On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:49:12 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

Apparently, that is true.   The tantalizing thing is that SOMETHING APPEARS   (information, of some nature) to be transferred between one particle and another, distant one, and yet there seems to be no way to use that transfer to actually transmit useful FTL

Which sounds rather absurd no? Either this is ordinary EM phenomena that propagate at the so called speed of light, or it is something else which could propagate at 'faster than light' speed. If 'something' is moving at faster than light speed, then some information must be being transmitted. If no information is being transmitted, then by definition, there's no way to measure speed and the claim makes no sense.

(faster than light) information.                 Jim Bell

From: Bastiani Fortress Quantum entanglement does not provide information passing faster than light, afaik. Either i misunderstood the news, or it's being falsely advertised.

5:43 AM, August 4, 2016, jim bell :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3720772/China-launch-unbreaka...

[quote] China to launch unbreakable quantum spy satellite - and it could one day lead to a megascope the size of Earth that could 'spot a license plate on Jupiter's moons'Satellite produces entangled photon pairs which form an encryption keyThese photons will theoretically remain linked over great distancesThis means that any attempts to listen in will be detected on the other sideScientists say this could one day make for a secure global network 

Scientists in China are set to launch the world’s first ‘quantum satellite,’ which could one day make for an ultra-secure global communications network. The 1,300 pound craft contains a crystal that produces pairs of entangled photons, which will be fired to ground stations in China and Austria to form a ‘secret key.’ Entangled photons theoretically maintain their link across any distance, and according to the scientists, any attempts to breach this type of communication would be easily detectable. [end of portion quoted]

                   Jim Bell

(I have big questions about some of these statements in this article.  But given the subject matter, quantum entanglement, confusion by lay individuals is to be expected.)

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 17:32:19 -0400 Sci Fith wrote:

Quantum entanglement is real. Sounds like you have some reading to do. ;)

Really? I hope that isn't some sort of appeal to authority...

basically once particles are associated they can communicate

How long does it take for a change in particle 'A' to reach particle 'B'?

stay in sync regardless of distance. Amazing stuff.

...

On Aug 4, 2016, at 4:33 PM, juan wrote:

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:49:12 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

...

Apparently, that is true. The tantalizing thing is that SOMETHING APPEARS (information, of some nature) to be transferred between one particle and another, distant one, and yet there seems to be no way to use that transfer to actually transmit useful FTL

Which sounds rather absurd no? Either this is ordinary EM phenomena that propagate at the so called speed of light, or it is something else which could propagate at 'faster than light' speed.

If 'something' is moving at faster than light speed, then some information must be being transmitted. If no information is being transmitted, then by definition, there's no way to measure speed and the claim makes no sense.

...

(faster than light) information. Jim Bell

From: Bastiani Fortress Quantum entanglement does not provide information passing faster than light, afaik. Either i misunderstood the news, or it's being falsely advertised.

5:43 AM, August 4, 2016, jim bell :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3720772/China-launch-unbreaka...

[quote] China to launch unbreakable quantum spy satellite - and it could one day lead to a megascope the size of Earth that could 'spot a license plate on Jupiter's moons'Satellite produces entangled photon pairs which form an encryption keyThese photons will theoretically remain linked over great distancesThis means that any attempts to listen in will be detected on the other sideScientists say this could one day make for a secure global network

Scientists in China are set to launch the world’s first ‘quantum satellite,’ which could one day make for an ultra-secure global communications network. The 1,300 pound craft contains a crystal that produces pairs of entangled photons, which will be fired to ground stations in China and Austria to form a ‘secret key.’ Entangled photons theoretically maintain their link across any distance, and according to the scientists, any attempts to breach this type of communication would be easily detectable. [end of portion quoted]

Jim Bell

(I have big questions about some of these statements in this article. But given the subject matter, quantum entanglement, confusion by lay individuals is to be expected.)

From: juan On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:49:12 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

...

