On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 08:13:39AM +0000, jim bell wrote:
From: juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 11:29:07 +1000 Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> wrote:
It does sound like the obvious is being missed - so entangled photon paris can be created, and we can know at one end, if the photon at the other end is "read",
I believe this statement was quite ambiguous, and should have been written by my ever so humble self as follows: - so entangled photon pairs can be created, and we can know at one end, if the photon at the other end has been "read" note the "has been" replacing "is"! With, of course, "has been" meaning "happened at a time up to and including --now--".
and this apparently happens at at a minimum of 10k.c;
Surely, one could simply create a suitably large number of entangled photon pairs, as an array, and then read them, or not read them, at the end you want to "send" information from, and "detect" (so this weird quantum mechanics story goes) those reads at the other end.
I can, but don't call me Shirley.
Read + Not read = 1 bit. What seems to be implied in the stories so far is that the information must be transmitted through changing states of a single entangled photon - which assumption makes no sense at all. There's a purported phenomena, use it!
Yep. It either works or not. And if it works you should be able to get some 'macroscopic' result/data transmission (of course the micro/macro divide is just pseudo-scientific, absurd bullshit)
I thought of an interesting thought-experiment that may clarify the situation.It's new, and doesn't precisely follow quantum, but here goes:
Suppose you have two points in space, for concreteness 1 light-year apart.There is a Star-trek type transporter, one pad at each location. But it canonly transport information, not matter.
Place a data file on the first pad, press the button, and it will be virtuallyinstantly sent to the second pad, 1 l.y. away. But the 'gotcha' is that itwon't arrive in plaintext: It will be encrypted. It can still be read as seemingly random, encrypted bits, and there are crc's, checksums,'fire codes', and other verifications that the whole file arrived successfully.
The first (originating) transporter also generates a key, which can be usedto decrypt the file. Problem is, it can only be sent by laser, and thus at 'c'.Send the file, and it appears virtually instantly at the far end. But its actualunencrypted contents cannot be read in plaintext. The data packet mustbe placed on the shelf, and after one year the photon-beam containing thedecrypt code packet arrives. (Possibly with the addition of a copy of the original message, for additional certainty that they got the original message.).
They apply the decrypt key to the packet which arrived one year before.The decrypt works, and they discover that the message is identical to theone sent by laser one year previous, and was just received a moment before.
Cute concept :) Possibly a good analogy, but I ain't Schroedinghy, so dunno how analogous it is :)
Wouldn't it be possible to argue that the data MUST have travelled at 10,000+'c'?
Absolutely, in this example case, but I have no idea if your idea is suitably analogous or not sorry.
If it hadn't, how could the values of data on the printout have been determined'instantly'?
Question: At what rate did that "instantaneous" data transfer occur?
If it is actually instantaneous, then the rate is infinite, in the dimensions in which we make our observations. If a second primitive is ever theorized and later experimentally shown to exist, then I am confident we shall see a flurry of mathematical modelling and comparison and elimination, and something "conclusive" and "well duh" paraded around.
Well,it sure looks like it was indeed "instantaneous". The original packet arrived,it was placed on the shelf in seconds. But, the
Your experiment shows possibly that we simply do not understand either the entangled experiment, or why it cannot be used to transmit information "simultaneously", since synchronization can indeed happen in wall clock time, as long as the two ends are far enough apart - e.g. 1 light year, or 1 light minute apart.
information within it wasn'tactually readable for one year, until the decrypt key arrived. Can we say thatthis information arrived after one year, and thus at an effective speed of 'c'? If it is the former, somehow the idea that information can't be transmitted at fasterthan 'c' is invalid. If it's the latter, this appears to confirm that limit.
Which is it?
You said: "Yep. It either works or not."
The 'gotcha' is that whether it "works" or not is dependent on your definition of the word, 'works'.
No, the statement is: either the remote side can determine that I have made an observation or not - this is a basic premise, which is either true or not. If it's not true, we do not understand this new toy called quantum entanglement, and therefore cannot reason about the problems nor theorize as to why it cannot be used for information transmission.
Does it seem to transmit the data virtually instantly? Yes. Is that information available immediately? No.
Not in your hypothetical.
It takes a year to learn the contentof that encrypted file.
Is the limit of 'c' violated? I don't know. What do you think?
It certainly would be - although you cannot verify nor decrypt the transmission for 1 year, you can prove the transmission actually happened 1 year ago. We seem to be missing some vital part of the problem, I guess...