Discussion: Help Sgreger1 understand Quantum Entaglement

[sgreger1]

Re: Discussion: Help Sgreger1 understand Quantum Entaglement

I think string theory is still the favored bridge between general relativity, and quantum mechanics. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that stuff, but it's super fascinating. It's real life magic, with no tricks, or gods involved :^)

Quantum mechanics, and string theory in particular, are extremely fuzzy. We know next to nothing and our attempts at modelling reality on this level are still more akin to guesswork than science.

For quantum mechanics, what interpretation do you chose? Many worlds? Copenhagen? Any other? If so, what do you base that choice on?

Seriously, we're stumbling about in the dark at the moment and it will take a major breakthrough to get anywhere.

To get back to the OPs question about entanglement, I think it's safe to say that there is no commonly accepted explanation as to how it works.

On a personal note, I would strongly advise that you stay away from the "everything is entangled, we're all made of stardust" kind of romantic ideas about the universe. Such nonsense inevitably leads to spiritual and (pseudo) religious ideas seeping into the mix, which do nothing to explain anything.

Yah that's what i've gathered, no one is really sure and it's all just theories backed up by fuzzy math with unsolved variables at this time. Maybe some of the research done at the CERN facility can at least begin to solve some of the more basic questions about things sometime in the next few years.


And i'm not religious or anything like that, but there is a chance that everything is entangled and and in a way we are all made from stardust. Not in a romantic type of way but on a base level it's true, as we are all carbon based life forms with hydrogen and other components of stars etc. Have a little fun, and to be honest some religions have said this for years, so who knows. I like to think about how religion and science may tie in together, but your right, as far as actually observing what is going on, religion has no place in such matters.

[Roo]

So sgreger1, now that you've had a few days with it, help a brother out. How does the observer influence the way a particle behaves? Can it truly be in two places at once or is it the observer who decides where they are looking for it and where it will be found? Tell me what you've learned, my lack of mathematic skills kept me from second-year physics. I still have have formulas taped to the back of a Texas Instrument calculator 8 years later. You have to cheat to get ahead if you do math like me.
(and by "get ahead" I mean a C-/D+)

[wa3zrm]

While we're on the topic of quantum mechanics, I have been reading a lot of articles and research that seems to have a common trend among them; the prediction that quantum computer will start coming into a useable form in between 10-50 years. (A broad guess, I know)

But can anyone imagine what this would mean? It would be like going from using slide rules to using today's supercomputers as far as processing speed is concerned.

As far as computer speed goes, Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware, in which the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.

The capabilities of many digital electronic devices are strongly linked to Moore's law: processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras. All of these are improving at (roughly) exponential rates as well. This has dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy. Moore's law precisely describes a driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The trend has continued for more than half a century and is not expected to stop until 2015 or later.

The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who introduced the concept in a 1965 paper. It has since been used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development.

...and I don't do anything for a living, I'm retired!

[Liandri]

I like to play computer games in my free time.

[sgreger1]

So sgreger1, now that you've had a few days with it, help a brother out. How does the observer influence the way a particle behaves? Can it truly be in two places at once or is it the observer who decides where they are looking for it and where it will be found? Tell me what you've learned, my lack of mathematic skills kept me from second-year physics. I still have have formulas taped to the back of a Texas Instrument calculator 8 years later. You have to cheat to get ahead if you do math like me.
(and by "get ahead" I mean a C-/D+)

Everyone i've asked and everything I read leads to a solid answer on this: No one is exactly sure. Einstein didn't like the fact that they didn't have set values. He said they must already be x,y, or z, and that we just don't know how to properly measure it, or perhaps we don't have a way of measuring what our measuring instruments do to the particles upon our observing them.

In my own personal uneducated conclusion, I could not accept a world where everything is a variable until it is looked at for a few reasons:

A) What drives the outcome once it is observed? Is it constant? Is it random? If we measure the same thing at 10 different times with 10 different people, are the results the same?

B)If they didn't have set values, than it would be a paradox in my mind because that means that if I, or another, is not observing something, it only exists in potential, only as a wave of probability... yet every time I open a can of general, it is general that I find in the can. Something must be constant.

C)The universe is a finely tuned machine, like a software program running countless calculations all the time, all intertwined. If I change one thing, it affects the whole system (the butterfly theory). For it to properly function in my absence, it has to already be set values. If this were not the case, and a tree fell in the forest when no one was around, than no... it would not make a noise, and would not have fallen. Yet we know things happen when we are not observing them.

D) I am still unclear what is defined as an "observer" or "observation". Is it a human with an electron microscope? Is it a deer looking at the trees? If the act of observation changed anything, than how did things exist in a relevant material form prior to life coming to the universe? Prior to the first observation?