Apparently, that is true.   The tantalizing thing is that SOMETHING APPEARS   (information, of some nature) to be transferred between one particle and another, distant one, and yet there seems to be no way to use that transfer to actually transmit useful FTL

 >  Which sounds rather absurd no? Certainly that sounds absurd!   It IS absurd!  Which explains a lot of the fascinationhas for entangled photons and related phenomena.  Einstein never liked the quantum-mechanics idea, famously declaring "God does not play dice with theuniverse".     Unfortunately for Einstein, dice are actually played. In fact, Einstein's EPR Paradox (Einstein, Podolski, Rosen) was invented byEinstein himself in an attempt to prove that quantum mechanics could notbe a complete statement of the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox  This principle said that IF quantum mechanics were a complete statement of the problem, then something seemingly impossible [fill in the blank with FTL information travel] would occur.  Einstein wasquite convinced that nothing (including no information) could travel faster than'c'.  Amazingly, it appears that nature ("God", for the religious among you) has actedsimultaneously to protect the quantum mechanics theory, but ALSO to protect Einstein's belief that nothing could travel faster than 'c'.   If anybody should discovera method to use entangled photons to effectively transmit data FTL (and thus,presumably at infinite speed) that person would surely deserve a Nobel Prize inPhysics.  >Either this is ordinary EM  > phenomena that propagate at the so called speed of light, or  > it is something else which could propagate at 'faster than  > light' speed.  It's at least 10,000 times 'c' the speed of light in a vacuum, according toexperiments involving fiber optics.  It might be essentially infinite.   >  If 'something' is moving at faster than light speed, then some   > information must be being transmitted. If no information is

   being transmitted, then by definition, there's no way to measure   >  speed and the claim makes no sense. Well, that's the problem.  Knowing that SOMETHING is being transmitted, and actuallyUSING that method to transmit useful information, are (quite strangely) two differentthings.  That, also is the amazing implications of entangled photons.

               Jim Bell

fish see surface but yes our perception but also the n dimension https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvK-od647c Quantum Entanglement & Spooky Action at a Distance Published on Jan 12, 2015 Does quantum entanglement make faster-than-light communication possible? What is NOT random? http://bit.ly/NOTrandoVe First, I know this video is not easy to understand. Thank you for taking the time to attempt to understand it. I've been working on this for over six months over which time my understanding has improved. Quantum entanglement and spooky action at a distance are still debated by professors of quantum physics (I know because I discussed this topic with two of them). Does hidden information (called hidden variables by physicists) exist? If it does, the experiment violating Bell inequalities indicates that hidden variables must update faster than light - they would be considered 'non-local'. On the other hand if you don't consider the spins before you make the measurement then you could simply say hidden variables don't exist and whenever you measure spins in the same direction you always get opposite results, which makes sense since angular momentum must be conserved in the universe. Everyone agrees that quantum entanglement does not allow information to be transmitted faster that light. There is no action either detector operator could take to signal the other one - regardless of the choice of measurement direction, the measured spins are random with 50/50 probability of up/down. Special thanks to: Prof. Stephen Bartlett, University of Sydney: http://bit.ly/1xSosoJ Prof. John Preskill, Caltech: http://bit.ly/1y8mJut Looking Glass Universe: http://bit.ly/17zZH7l Physics Girl: http://bit.ly/PhysGirl MinutePhysics: http://bit.ly/MinPhys Community Channel: http://bit.ly/CommChannel Nigel, Helen, Luke, and Simon for comments on earlier drafts of this video. Filmed in part by Scott Lewis: http://google.com/+scottlewis Music by Amarante "One Last Time": http://bit.ly/VeAmarante ++++++++++++++++ n dimension stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI9uuHuc1iU&list=PL865E510770E164CB On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 1:27 AM, Sci Fith wrote:

I believe our understanding of info transfer needs to change. The data is not traveling anywhere because it appears to exist simultaneously here & there and when one changes the other does without delay. There has to be another dimension of energy / ether we need to discover that would make this make sense. Like looking into a fish pond but the fish don't see surface, only your hand dipping in water as a miraculous occurrence.

jamescampbell.us 7032039877

On Aug 4, 2016, at 5:58 PM, jim bell wrote:

*From:* juan On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:49:12 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

...

...

Apparently, that is true. The tantalizing thing is that SOMETHING APPEARS (information, of some nature) to be transferred between one particle and another, distant one, and yet there seems to be no way to use that transfer to actually transmit useful FTL

...

