3 ms·

One thing to add to your explanation because there is ALWAYS someone who ask: this "spooky action at distance" cannot be used to communicate faster than light.

by renox 9y ago

drusepth 9y ago
To add to this: - Even if you throw the coin to your friend at the speed of light, you can still know what your friend's coin will land on before it happens. (Picture your friend a million light-years away, and you tossing your coin a few feet up. You look at yours to see 'heads', and look into the distance knowingly.) - Even though you know this information, you can't tell your friend ahead of time what their coin will land on, because that information can't travel faster than the speed of light (which the coin is also traveling at). - This holds even if you throw a coin at a super-slow speed to your friend and then transmit to them what their coin will land on: they'll know before it happens technically, but the information itself still travels at the speed of light.
- ionwake 9y ago
  But what if you simply change the State of a particle - as a method of communication? Is that possible? To change the state of a quantom entangled particle? So that the other user can perceive the state change instantaneously? I guess not but it wasn't clear to me.
  - drusepth 9y ago
    I believe the caveat here is that once either particle is observed, both are "constantized" into their final states (and manual changes to either no longer affects the other). For example, until you look at your coin, it could either be heads or tails (and your friend's coin could also be tails or heads). Once you look at it and see that it's heads, it'll forever be heads -- and your friend's coin will forever be tails, regardless of whether they look at their coin when it arrives. The opposite is true: if you don't look at your coin and your friend does, then tells you his coin is tails, you can know your coin is heads. You can't change it to be tails and tell your friend he must've seen wrong -- his is still tails and yours is still heads. Obviously that's a super-simplified version (because I don't understand it all myself), but the gist is: once either entangled particle is observed, the bond between the two is broken and any manual modification of your coin (like flipping it over manually) no longer has any effect on your friend's coin, or vice versa.

One thing to add to your explanation because there is ALWAYS someone who ask: this "spooky action at distance" cannot be used to communicate faster than light.

by renox 9y ago

One thing to add to your explanation because there is ALWAYS someone who ask: this "spooky action at distance" cannot be used to communicate faster than light.

drusepth 9y ago

To add to this: - Even if you throw the coin to your friend at the speed of light, you can still know what your friend's coin will land on before it happens. (Picture your friend a million light-years away, and you tossing your coin a few feet up. You look at yours to see 'heads', and look into the distance knowingly.) - Even though you know this information, you can't tell your friend ahead of time what their coin will land on, because that information can't travel faster than the speed of light (which the coin is also traveling at). - This holds even if you throw a coin at a super-slow speed to your friend and then transmit to them what their coin will land on: they'll know before it happens technically, but the information itself still travels at the speed of light.

ionwake 9y ago
But what if you simply change the State of a particle - as a method of communication? Is that possible? To change the state of a quantom entangled particle? So that the other user can perceive the state change instantaneously? I guess not but it wasn't clear to me.
- drusepth 9y ago
  I believe the caveat here is that once either particle is observed, both are "constantized" into their final states (and manual changes to either no longer affects the other). For example, until you look at your coin, it could either be heads or tails (and your friend's coin could also be tails or heads). Once you look at it and see that it's heads, it'll forever be heads -- and your friend's coin will forever be tails, regardless of whether they look at their coin when it arrives. The opposite is true: if you don't look at your coin and your friend does, then tells you his coin is tails, you can know your coin is heads. You can't change it to be tails and tell your friend he must've seen wrong -- his is still tails and yours is still heads. Obviously that's a super-simplified version (because I don't understand it all myself), but the gist is: once either entangled particle is observed, the bond between the two is broken and any manual modification of your coin (like flipping it over manually) no longer has any effect on your friend's coin, or vice versa.