4 ms·
Conway's description of entanglement is misleading. FIN does not actually apply here. According to quantum physics, no information is exchanged between the pa
by dgreensp 12y ago
Conway's description of entanglement is misleading. FIN does not actually apply here. According to quantum physics, no information is exchanged between the particles. If information is exchanged, it is not limited to any finite speed we know of.
The thought experiment he describes is well-known in the popular science press: you create two particles with opposite spins (angular momenta), but such that the spins are not determined. As soon as you measure the spin of one the spin of the other becomes determined -- INSTANTLY. There is no speed-of-light limit here. If you describe the situation as two particles colluding by sharing some "information," then FIN does not apply, as far as we know! (And if there is a limit, it is greater than the speed of light.) A physicist would instead say that no actual information is transmitted, and entanglement cannot be used to transmit information faster than the speed of light.
Since the metaphor of wave function collapse as information sharing between particles leads to incorrect physics, I don't think we should read too much into the metaphor of measurements as "free choices" of a particle.