Quantum entanglement

[Panda]

Originally Posted by Troublemane

ya, supposedly its got to do with any kind of measurement. which is why i started thinking it may be due to the particle being in a high energy state (ie going real fast) then transiting to a low energy state (striking a detector). quantum theory only describes the path of the photon from the emitter to the detector as a probability, but the results show the photon somehow seems to strike only where it would if it was going through both slits at once....this is baffling, unless you think of it in terms of the photon travelling so fast that space and time shrink to zero, then it makes sense that the slits would seem to merge into one. in fact there would be no apparent distance between the emitter and the detector.

So you do not believe in wave particle duality? If you don't what do you think of the alternative Particle Only and Wave Only theory's?

[Kungfuzed]

Originally Posted by little_monkey

Action at a distance (Newtonian physics) has long been replaced by Quantum Field Theory, oh say, about 80 years ago.

OTOH, Quantum entanglement is so weird that even Einstein was spooked by it.

I've never had physics class. I just like playing with magnets.

[Troublemane]

LoL,thats funny, cuz im not sure what to make of them. I call them particles, but they are probably not "solid" things, you know like ball bearings, LoL. I guess i think of them as more like little blobs, or raindrops of energy, than solid things. Though I believe they've managed to capture atoms, much to the chagrin of a few proponents of the uncertainty theory who called it 'impossible'.

another interesting thing is the effect of supercooling, when atoms are brought down to temperatures approaching absolute zero they seem to act like a laser---they synchronize into one big particle, like what happens when a metal becomes a superconductor. isnt that awesome? i just love this stuff

[Panda]

Originally Posted by Troublemane

LoL,thats funny, cuz im not sure what to make of them. I call them particles, but they are probably not "solid" things, you know like ball bearings, LoL. I guess i think of them as more like little blobs, or raindrops of energy, than solid things. Though I believe they've managed to capture atoms, much to the chagrin of a few proponents of the uncertainty theory who called it 'impossible'.

Hmm but if the building blocks aren't solid how can the ball bearing be solid?

Originally Posted by Troublemane

another interesting thing is the effect of supercooling, when atoms are brought down to temperatures approaching absolute zero they seem to act like a laser---they synchronize into one big particle, like what happens when a metal becomes a superconductor. isnt that awesome? i just love this stuff

Try putting a magnet over a superconductor. The superconductor has an induced magnetic field the exact opposite of the magnet so the magnet will float .

[Troublemane]

Originally Posted by Panda

Hmm but if the building blocks aren't solid how can the ball bearing be solid?

hmmm good question! maybe nothing is really solid!

Try putting a magnet over a superconductor. The superconductor has an induced magnetic field the exact opposite of the magnet so the magnet will float .

neato!

[little_monkey]

Originally Posted by Panda

Are you perhaps getting confused with the fairly recent discovery that accelerating particles to near light speeds can cause entanglement when none existed when the particle is at rest?

The only condition for quantum entanglement is that there is a source that will send particles in opposite direction. The velocity of those particles don't enter in any calculations ( see Quantum entanglement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

The origin of QE is from the EPR paradox (I have already posted a link for that). At the time, Einstein was trying to show that the Copengagen Interpretation advanced by Bohr was wrong. So he proposed a "thought" experiment, suggesting that there were "hidden" parameters that would link the particles moving in opposite direction. This was in 1936. Bohr could not give an adequate answer. This led some to delve into the idea of "hidden" parammeters -- the one most associated with that line of thinking was David Bohm and his pilot wave theory ( see Pilot wave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). But that was unsuccessful. The next step was John Bell, who in 1964, produced a theorem, now called Bell's theorem (see my website at Bell's inequality for a simple version of it). That theorem opened the door to verify QE experimentally, which until then was only a thought experiment. Alain Aspect was the first to do the experiment that would verify Bell's theorem (he did it as his PhD thesis, see Alain Aspect Ph D thesis ). The irony is that Bell was trying to show with his theorem that Einstein was right in this long debate, but he ended up showing that Einstein was wrong.

So far, there are no theories that can adequately explain QE. But some are taking advantage of it, and have developped quantum computing using the concept of Qubits (see Qubit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

[Seyorni]

I think, in this case, terms like speed and distance can be misleading. A particle "at the other end of the Universe" need not be any farther from the primary particle than I am to this computer.

Keep in mind that we live in a multi-dimentional Reality of which we perceive only three, or three and a half if you count time.

If we lived on a flat plane, like a piece of paper, and knew only two dimensions, two dots on opposite sides of the paper might seem pretty far away. But bend the paper through a third dimension so that the two dots are on top of each other, and they miraculously appear to have suddenly merged through no comprehensible agency.
The trick seems obvious to 3-D creatures. Perhaps the solution to the quantum entanglement question would seem obvious to an 11-D creature, or the solution mathematically clear if we calculated in multiple dimensions.

[little_monkey]

Originally Posted by Seyorni

I think, in this case, terms like speed and distance can be misleading. A particle "at the other end of the Universe" need not be any farther from the primary particle than I am to this computer.

Keep in mind that we live in a multi-dimentional Reality of which we perceive only three, or three and a half if you count time.

If we lived on a flat plane, like a piece of paper, and knew only two dimensions, two dots on opposite sides of the paper might seem pretty far away. But bend the paper through a third dimension so that the two dots are on top of each other, and they miraculously appear to have suddenly merged through no comprehensible agency.
The trick seems obvious to 3-D creatures. Perhaps the solution to the quantum entanglement question would seem obvious to an 11-D creature, or the solution mathematically clear if we calculated in multiple dimensions.

One of the principal aim of the LHC is to explore the notion of higher dimension. No one knows if these will pop out, and at what scale. String Theory depends heavily on higher dimension, but it is regarded as highly speculative. Peter Woit (see Amazon.com: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law: Peter Woit: Books ) and Lee Smolin ( see Amazon.com: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next: Lee Smolin: Books ) are two highly respected physicists who have strongly criticized the theory for not producing one shred of evidence and have called on the physic community to start looking at other theories. Perhaps there are higher dimensions, but even at that, no one has a plausible theory ( that is, a set of equations and predictions that can be verifiable) to explain QE.

[Seyorni]

I agree, LM. String "theory" is speculation, at best a thought-experiment, albeit a facsinating one.
The idea of a multi-dimentional Reality is not solely confined to String Theory, though.