Viewing 34 posts - 1 through 34 (of 34 total)
  • Can someone explain this news article about quantum entanglement?
  • shermer75
    Free Member

    As far as I can make out they’ve sent a photon down some optical fibre. Where does the teletransportation bit come into it? 🙂

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37408013

    simonhbacon
    Free Member

    The only thing that is teleported is information.

    1. Entangle two photons.

    2. Send one photon along fibre optic.

    3. Change state of local photon and the far photon undergoes the same change in state.

    TBH. Not entirely sure what state is being modified. Direction of spin?

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Aiui entanglement is a weird property of quantum mechanics where 2 particles have their state locked together, regardless of how far apart they are. So Joe and Bob Photon are entangled, which means that whenever Joe stands up, sneezes or scratches his nose then Bob does the samr whether he’s next to Joe or on the other side of the world. From the article it looks like they’ve used this entanglement property to transfer information about a quantum state without the information passing through the points between the start and the end.

    As to how and why entanglement works, even Einstein was baffled so you won’t get much sense from a bunch of middle aged audi driving bike owners.

    shermer75
    Free Member

    Thanks people! Great explanation there. Not sure why it was left out of the article though, maybe the author didn’t understand either! 🙂

    shermer75
    Free Member

    Also, the reason that you may think that this is in the bike forum is because it is simultaneously existing in both the bike forum and the chat forum, and only exhibits itself in one or the other when it is being observed lol #quantumhumour

    RobHilton
    Free Member

    Nice one Shermer 😆

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    From the article it looks like they’ve used this entanglement property to transfer information about a quantum state without the information passing through the points between the start and the end.

    I didn’t think anyone knew how this information was actually being passed, but the big deal was that it was instantaneous (or at least much faster than the speed of light.) I should probably read the article!

    shermer75
    Free Member

    I should probably read the article!

    It’s not very good, there must be better ones out there!

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Einstein famously derided entanglement as “spukhafte Fernwirkung” or “spooky action at a distance.” 😆

    allan23
    Free Member

    Looking at the study and the BBC article I suspect the journalist only half understood it. Only did basic quantum physics as part of my chemistry degree and it was best part of 20 years ago so I have barely a clue reading the study.

    Certainly looked like it’s the Bell State Measurement that’s key rather than the entanglement and the journo doesn’t even mention that.

    I’m probably wrong too.

    honourablegeorge
    Full Member

    So if you have a photon on a conveyor belt, right….

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Is it better when the photons are 650b chubsters?

    bencooper
    Free Member

    This is good on quantum entanglement and other eldritchery, offspring was watching it at breakfast:

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhHMJCUmq28[/video]

    slowoldman
    Full Member

    whether he’s next to Joe or on the other side of the world

    Much further apart than that. Anywhere in the universe. Instantaneously. Yep, faster than the speed of light. Which is impossible right? Entanglement is seriously weird.

    centralscrutinizer
    Free Member

    There is an alternative universe where I have a full comprehension of quantum physics 🙄

    shermer75
    Free Member

    That is proper crazy!

    joat
    Full Member

    Yep, very hard to get your head round. Can only assume we can’t because we think in three dimensions, this could be a factor of fourth/fifth dimensions where the distance between the entangled particles means nothing/has no influence on them.

    shermer75
    Free Member

    Good video! Thanks for posting 🙂

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    it’s how homeopathy works, innit

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Edit: use the force?

    neilthewheel
    Full Member

    spukhafte Fernwirkung

    Bless you!

    ulysse
    Free Member

    So FTL commincation/ data transfer could be a real probability if this is correct, then?

    Klunk
    Free Member

    yep it’s why Einstien wasn’t keen on it, violating his math 🙂

    ulysse
    Free Member

    I think the research team have been reading too much Alistair Reynolds… Chasm City slug technology?

    slowoldman
    Full Member

    I was having a chat with a prof at a Scibar recently who was at pains to point out that “information” in quantum physics is not the same thing as “information” in the general sense (such as data). I wondered if someone might be able to explain to the proles at the Scibar – he thought probably not.

    donald
    Free Member

    So FTL commincation/ data transfer could be a real probability if this is correct, then?

    In one respect yes, but you still have to move your entangled particle to where you want to receive the information and you can only do that at < c. So in any remotely practical sense No.

    IANAQM

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    In one respect yes, but you still have to move your entangled particle to where you want to receive the information and you can only do that at < c. So in any remotely practical sense No.

    Though in the distant future, exploring the stars, entangle a particle before you set off, then have instant comms between your space ship and home, that would be very useful indeed.

    Even for a Mars mission, it can take about 22 mins for radio waves to travel back to earth. Send a entangled particle there and it’s instant.

    philjunior
    Free Member

    In one respect yes, but you still have to move your entangled particle to where you want to receive the information and you can only do that at < c. So in any remotely practical sense No.
    Though in the distant future, exploring the stars, entangle a particle before you set off, then have instant comms between your space ship and home, that would be very useful indeed.

    Even for a Mars mission, it can take about 22 mins for radio waves to travel back to earth. Send a entangled particle there and it’s instant.

    Just what I was thinking. Also, could you somehow “discover” particles that were subject to quantum entanglement (and, more importantly, where their counterparts were)?

    rossburton
    Free Member

    To answer “surely this is FTL communications”, good old wikipedia to the rescue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    No, you can’t use this for FTL communication.

    sideshow
    Free Member

    What they said ^^^

    As far as I understand it the wavefunction collapses faster than light

    But just because something moves faster than light doesn’t mean you can send any data on it

    Take a laser pointer and wave it back and forth over the moon. If you can wave it fast enough that the red dot crosses the moon’s surface in under 0.01 seconds then the red dot will move faster than light! But good luck using it to carry info from one side of the moon to the other.

    Probably a poor analogy. In other news
    https://xkcd.com/465/

    sideshow
    Free Member

    By the way if you don’t use Chrome and aren’t unreasonably afraid of Java applets, have a go at my quantum game.

    http://tropic.org.uk/~crispin/quantum/

    (it won’t explain entanglement though)

    shermer75
    Free Member

    I went to save that xkcd cartoon so I could post it on Facebook and it came up with a really cool little caption about newspaper headlines for science stories. Impressive! 🙂

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    It looks like the point of it is to communicate in a way that can be eavesdropped.

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