3 ms·
They are explicitly saying this will help them keep the two atomic clocks better synchronized. Which is terribly useful for radio astronomy. But it does seem li
by galangalalgol 4y ago
They are explicitly saying this will help them keep the two atomic clocks better synchronized. Which is terribly useful for radio astronomy. But it does seem like that would imply information had been transferred. If it really does work I want to see what happens when you put one in orbit for a while. Donthe differential frames of reference decohere them?
- tbrownaw 4y agoI'm pretty sure that setting up entanglement involves information transfer.
- andreareina 4y agoSure. The article implies that post-entanglement, perturbations of one particle's state will transfer to the other, which is not the case.
- tbrownaw 4y agoI don't think it does? Atomic clocks don't exactly count atomic oscillations the way a grandfather clock counts pendulum swings. They have a more normal oscillator, and then keep that calibrated by checking it against atomic oscillations measured over some relatively short time. Thirs is a way to let those repeated short measurements be more accurate. It doesn't mean that the oscillations of the atoms in both clocks are somehow locked together over the long term.
- andreareina 4y agoFTA (emphasis mine): Two atomic clocks have been connected using quantum entanglement – a property that intrinsically links them so that changes in one instantaneously affect the other. Paywall beyond there so I don't know how they entangled the clocks, I'm just responding to the popsci description of entanglement which the article repeats.
- tbrownaw 4y agoAh, that's the sketchy-at-best popular description of entanglement rather than anything to do with this experiment in particular. It's wrong in that it's meant for a lay audience, and to a lay audience (I think I've heard that the quantum folks define it differently?) the word "affect" implies things like causality and information transfer.