of an electron, you can only get one of two values, +1/2 or -1/2 (in units of hbar), although the formalism of QM allows the spin to be any point on a sphere, where +1/2 and -1/2 are the poles of the sphere. Now, what was the spin of the electron prior to the measurement? There isn't a clear answer to this. Did the spin "change" to +1/2, when you measured it, or was it +1/2 all along?

      Entanglement merely asks the same question.

      If you previously did not know the state of the electron prior to the measurement, it is natural to assume that the electron was in the measured state all along. And if you repeat this measurement many times, you will find that the measurement is always +1/2 or -1/2. So, if you regard your measurement as giving the state before the measurement, that means your source of electrons is generating electrons in the state +1/2 or -1/2 along some axis. The strangeness is that you can choose the axis with which to measure the spin. Choose a different axis, and you will measure +1/2 or -1/2 on the new axis for all the new electrons. It seems like all the new electrons are now aligned with a different axis. How do the electrons that are generated "know" to be aligned with your measurement device? Therefore, you conclude that electrons must be "changed" by the measurement, even though you can never see the change take place.

      But entanglement shows us that if this measurement effect is a "change", then the change must be non-local (spooky action at a distance). That is, it doesn't seem to occur at any particular place and time, but rather globally, like there is a sort of consistency requirement over the whole history of the universe. The measurement effect is a very special kind of "change" which is different than any kinematic change, and can't transfer information.

    30. Re:Is this faster than light? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In fact, "incorrect" is 77% "correct"!

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    31. Re:Is this faster than light? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Determining the polarization of one particle gives you information about what the guy with the other particle is likely to find. It doesn't change what the other guy is likely to find.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    32. Re:Is this faster than light? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Also, there's no "the spin". If an electron had a certain given spin, and we were just limited in how we could measure it, we'd get significantly different results sending entangled particles through spin measuring devices oriented 45 degrees apart.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    33. Re:Is this faster than light? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Let's assume we're measuring electron spin, just to be specific. You can measure electron spin around any axis you like. If you have entangled electrons, you don't have to measure them with the same axis. However, you've just determined the spin.

      Take a spin-measuring device and sort electrons into an up stream and a down stream. Now, take the up stream and sort it left-right. Now, sort the left stream and you'll find it's half up and half down.

      Now, if you could read the up-down spin and the left-right spin independently, and with all other orientations, you could find the exact spin axis of an electron - except we know it doesn't have one. We can take entangled electrons, and measure their spins with respect to axes 45 degrees apart, and find the number of same and opposite results. Statistically, we'd get a certain ratio if electrons had an actual spin, and we don't get that.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    34. Re:Is this faster than light? by Cacadril · · Score: 1

      It would be necessary to develop some means of identifying when the marble changed color because of you (error correction? better control of local conditions of the container?) or because of the other scientist.

      I was not thinking of determination through precision measurements. I was thinking of the fundamental issue of relativity theory, of the ambiguity of "simultaneity" for events that are "space-like" separated.

      Space-like separation means that to some observers, in a certain state of motion, the events are exactly simultaneous. It's not about when they see the events as light from the events reach them. It's that even counting the time of propagation of light signals, these observers calculate that the events actually happened at the same point in time. But then other observers assign different time coordinates to the two events if they are moving relative to these observers along the axis separating the events. Depending on the direction of movement, they assign event A or event B the earlier time coordinate. And their descriptions are just as physically valid as the other observer's descriptions. All descriptions agree with the same laws of Nature.

      In these circumstances, it is equally true and valid to say that Donald was asked first, and that question has an "instant" effect on Hillary who then answered correspondingly when she was asked later, as it is true that Hillary was asked first and Donald later.

      --
      There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
    35. Re:Is this faster than light? by Cacadril · · Score: 1

      In these circumstances, it is equally true and valid to say that Donald was asked first, and that question has an "instant" effect on Hillary who then answered correspondingly when she was asked later, as it is true that Hillary was asked first and Donald later.

      Sorry for mixing up.. Donald and Hillary was another analogy further down the page. In this thread it should be: it is equally valid to say that the fellow scientist at Alpha Centauri shook his marble first and forced your marble to assume the other color, as it is to say that you shook your marble first and forced the Alpha Centauri marble to assume the other color.