To summarize, I have no clue. There are several theories and none of it works unless there is some kind of unifying theory tying all the small things to all the big things.



Riddle me this: If two particles become entangled, if one goes into a black hole, what happens to the other, since it should immediately reflect what it's sister particle in the black hole has become (once observed?)

Is this a way to see inside a black hole, by looking at the particles radiated out of black holes, and seeing what their entangled partner is doing? Is Hawking radiation the correct theory?

What I have found is that to adequately explain quantum mechanics, or to make it useful, we first need to complete a few other steps, like figuring out how everything is intertwined, and how many dimensions there are. Is string theory correct, M theory? I hope the CERN haedron collider can at least start answering some of the basic questions, like what things look like at their root level, whether the higgs boson exists, and whether hawking radiation got it right.

As for how two entangled particles communicate information at a minimum of 10,000x the speed of light, in my mind the only way that could be possible would be if it were moving through other, wrapped up, dimensions like someone else said. For something to travel in the 4 dimensions we exists in at that kind of speed breaks every rule in the book, and creates the paradox of "if it is going that fast, than the two particles would be communicating in a manner that resulted in the particle being observed changing prior to it's entangled partner experiencing the initial change, since going that speed would basically throw you back in time, relative to the observer. So you would observe the change in the entangled particle prior to it actually having changed, depending on what vantage point you are looking at it from.


It's a brain freeze that previously only a slurpee could induce.

[Liandri]

Stop smoking weed.

[CoderGuy]

Here's something to think about.....

Given that, at the point of the big bang, everything was a singularity - i.e. all the energy/matter in the universe today, was compressed smaller than the planck length.

And that matter and energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed from one apparent state to another.

And that waves and particles (i.e. mass and energy) are the same thing

It then follows that EVERYTHING in the universe is "entangled" with every other thing, as "in the beginning" it WAS all part of the same thing (and still is - just with different density levels now.

And another thing to think about. What if:

The "dark matter" and "dark energy" that astrophysicists are currently searching for and that makes up around 85%+ of the mass/energy of the universe is really just the gravitational shadow of the mass/energy that we can see emanating from additional dimensions that are "curled up" at sub planck lengths. i.e. we are not just four dimensional beings living in a four dimensional universe, but really n-dimensional beings living in an n-dimensional universe but that we can only perceive 4 dimensions (I believe the current odd-on favourites for "n" are 10 or 26)

Isn't multidimensional physics fun?

So I guess in simple terms... everyone in the universe is directly related to each other and everyone is incestuous and cannibalistic.

Nice

CG

[lxskllr]

Only marginally relevant, but you might find this interesting...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...am.html?page=1

[CoderGuy]

Only marginally relevant, but you might find this interesting...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...am.html?page=1

That is pretty interesting. The more they find out about this the more likely they will be able to apply the principles to data storage. Pretty soon we will have a Petabyte on a mini SD sized drive.

CG

[adm]

What I really want is a mini SD sized stardrive.

[sgreger1]

Only marginally relevant, but you might find this interesting...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...am.html?page=1

That is pretty interesting. The more they find out about this the more likely they will be able to apply the principles to data storage. Pretty soon we will have a Petabyte on a mini SD sized drive.

CG

Yes very intiresting indeed! Our storage capability is already pretty insane. A terabyte fitting ona small removable hard drive and only 120$, but what we need is ways of moving information over long distances much faster. We need something that makes DSL look like dial up.

[sgreger1]

Only marginally relevant, but you might find this interesting...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...am.html?page=1

Has anyone else ever read the book, "the holographic universe" by michael talbot? It discusses some of these concept in it and is a really interesting read.

[CoderGuy]

Has anyone else ever read the book, "the holographic universe" by michael talbot? It discusses some of these concept in it and is a really interesting read.

I saw it on Amazon, does look pretty interesting. These days I only read e-books but might have to make an exception.

Another book that was paired up with it was "The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe". That one IS available in e-book form and looks interesting as well.

CG

[lxskllr]

Has anyone else ever read the book, "the holographic universe" by michael talbot? It discusses some of these concept in it and is a really interesting read.

I don't read like I used to. I'd like to read more on it, but I never make the time. I usually just find stuff on the web :^/

[sgreger1]

Has anyone else ever read the book, "the holographic universe" by michael talbot? It discusses some of these concept in it and is a really interesting read.

I saw it on Amazon, does look pretty interesting. These days I only read e-books but might have to make an exception.

Another book that was paired up with it was "The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe". That one IS available in e-book form and looks interesting as well.

CG

Lol yah I actually own that book as well but I never read it. I went through this phase where I bought a lot of books and only read parts of them. I guess they'll always be there for when I decide to not be lazy lol.