Re: Quantum Physics Gets "Spooky"

On Dec 24, 10:23 pm, Sam Wormley <sworml...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Quantum Physics Gets "Spooky"
   http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/813/3

By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
13 August 2008

This might be a rare case about which Einstein was wrong. More than 60 years ago, the
great physicist scoffed at the idea that anything could travel faster than light, even
though quantum mechanics had suggested such a condition. Now four Swiss researchers have
brought the possibility closer to reality. Testing a concept called "spooky action at a
distance"--a phrase used by Einstein in criticizing the phenomenon--they have shown that
two subatomic particles can communicate nearly instantaneously, even if they are separated
by cosmic distances.
Alice's Wonderland had nothing on quantum physics, which describes a bizarre state of
matter and energy. Not only can the same atom exist in two locations at once, but merely
attempting to observe a particle will alter its properties. Perhaps least intuitive is the
characteristic called entanglement. As described by quantum mechanics, it means that two
entangled particles can keep tabs on each other no matter how far apart they are.
Physicists have been trying for decades to determine whether this property is real and
what might cause it. In the process, they've uncovered evidence for it but not much about
its properties.

Physicist Nicolas Gisin and colleagues at the University of Geneva in Switzerland split
off pairs of quantum-entangled photons and sent them from the university's campus through
two fiber-optic cables to two Swiss villages located 18 kilometers apart. Thinking of the
photons like traffic lights, each passed through specially designed detectors that
determined what "color" they were when entering the cable and what color they appeared to
be when they reached the terminus. The experiments revealed two things: First, the
physical properties of the photons changed identically during their journey, just as
predicted by quantum theory--when one turned "red," so did the other. Second, there was no
detectable time difference between when those changes occurred in the photons, as though
an imaginary traffic controller had signaled them both.

The result, the team reports in tomorrow's issue of Nature, is that whatever was affecting
the photons seems to have happened nearly instantaneously and that according to their
calculations, the phenomenon influencing the particles had to be traveling at least 10,000
times faster than light. Given Einstein's standard speed limit on light traveling within
conventional spacetime, the experiments show that entanglement might be controlled by
something existing beyond it. Gisin says that once the scientific community "accepts that
nature has this ability, we should try to create models that explain it."

Although the research doesn't demonstrate spooky action at a distance directly, it does
provide "a lower boundary for the speed" necessary for the phenomenon, says theoretical
physicist Martin Bojowald of Pennsylvania State University in State College. Cosmologist
Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena says that it's "yet
another experiment that tells us quantum mechanics is right" and that there "really is an
intrinsic connection between entangled particles, not that some signal passes quickly
between them when an observation is performed." And physicist Lorenza Viola of Dartmouth
College says there's much more to be determined. "I am sure we are not finished unveiling
what the quantum [effects] due to entanglement really are and how powerful they can be."

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and that is why QM is a theory of
mathematician crooks!!

they can turn a mouse into a cat
and vice versa
you just name it or invite it

the more abstract a theory is
it has 'less chances' for it to be wrong

but at the same time
IT BECOMES LESS REALISTIC OR USEFUL!!!
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Y.Porat
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