Which sounds rather absurd no?

Certainly that sounds absurd! It IS absurd! Which explains a lot of the fascination has for entangled photons and related phenomena. Einstein never liked the quantum-mechanics idea, famously declaring "God does not play dice with the universe". Unfortunately for Einstein, dice are actually played.

In fact, Einstein's EPR Paradox (Einstein, Podolski, Rosen) was invented by Einstein himself in an attempt to prove that quantum mechanics could not be a complete statement of the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ EPR_paradox

This principle said that IF quantum mechanics were a complete statement of the problem, then something seemingly impossible [fill in the blank with FTL information travel] would occur. Einstein was quite convinced that nothing (including no information) could travel faster than 'c'. Amazingly, it appears that nature ("God", for the religious among you) has acted simultaneously to protect the quantum mechanics theory, but ALSO to protect Einstein's belief that nothing could travel faster than 'c'. If anybody should discover a method to use entangled photons to effectively transmit data FTL (and thus, presumably at infinite speed) that person would surely deserve a Nobel Prize in Physics.

...

Either this is ordinary EM phenomena that propagate at the so called speed of light, or it is something else which could propagate at 'faster than light' speed.

It's at least 10,000 times 'c' the speed of light in a vacuum, according to experiments involving fiber optics. It might be essentially infinite.

...

If 'something' is moving at faster than light speed, then some information must be being transmitted. If no information is being transmitted, then by definition, there's no way to measure speed and the claim makes no sense.

Well, that's the problem. Knowing that SOMETHING is being transmitted, and actually USING that method to transmit useful information, are (quite strangely) two different things. That, also is the amazing implications of entangled photons.

Jim Bell

-- Cari Machet NYC 646-436-7795 carimachet@gmail.com AIM carismachet Syria +963-099 277 3243 Amman +962 077 636 9407 Berlin +49 152 11779219 Reykjavik +354 894 8650 Twitter: @carimachet https://twitter.com/carimachet 7035 690E 5E47 41D4 B0E5 B3D1 AF90 49D6 BE09 2187 Ruh-roh, this is now necessary: This email is intended only for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use of this information, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this email without permission is strictly prohibited.

From: juan On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 21:58:11 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

  From: juan

...

...

Apparently, that is true.   The tantalizing thing is that SOMETHING APPEARS   (information, of some nature) to be transferred between one particle and another, distant one, and yet there seems to be no way to use that transfer to actually transmit useful FTL

 >  Which sounds rather absurd no? Certainly that sounds absurd!   It IS absurd!

  Oh, OK. So I don't need to bother with patently false theories.   Because that's what 'absurd' implies.  No, you obviously don't understand.  Something can be "absurd" and yetquite real.  "Absurd" merely explains how we react to something we do notunderstand.Simple example of thing that appears "absurd":  To somebody in 6th grademath, the question "what is the square root of negative 1" looks absurd.But it isn't absurd to a 12th grader taking calculus.

...

 Which explains a lot of the fascinationhas for entangled photons and related phenomena.

   I don't follow. I don't think absurd ideas are 'fascinating'. At one point, the idea that Earth is flat was the received wisdom, and anallergation that Earth is round was "absurd".  Einstein's theory ofrelativity was "absurd" to people who grew up on Newtonian theory.  The idea that nuclei in atoms would  decay, emitting hugeamounts of energy, was "absurd" in 1900.  By 1946, nuclear bombshad killed well over 100,000 people.

 >   And at any rate it should be obvious that absurd ideas have no   >  place in rational discourse, or 'science'. Until they do.  

 Einstein never liked the quantum-mechanics idea, famously declaring "God does not play dice with theuniverse".    

  A sensible remark, if you take out the god bullshit. And as I    think you know, there are many so called 'interpretations' of   >  QM and not all of them are absurd (i.e. patently false). Einstein was wrong, and ultimately other scientists were right.  And theyconfirmed that, with experiments and further theory.

...

Unfortunately for  Einstein, dice are actually played.    So says one faction of the 'scientific' establishment. Just like    statists say that the state is legitimate.