      --
      There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
    36. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Interesting. but I think I figured something to solve at least this part of the issue: Using a "full duplex" connection, i.e. one entangled pair to receive and another pair to transmit, where you know that you should not interfere with your receiver particle so if it changes color it's because the other scientist actions (Of course this still leaves open the question of how to read the color without the own reading causing the color change)

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    37. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well crafted!

    38. Re:Is this faster than light? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      It seems that my comment attracted the wrath of a bunch of people who do not like to be contradicted and who have mod points. I do not give a shit about them.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    39. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only when we have an "asshole" category for guys like you

    40. Re:Is this faster than light? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice start for a civilized troll, but you forgot to factor in trump

  10. For us laymen by raymorris · · Score: 4, Funny

    For those of us who don't know enough to really understand it, we can think of it like a cat.
      You pull the cat's tail on one end, the cat meows on the other end. Quantum entanglement is exactly like that. Except there is no cat.

    (The above is an old description of radio, often attributed to Einstein. Doesn't sound like Einstein's sense of humor, though.)

    1. Re:For us laymen by gotan · · Score: 1

      For those of us who don't know enough to really understand it, we can think of it like a cat.

        You pull the cat's tail on one end, the cat meows on the other end. Quantum entanglement is exactly like that. Except there is no cat.

      No it isn't, because that would mean you could transmit signals by means of quantum entanglement, which you can't.

      It's more like: if you look at the lengthwise orientation of the cat and get to see the tail, then the nose must be on the other end and vice versa. But you also might want to look at the crosswise orientation of the cat, and if you get to see the left ear on your side, the right ear must be on the other side. Also the cat has the strange property, that if you know all about the lengthwise orientation you can't know anything at all about the crosswise orientation.

      But then cats are strange anyway.

      (The above is an old description of radio, often attributed to Einstein. Doesn't sound like Einstein's sense of humor, though.)

      Radio is different from quantum entanglement, and for a radio electromagnetic waves replace the cat as signal transmission mechanism.

      The humor sounds more like Feynman.

      --
      "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
    2. Re:For us laymen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What color is the fur of the cat?

    3. Re:For us laymen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's more like if you cut a cat in half, move the two halves apart, then a few days later you smell one half, you know that the other half also smells.

  11. Drum tuning. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is no action at a distance, spooky or otherwise. Measurements in one place correlate with measurements in another place. On top of that, if a measurement doesn't correlate, they consider the particles not to be entangled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    It can still be used for encryption, since correlated particles that are impossible to measure completely are still useful for foiling eavesdroppers.

    This "demonstration" on the other hand, is just showing off how good they are at drum tuning. I assume stupid rich people are much more willing to fund them if they pretend it's also magic rather than just drum tuning?

  12. Mindboggleology by bestweasel · · Score: 1

    How close are we to a mathematical model for this spooky action at a distance?

    1. Re:Mindboggleology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There isn't any action at a distance, so modelling it is easy with hidden variables.

      Everything else about quantum mechanics is still pretty weird, though.

    2. Re:Mindboggleology by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      There are no local hidden variables. There may be global hidden variables, but most physicists don't think so.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  13. Spooky action but value was encoded before it left by 0x537461746943 · · Score: 1

    Spooky action at a distance boils down to a simple thing really. Take a coin and slice it in half so that heads is on one piece and tails is on the other and don't look at it. Now put one piece in an envelope and send it to person A. Put the second piece in a second envelope and send it to the second person B. Now when person A opens the envelope and reads the value, They will also know the value that was sent to A. The information was encoded in the envelope before it left so it is not a mystery how they both get the values.

  14. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by 0x537461746943 · · Score: 1

    The second to last sentence was supposed to read...

    Now when person A opens the envelope and reads the value, They will also know the value that was sent to B (B not A).

  15. Has this experiment even been replicated? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By Whom, When and Where?

  16. Clarification needed by FranklinWebber · · Score: 4, Informative

    I find the summary in great need of clarification. Let me attempt to clarify it in the hope that will be useful to other readers.

    First, the linked article links to a much better summary written by one of the team members, Matt Woolley. I recommend you read it instead:
    https://theconversation.com/ex...

    Second, the summary conflates *mass* with *distance*. The experimenters claim to have entangled remarkably massive objects (compared to the mass of atoms, for example). But the summary says 'any attempt to increase the sizes has caused problems with stability' and that, taken literally, is not true. For example, here's an experiment from 1998 in which entanglement was maintained over a distance of kilometers:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Finally, the summary claims 'a major step forward in our understanding of quantum physics' but I doubt that. It sounds to me like a major accomplishment but one that *confirms* our previous understanding of quantum physics in more massive systems.

