Forwarded message:
From: Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net> Subject: EPR, Bell, and FTL Bandwidth Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:17:49 -0600 (CST)
Think of the classical case. I bake two fortune cookies, one with "FOO" written on the slip of paper inside, and the other reading "BAR." I then put them in a box and shake it for quite a while, until the final state has chaotic dependence upon initial conditions, and cannot be predicted. I then keep one fortune cookie, and mail the other one to Lucky Green in Tonga.
Someday in the future, I open my cookie, and instantly know what Lucky will see when he opens his.
True, but your opening your cookie does not *force* Lucky to open his at the same time. This is one fault with this model. The 'state' of the cookies are not inter-dependant as the polarization of the photon pairs are.
In doing so, I have created a "instantaneous" correlation between two things separated by a vast
It isn't instantanous, the correlation existed when they were printed and doesn't change. If I destroy one of the cookies it doesn't destroy the other spontaneously as would happen in a correlated photon-pair. The state of the individual cookies exists because of the observer and not a fundamental requirement of the cookies existing.
I am sure we will agree that there was no genuine faster-then-light communication of information in this case.
On this we can agree.
In quantum mechanics, pairs of observables may have the property that both of them may not be known precisely for a physical system. The Heisenberg Uncertainty principle states this for position and momentum.
Incorrect. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that in order to measure one parameter the other must *necessarily* change because they are in actuality different aspects of the *same* characteristic. They are *not* indipendant aspects of the system being observed. Momentum and position are different sides of the same coin. A conservation effect is what we are dealing with. This same conservation issue arises, and in fact allows FTL state transitions, with bound photon-pairs.
Similar relationships exist for energy and time, polarization or angular momentum measured with respect to different axes, and various other things. In addition, measuring a physical system for one such variable always changes its wavefunction into one for which the value of that variable is precisely specified, and the value of the other "non-commuting" variable is not.
Not quite. In the act of measuring one parameter we necessarily change the other. That change is what we can't measure *at the same time* not the absolute value at a given time tau.
You can see this easily with three polarizing filters. If you shine a light through two of them at right angles to each other, it will be completely blocked.
Only if the light has a single polarization. If you shine a circularly polarized light through you will in fact see light on the other side. [more stuff deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage@ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|