5 ms·

The "spookiness" is more subtle than that. You could argue that the cubes have decided on their color as soon as you close the box. Why doesn't this argument

by panic 9y ago

The "spookiness" is more subtle than that. You could argue that the cubes have decided on their color as soon as you close the box. Why doesn't this argument work for real quantum systems? In reality, you're not measuring colors of boxes, but spins of particles. You generate two particles with opposite spins along a known axis. If you measure the spins along that same axis, you always get the same result: one is spinning "clockwise", the other "counterclockwise". On the other hand, if you measure one of the spins along a different axis, you'll randomly get "clockwise" or "counterclockwise" according to the angle between the original spin axis and the measurement axis. Measuring at a right angle to the original axis gives you random results, which is also what you'd expect. But what about the angles in between? Classical statistics says the correlation should vary linearly with the angle, but the actual results have a cosine factor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bell.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bell.svg). This cosine factor can't be explained by any kind of classical statistical randomness. That's the "spooky" part.

rtpg 9y ago
But Bell's equality means that either the system is non-local or non-deterministic. So either it's determined when you close the box, but it's spooky action at a distance. Or it's not determined on box closure (no spooky action) but it has "random-ness".
altcognito 9y ago
Is this fair? The real trick is science found a way to create a pair of of particles with predictable relatable spin values (though not known until observed) and the ability isolate those particles from interference. The emphasis always seems to be on the "spookiness" of the observation, but the real trick is isolation and "entanglement" (pairing of values) in the first place. Furthermore, nothing particularly real occurs at the time of observation, there's no way to tell that an observation of either of the particles has occurred, thus they aren't "tangled" as much encoded, isolated and separated.

by panic 9y ago

rtpg 9y ago

But Bell's equality means that either the system is non-local or non-deterministic. So either it's determined when you close the box, but it's spooky action at a distance. Or it's not determined on box closure (no spooky action) but it has "random-ness".

altcognito 9y ago

Is this fair? The real trick is science found a way to create a pair of of particles with predictable relatable spin values (though not known until observed) and the ability isolate those particles from interference. The emphasis always seems to be on the "spookiness" of the observation, but the real trick is isolation and "entanglement" (pairing of values) in the first place. Furthermore, nothing particularly real occurs at the time of observation, there's no way to tell that an observation of either of the particles has occurred, thus they aren't "tangled" as much encoded, isolated and separated.