  17. Re:Cold Fusion Rides Again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not quite the same as the cold fusion. With cold fusion there wasn't any cold fusion and some combination of noise and bad experimental setup made it look like there was. With entanglement, the entanglement part is not actually science. There isn't any way to disprove that measuring one particle affects the other particle. Science requires that a hypothesis be falsifiable.

  18. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by TooManyNames · · Score: 1

    What you're talking about are hidden variables, and Einstein considered them as a way to explain away the spookiness. The problem is, people like John Bell came up with pretty ingenious ways of testing whether hidden variables are really responsible for the spookiness, and, in short, they aren't*. Veritassium actually has a pretty good explanation of why hidden variables don't work.

    *Okay, local hidden variables (like those in your example) are ruled out. It is possible that hidden variables, that stretch across the whole of the universe, could still be in play.

    --
    "Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
  19. mark my words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    all this proves is that thee are more then the known dimensions and that this other dimension is very compacted relative to our own such that you can have this interaction.The fact iits not easy at large sizes kinda makes logical sense , now heres a what if ...all this dark matter isn't matter its a pull from one dimension and a push from another , hence why you cannot SEE either.

  20. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bell offered absolutely zero evidence that the correlation between particle spins should vary linearly with measurement angle, only a classical analogy for spin even though spin is a quantum mechanical phenomenon.

    The measurement of spin is really a measurement of an electric field. A measurement of a locally uniform electric field would vary with the sine of the measurement angle.

    Seems more likely that Bell was a dumbass than that he proved the existence of what is basically magic inconsistent with all other known laws of physics.

  21. Quantum computing? by bursch-X · · Score: 1

    I always thought quantum computing was mainly based on quantum entanglement. So is that wrong or is quantum computing simply a pie in the sky project topped with a lot of BS?

    --
    There are two rules for success:
    1. Never tell everything you know.
    1. Re:Quantum computing? by Garridan · · Score: 1

      Most quantum computing efforts are purely electrical in their implementations, so the entangled objects are "massless" (cough cough electrons have mass). Entanglement of photons has been long-since demonstrated. This "massive" entanglement involves moving mass around. I'm not impressed by the technicality but curious about its applications

    2. Re:Quantum computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quantum computing is more about leveraging quantum uncertainty. A qubit exists in all possible states at once, so if you have several strung together, it is like having a huge solution set to a problem, if you can figure out a way to ask the question that shows you where the where in the system of qubit states that your answer lies, you don't have to compute anything, you simply have to read the proper quantum states. I know, it makes my head hurt too. This video may help:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  22. Massive Scale? by xettera · · Score: 1

    How is 15 micrometers a "massive scale"?

    1. Re: Massive Scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Convert it into Planck lengths and you'll see.

    2. Re: Massive Scale? by novakyu · · Score: 1

      I have a plank that measures over 60,000 15-microns. Which is more massive?

      P.S. In seriousness, though, Planck length is such an absurd scale to compare against. We are nowhere near probing physics at the Planck scale for the foreseeable future / generations.

  23. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by TheZeitgeist · · Score: 1

    If I recall, John Bell was not a fan of the Copenhagen interpretation, was very interested in De Broglie-Bohm pilot-wave interpretation (using non-local hidden variables), and his theorem was built as a test of local-hidden variable theories - which have been ruled out by his theorem.

  24. Entanglement exclusive to quantum properties by TheZeitgeist · · Score: 1

    And quantum properties are always discreet state-changes, like flipping bits. There is no entanglement property that extends beyond a single degree of freedom; i.e. one single dimension. I've always thought that an interesting observation.

  25. Re:Hillary in 2020 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I collapse your eigenstate and falsify your conclusion. Bam.

  26. The Ghost Dimension by thePjunisher · · Score: 1

    This again. There's no need to get all Paranormal Activity on poor Einstein; the term he used was 'spukhafte Fernwirkung', which is not 'spooky action at a distance', it's much better translated as 'ghostly action at a distance'.

    1. Re:The Ghost Dimension by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      This again. There's no need to get all Paranormal Activity on poor Einstein; the term he used was 'spukhafte Fernwirkung', which is not 'spooky action at a distance', it's much better translated as 'ghostly action at a distance'.