Scientific dispute exists.  It's normal.Curiously, in the 1920's, a Russian scientist named Lysenko believedthat characteristics could be acquired by an organism far more quicklythan genetics would otherwise allow.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko    Soon enough, he was considered a fraud, a joke.  And he was, but eventually the phenomonof methylation of the DNA strand ('epigenetics') was discovered.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics  In 1978, I visited the Smithsonian Institution for the first (and so far last) time.  Oneof the exhibits was a display of "quack" medical equipment, including gas-dischargetubes that were activated with high-voltage and were said to control pain.  Quackmedical treatment.  By 1996, I was working at a company which designed and built TENSunits (Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator) which reduce paid by using small electrical currents.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcutaneous_electrical_nerve_stimulation    What did you say, above?    "So says one faction of the 'scientific' establishment."

 >Either this is ordinary EM  > phenomena that propagate at the so called speed of light, or  > it is something else which could propagate at 'faster than  > light' speed. 

...

It's at least 10,000 times 'c' the speed of light in a vacuum, according toexperiments involving fiber optics.  It might be essentially infinite.

 It can't be infinite Why not?  Have you ever heard the term, "phase velocity"?   

, but it certainly can be faster than    light. Prior to relatively recently, people generally thought nothing could travelfaster than 'c'.  They thought that travel faster than 'c' was "absurd".   So somebody actually did the measurements? Yes.  They determined that the 'speed' of whatever was going on had to be at least10,000 times 'c', but they couldn't determine an upper limit to that value.

...

...

 If 'something' is moving at faster than light speed, then some information must be being transmitted. If no information is  being transmitted, then by definition, there's no way to measure  >  speed and the claim makes no sense.

...

Well, that's the problem.  Knowing that SOMETHING is being transmitted, and actually USING that method to transmit useful information, are (quite strangely) two different things.

 >   If you know that 'something' was transmitted, then al least one  >   bit of information was transmitted, no?  Like I said, there's a difference between knowing something is happening,and being able to actually employ that for useful purposes.If I see a horse running in the prairie, and yet I cannot capture him, Icannot use him to travel at horse-speed rather than man-speed. Even in the 1s00s, people knew that light traveled at a finite(non-infinite) velocity.  Hint:  It involved Jupiter's moons.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light But until the invention of the Fleming valve (old name for an 'electrontube') and then radio, people didn't know how to transmit information from Europe to America in a few milliseconds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleming_valve Curiously, Thomas Edison really screwed up by not recognizing the value ofthe "Edison Effect" (which he wasn't actually the first to recognize)  >   Again, either information is being transmitted at FTL speed or   >  not. So, what is being claimed here? We simply don't know how to use entangled photons to transmit informationat greater than 'c'.  And there is no guarantee we will ever know how to doso. And if you believe that something must definitely be one thing, or another, I will have to introduce you to Schrodinger's Cat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat  ...which has the weird property of being able to be alive and dead at the same time.                          Jim Bell

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 23:33:47 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

If I see a horse running in the prairie, and yet I cannot capture him, Icannot use him to travel at horse-speed rather than man-speed.

OK, I understand that. But to use your analogy, what's being discussed here is not how the horse could eventually be used, but whether the horse exists at all. Is the horse just some mathematical artifact in some mystical theory, or is there unambiguous experimental data associated with it?

From: Georgi Guninski

Disclaimer: I am lamer in physics. I think the analogy shows that FTL (superluminal) speed exist and is experimentally observed, this doesn't contradict relativity. What contradicts relativity is _communication_ or clock synchronization faster than light.

IIRC if you point powerful projector at the Moon and move it slightly, this light on Moon will move FTL at least from your point of view. Jim's horse was something like this.

