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.

Comments

"Massive" scale?

[UnknownSoldier]

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.

Re: "Massive" scale?

[Lanthanide]

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.

Re: "Massive" scale?

[GuB-42]

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.

Re:Is this faster than light?

[Jeremi]

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!