      Could you please explain how 'ghostly' is less paranormal than 'spooky'? In my opinion, 'ghostly' is more magicky than 'spooky'.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  27. EPR does allow instantaneous communication by ext42fs · · Score: 1

    I think this is incorrect and EPR does allow instantaneous (i.e. FTL) communications except that the entangled particles have to travel first and this is bound by the speed of light. So EPR seems to use bandwidth in the past. However, there are some conflicts with other theories so science came up with the "no-communication theorem" to fix the breakage as far as I understand it.

    1. Re:EPR does allow instantaneous communication by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      EPR doesn't allow instantaneous communication. If you measure your particle, you know (to a certain extent, depending on how the other guy measures) the other guy's particle measurement. One way to model a very small part of this is to think of two envelopes, one with a red card and one with a black. If you open your envelope and it's red, you know the other guy has the black card.

      This being quantum mechanics, there's a lot more than that going on. The orientation of the envelope when you open it can change the color of the card inside, for example. If you open yours rightside up and find a red card, and you know the other guy is opening his upside down, you know he's got a red card. If you open yours rightside up and the other guy opens at a 45-degree angle, then you'll get more different-colored than same-colored cards. If you do the two-envelope thing a lot, you'll find that the stats get weird.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  28. One particle universe. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The whole universe consists of only one particle that is everywhere, and everywhen at all places and all the time. Go to bed Einstein, i have just solved it. All any other has to do is prove it.

  29. The article is about massive mechanical ocillators by gotan · · Score: 1

    And in that context "massive" probably just means "has mass", i.e. inertia is of central importance.

    Apparently the slashdot submitter misinterpreted "massive" to implicate scale as in "really heavy".

    Of course 10^12 Atoms is quite a step up from single atoms or simple molecules.

    --
    "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
  30. Reality does not care for what you think is more l by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Occam's razor is horribly misunderstood by morons.

    All it means is that the choice you think is most likely is the best to try first! Not that it must be any of those "likely" choices *at all*.
    It can still be the 354th choice that soundn completely ridiculos and t

  31. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by chittychitty!! · · Score: 2

    Actually, not quite. For the analogy to work, each half of the coin is equally heads and tails until the measurement. Only the entanglement itself (i.e. that one is opposite the other) was encoded in the envelope to begin with.
    We might need another analogy. Consider Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as entangled particles guaranteed to hold opposite views on any given topic. With Hillary in New York and Donald in Los Angeles, ask Donald a question about one of the few things he has no opinion on. Until you ask, nobody (including Donald and Hillary) can know what his answer will be. But as soon as you ask and he answers, we Know what Hillary thinks about the subject as well.
    Now, at this point, Donald and Hillary have taken Stands on the issue. Before the question was asked, each of them equally supported and opposed the issue. Once the question was asked, one fully supported and the other fully opposed the issue. If you then manage to convince Donald to change his mind, your efforts destroy the entanglement, so it will not change Hillary's opinion.

  32. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except that it wasn't encoded before it left. The value of the particle has been proven not to have been pre-determined. It doesn't get selected until you look at it, and therefore that information somehow makes it to the partner particle instantaneously.

  33. Definitively classical by gotan · · Score: 1

    Quantum teleportation requires a "classical" channel.

    This is also described in the WP-Article. I wonder if you really need to transfer 2 classical bits per qubit though.

    There are some quantum computer simulators out there with which one can "simulate" quantum teleportation.

    E.g. http://algassert.com/quirk has a ready teleportation example under "Menu" with which one can play around.

    --
    "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
    1. Re:Definitively classical by FranklinWebber · · Score: 1

      No, quantum teleportation requires information to be sent in addition to the entangled state, and one can think of measuring the amount of that information classically, but there is no prohibition on sending the additional information non-classically. As qbits, for example.

      Perhaps this is a matter of the meaning of the term 'channel'. I'll avoid that term by saying the additional information needed for quantum teleportation can be sent either classically or quantum mechanically.

      To use your example of sending 2 classical bits to teleport 1 qbit: those 2 classical bits represent two binary decisions the receiver must make. How the receiver comes to make those decisions correctly is not crucial.

    2. Re:Definitively classical by gotan · · Score: 1

      Sending it as qbits again requires some classical channel.

      The point is: there is no way around sending some information in a channel (or by a method) that transfers it with light speed at max. Thus quantum teleportation can not be used as a means of faster than light communication.