Yes, this is what I was alluding to when I used the term, "phase velocity".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_velocity    Although, it isn't really clear from this articlethat the phase can travel far faster than 'c', nevertheless the information the wave transmits is limited to its "group velocity", which cannot travel faster than 'c'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_velocity The moon's diameter is about 2169 miles.  If you aimed a laser beam to one edgeof the moon, and then quickly (0.01 second) moved the beam to the other edge,the spot would look like it's travelling at 216,900 miles per second, well beyond 'c'.(ignoring the fact that the moon is a spheroid, not a flat surface, of course.) There is no actual communication from those two points on opposite sides of the moon,nor are massive particles moving from one point to the other. I learned my physics from course 8.03 at MIT, with the coursebook by Bekefi andBarrett, titled "Electromagnetic Waves and Vibrations".https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electromagnetic-vibrations-waves-and-radiatio...  Unfortunately, that was the last advanced physics course I took, having to focus on my major, chemistry.     The next Physics course, that I didn't take, was 8.04, "Quantum Physics".   http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-04-quantum-physics-i-spring-2013/   Not that I didn't learn quantum at all, but I learned it from the direction of chemistry.That class was 5.61, and 5.62,  Physical Chemistry.  http://search.mit.edu/search?site=ocw&client=mit&getfields=*&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=http%3A%2F%2Focw.mit.edu%2Fsearch%2Fgoogle-ocw.xsl&requiredfields=WT%252Ecg_s%3ACourse+Home%7CWT%252Ecg_s%3AResource+Home§ionlimit=WT%252Ecg_s%3ACourse+Home%7CWT%252Ecg_s%3AResource+Home&as_dt=i&oe=utf-8&departmentName=web&filter=0&courseName=&q=5.61&btnG.x=0&btnG.y=0   

Here, from http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2464:

A few weeks ago, Hensen et al., of the Delft University of Technology and Barcelona, Spain, put out a paper reporting the first experiment that violates the Bell inequality in a way that closes off the two main loopholes simultaneously: the locality and detection loopholes. Well, at least with ~96% confidence. This is big news, not only because of the result itself, but because of the advances in experimental technique needed to achieve it. Last Friday, two renowned experimentalists—Chris Monroe of U. of Maryland and Jungsang Kim of Duke—visited MIT, and in addition to talking about their own exciting ion-trap work, they did a huge amount to help me understand the new Bell test experiment. So OK, let me try to explain this.

While some people like to make it more complicated, the Bell inequality is the following statement. Alice and Bob are cooperating with each other to win a certain game (the “CHSH game“) with the highest possible probability. They can agree on a strategy and share information and particles in advance, but then they can’t communicate once the game starts. Alice gets a uniform random bit x, and Bob gets a uniform random bit y (independent of x). Their goal is to output bits, a and b respectively, such that a XOR b = x AND y: in other words, such that a and b are different if and only if x and y are both 1. The Bell inequality says that, in any universe that satisfies the property of local realism, no matter which strategy they use, Alice and Bob can win the game at most 75% of the time (for example, by always outputting a=b=0).

What does local realism mean? It means that, after she receives her input x, any experiment Alice can perform in her lab has a definite result that might depend on x, on the state of her lab, and on whatever information she pre-shared with Bob, but at any rate, not on Bob’s input y. If you like: a=a(x,w) is a function of x and of the information w available before the game started, but is not a function of y. Likewise, b=b(y,w) is a function of y and w, but not of x. Perhaps the best way to explain local realism is that it’s the thing you believe in, if you believe all the physicists babbling about “quantum entanglement” just missed something completely obvious. Clearly, at the moment two “entangled” particles are created, but before they separate, one of them flips a tiny coin and then says to the other, “listen, if anyone asks, I’ll be spinning up and you’ll be spinning down.” Then the naïve, doofus physicists measure one particle, find it spinning down, and wonder how the other particle instantly “knows” to be spinning up—oooh, spooky! mysterious! Anyway, if that’s how you think it has to work, then you believe in local realism, and you must predict that Alice and Bob can win the CHSH game with probability at most 3/4.

What Bell observed in 1964 is that, even though quantum mechanics doesn’t let Alice send a signal to Bob (or vice versa) faster than the speed of light, it still makes a prediction about the CHSH game that conflicts with local realism. (And thus, quantum mechanics exhibits what one might not have realized beforehand was even a logical possibility: it doesn’t allow communication faster than light, but simulating the predictions of quantum mechanics in a classical universe would require faster-than-light communication.) In particular, if Alice and Bob share entangled qubits, say $$\frac{\left| 00 \right\rangle + \left| 11 \right\rangle}{\sqrt{2}},$$ then there’s a simple protocol that lets them violate the Bell inequality, winning the CHSH game ~85% of the time (with probability (1+1/√2)/2 > 3/4). Starting in the 1970s, people did experiments that vindicated the prediction of quantum mechanics, and falsified local realism—or so the story goes.

