6 ms·
It is worth pointing out that zero actual information is transferred, it's just an inexact analogy to describe a problem space which lacks terms in plain Englis
by ar9av 4y ago
It is worth pointing out that zero actual information is transferred, it's just an inexact analogy to describe a problem space which lacks terms in plain English to describe it. It's not possible to communicate faster than light with this mechanism. What can be done is to generate same random numbers in two and only two distant places at the same time. That has great application in secure communications because it bypasses the entire need for potentially insecure key exchange mechanisms, but because the numbers generated are truly random they contain no information and this mechanism cannot be used to cause an effect faster than light, it does not violate relativity in any way.
- dclowd9901 4y agoHow are the random numbers generated? Like, what are they generated from?
- simonh 4y agoQuantum wave functions represent a probability distribution for the characteristics of an object in quantum mechanics, such as a particle or photon. When you measure it, that probability distribution resolves to a discrete value. So basically when you measure the spin of a particle, god rolls some dice to determine what it is. That’s one interpretation anyway.
- dclowd9901 4y agoSo you’re talking about the collapse of the wave function. If I collapse the wave function on one entangled particle, is the other entangled particle collapsed as well?
- andreareina 4y agoExperiments upholding Bell's inequalities imply it is.
- dclowd9901 4y agoSo couldn’t you send a bunch of entangled particles somewhere and collapse the wave function on them in sequence in some way as to communicate faster than the speed of light?
- roywiggins 4y agoAll you can do with your half of the pair is observe its state after the wave function collapsed. Whether it collapsed because you just poked it or because the other half of the pair was poked first can't be known without comparing notes afterward using classical means. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoAn interferometer can differentiate that. If a photon is in superposition, it exits interferometer on a certain path, if it's collapsed, it exits on a random path. If you send 100 such photons, you can send 1 bit this way with good precision.
- Workaccount2 4y agoAlthough not informed enough to comment on this, I do know that if it was true, it would break relativity and that would have come across my feed at some point. So I would say you are missing something.
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoI made it up. Any nonlocality breaks relativity, this doesn't break it further. You can still say the same thing - it's okay because why not. Or you mean it will be a paradox if they receive a message in the past? I guess it can be prevented if the entangled photon doesn't interfere with itself.
- 4y ago
- roywiggins 4y agoIt's definitely not going to let you perform superluminal signalling but it is still plenty weird, eg: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_pseudo-telepathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_pseudo-telepathy