      If you want to nitpick you can replace "classical channel" with "a means to transfer classical information (e.g. a pattern of ones and zeroes)". noting that for such an informaion transfer (a) no faster than light transfer is known and (b) FTL would imply violation of causality according to SRT.

      --
      "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
  34. because physicists chose convenient coordinates by gotan · · Score: 1

    The physicists chose to describe their system in a convenient coordinate system, and usually work with very simple systems as well, e.g. those that have only two states like qubits.

    Sure one could work with more complex systems, atoms with higher spins or systems of multiple particles, but that would just make everything more complicated, when there's still much to learn from simple systems.

    --
    "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
  35. haha in what anti earth? by cheekyboy · · Score: 0

    everyone is leaving the shit hole dem states coz of shit dem policies.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
    1. Re:haha in what anti earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah. The "Utopian Republocan States" are in FAR more danger from "reality" than "libruls". Luckily, Republicans are Completely Unaware of Reality(TM).

    2. Re: haha in what anti earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will never understand why the whole of US only has 2 political parties and none of them are truly socialists.

  36. Re:Reality does not care for what you think is mor by Megol · · Score: 1

    Yes Occam's razor is often misunderstood and misused. It's only an (on the surface) obvious rule that one should check the easy explanations first.

    Many people that should know better take it as meaning one of the easy explanations _is_ the answer instead of one of the easy explanations being very likely to be right. That can introduce biases in the process.

  37. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Until you ask, nobody (including Donald and Hillary) can know what his answer will be. But as soon as you ask and he answers, we Know what Hillary thinks about the subject as well."

    surely this should be Score 5, Funny. How obtuse are you guys anyway?

  38. The myth of action at a distance.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Scientist have enticed an audience with the idea that something magical happens, something Einstein called spooky.. But this is a myth\

    it is the result of describing what happens as "one electron/photon instantly changes its spin when you measure the other far away" that is just a
    misrepresentation. What entanglement is is that some quantum processes produce two or more particles that always have specific flavors/types, and you can
    know the type by elimination. So two go their separate ways, and you don't know their types, then you measure one (gets destroyed in the process), and you can infer the other. No data can be send using this phenomena, because what you know is local, what you know about the distant particle is predicted by the local, so it does not add any information. So sorry guys, no sci fi stuff here..

  39. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

    Some time ago I read a possible explanation for the entanglement that makes sense even though it leaves physicists ripping out their hair... That perhaps two entangled particles are, somehow, actually the same particle existing in two places at the same time.

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
  40. I know what's holding them back by MiniMike · · Score: 1

    two 15-micrometer-wide vibrating drum heads

    Do they have any 15-micrometer-wide cowbells to go with those drums? They need more cowbell! Einstein was a huge fan of BOC.

  41. Alt reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since Nature is paywalled, use this link to learn more about this work

    https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.01640

  42. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by TooManyNames · · Score: 1

    This actually sounds like the one-electron theory, which postulated that positrons are just electrons traveling backwards in time, allowing for the possibility of just one "electron" in the universe (any electron you observe is just the universal electron at a particular time instance, and the same would apply to observed positrons). Entangled electrons or positrons, then, would literally just be the same actual particle (or rather, field fluctuation). The problem with this particular theory is that, if true, one would expect to see the same amount of positrons as electrons, which just doesn't seem to be the case. I would expect that there's probably a similar issue with the general idea of any entangled particles being the same particle.

    --
    "Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
  43. There's a finite amount of sex in the universe by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    I've always believed this. For every guy that gets laid a LOT, there is a guy who never does because of a variation of the First Law of Thermodynamics. Building upon this theory, there may very well be quantum entanglement when it comes to sex. For example, some guy manages to c*ckblock another guy without even being in the room.

    1. Re:There's a finite amount of sex in the universe by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Building upon this theory, there may very well be quantum entanglement when it comes to sex. For example, some guy manages to c*ckblock another guy without even being in the room.

      That other guy is called the "ex-boyfriend". The c*ckblocking occurs the moment she thinks of him.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  44. Massive confusion. by Normal_Deviate · · Score: 1

    Despite all assertions to the contrary, information has been teleported. The information is: "Your wavefunction is now collapsed." This information travels faster than light, and is received by the entangled atom. The question is: can we tell it happened? This is the same as asking: Can we detect when a particle's wavefunction collapses? Under some circumstances, we can, because the superposed states interfere with each other. See, e.g., single-photon, two-slit experiment. I can never get an intelligent response to this seemingly obvious point.

  45. Re:Cold Fusion Rides Again by Khashishi · · Score: 1

    With entanglement, the entanglement part is not actually science. There isn't any way to disprove that measuring one particle affects the other particle.

    Do you even science, bro? I don't think you even know what entanglement is. Entanglement is a part of standard quantum mechanics. It doesn't say that measuring one particle affects the other particle.

  46. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by Cacadril · · Score: 1

    Until you ask, nobody (including Donald and Hillary) can know what his answer will be. But as soon as you ask and he answers, we Know what Hillary thinks about the subject as well.

    Very good! Now add to this that to actually see the effect, somebody must ask Hillary the same question. They will have opposite opinions even if asked simultaneously while far apart. But then nobody can tell if it was you who started the effect by asking Donald and thereby made Hillary have the opposite opinion of Donald, or if it was the other person who asked Hillary who made Donald have the opposite opinion of Hillary.

    The mystery is how Donald and Hillary seem to have a faster-than-light coordination channel. It looks as if they had agreed before how to answer, but the Bell tests show that the statistics of their answers do not fit a theory of previous agreement. However, in any case there is no faster-than-light communication between you and the other person who asks Hillary. You both get to know how Donald and Hillary respond, but none of you get to know anything that the other of you wanted to transmit through the questions. You don't get to know if the other person asked first. You need to meet before to coordinate your questions, or you can ask random questions and meet afterward and compare questions and answers. You will find that IF you happened to ask identical or similar question, then the answers were in fact opposite.

    --
    There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
  47. Not 1st macro-entanglement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Two macroscopic diamonds were quantum entangled 7 years ago, according to a Scientific American article "Quantum Entanglement Links 2 Diamonds" by John Matson on December 1, 2011 (which referenced a Science article entitled "Entangling Macroscopic Diamonds at Room Temperature" from DEC 2011). Consequently, the abstract for the Nature article referenced in the Slashdot post mentions this paper. I remembered that story because the 1st time something happens, it usually only happens once--unless they were quantum entangled, I suppose.

    1. Re:Not 1st macro-entanglement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have not seen it in action with diamonds, but I surely saw it many times with the tail of a lizard once it was separated from the lizards body.
      Not sure if that lizards tail is an example of Quantum Entanglement.

  48. Non Paywalled version by h8sg8s · · Score: 1
    --
    Organization? You must be joking..
  49. Re:Cold Fusion Rides Again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The second sentence of the summary claimed: "Quantum entanglement links particles in a way that they instantly affect each other, even over vast distances."

    I sort of barely agree with you that quantum mechanics doesn't say that measuring one particle affects the other particle, but a whole lot of people do say that one particle affects the other particle. Have you considered disagreeing with them rather than arguing semantics with me?

  50. Life on the Edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Quantum Engagement may exist on a biologic scale. Some evidence that it is the enabling mechanism in the action of enzymes, bird migration by magnetic field and more. Check out "Life on the Edge", McFadden and Al-Khalili. Really interesting book and great summary of quantum physics.

    1. Re:Life on the Edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hah. Auto-correct. Quantum Entanglement.

      Quantum engagement must be a Kardashian thing.

  51. Re:Cold Fusion Rides Again by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Quantum entanglement is science. It's statistically falsifiable. Do the same experiment a bunch of times and keep track of the results.

    For example, send two entangled particles out, and do the exact same measurement on both of them, and you get opposite results. There's no way to set that up normally. If you have two electrons, one measured with spin up and one measured with spin down, that are not entangled, measuring them for left-right spin will mean they're the same half the time and opposite half the time. If you measure one up-down and the other in an axis 45 degrees off, you'll get a certain number of same and a certain number of different matches, and this turns out to be very enlightening.

    You're not going to prove anything with one entangled particle pair. You need lots of them.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  52. Re:Spooky action but value was encoded before it l by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Yup. A scientist can come up with a momentous result that's not what the scientist expected or wanted.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  53. Re:Hillary in 2020 by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

    I was pulling for Pocahontas

  54. Re:NONSENSE by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

    Ever heard of Plato ... Socrates ...

    If gravity was incoherent magnetism couldn't you cancel it out with a Faraday cage?

    Or maybe you were being intentionally facetious ...

  55. Quantum Computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes. That's how quantum computers work, for one thing.