Discussion in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10269297 OK, so local realism is dead. But what is it? An excerpt from above:

Perhaps the best way to explain local realism is that it’s the thing you believe in, if you believe all the physicists babbling about “quantum entanglement” just missed something completely obvious.

And here's the tl;dr:

(And thus, quantum mechanics exhibits what one might not have realized beforehand was even a logical possibility: it doesn’t allow communication faster than light, but simulating the predictions of quantum mechanics in a classical universe would require faster-than-light communication.)

Another chunk:

The violation of the Bell inequality has a schizophrenic status in physics. To many of the physicists I know, Nature’s violating the Bell inequality is so trivial and obvious that it’s barely even worth doing the experiment: if people had just understood and believed Bohr and Heisenberg back in 1925, there would’ve been no need for this whole tiresome discussion.

Me, I like the many worlds interpretation. But it's just an interpretation. What matters is the math.

On 08/05/2016 12:14 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 09:10:42AM -0600, Mirimir wrote: ...

...

Here, from http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2464:

...

The violation of the Bell inequality has a schizophrenic status in physics. To many of the physicists I know, Nature’s violating the Bell inequality is so trivial and obvious that it’s barely even worth doing the experiment: if people had just understood and believed Bohr and Heisenberg back in 1925, there would’ve been no need for this whole tiresome discussion.

Seriously, I am none the wiser and cannot yet make sense of what they are saying.

First you create entangled electrons in two distant diamonds [separated by 1.5 km in Hensen et al. (2015) and apparently 750 mi in the Chinese-Austrian experiment described in the news article]. You do that by exchanging photons, which travel at light-speed or less. Then you measure the spins of those entangled electrons. And you find that the spins are correlated in a way that's predicted by quantum mechanics, but would be possible under classical mechanics (aka realism) only if the entangled electrons could communicate at greater than light-speed. So basically, they find that the classical model of reality is fucked. Here's the abstract from Hensen et al. (2015) https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05949:

For more than 80 years, the counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory have stimulated debate about the nature of reality. In his seminal work, John Bell proved that no theory of nature that obeys locality and realism can reproduce all the predictions of quantum theory. Bell showed that in any local realist theory the correlations between distant measurements satisfy an inequality and, moreover, that this inequality can be violated according to quantum theory. This provided a recipe for experimental tests of the fundamental principles underlying the laws of nature. In the past decades, numerous ingenious Bell inequality tests have been reported. However, because of experimental limitations, all experiments to date required additional assumptions to obtain a contradiction with local realism, resulting in loopholes. Here we report on a Bell experiment that is free of any such additional assumption and thus directly tests the principles underlying Bell's inequality. We employ an event-ready scheme that enables the generation of high-fidelity entanglement between distant electron spins. Efficient spin readout avoids the fair sampling assumption (detection loophole), while the use of fast random basis selection and readout combined with a spatial separation of 1.3 km ensure the required locality conditions. We perform 245 trials testing the CHSH-Bell inequality S≤2 and find S=2.42±0.20. A null hypothesis test yields a probability of p=0.039 that a local-realist model for space-like separated sites produces data with a violation at least as large as observed, even when allowing for memory in the devices. This result rules out large classes of local realist theories, and paves the way for implementing device-independent quantum-secure communication and randomness certification.

The news article is full of bullshit.

China apparently is putting this experiment in space - are they winning a game on prediction of one particular bit with > 75% probability, and if so, can they run that game numerous times to get that probability close to 100%, and if so, can the random inputs to each side be made not random so that the result of the game is transmission of information?

I cannot begin to answer any of these questions sorry...

As I understand it, they're just pushing the separation to 750 miles. We're still a long way from transmitting useful data. And recall that creating entanglement requires synchronization at light-speed or less.

...

Me, I like the many worlds interpretation. But it's just an interpretation. What matters is the math.

That sounds much more interesting than the implications of 'dull' said to be arising from qubits :)

The hope is that since some say the experiment is pretty dull to begin with, then perhaps there is a soul alive who could answer the above questions... we can only hope.

In saying that it's dull, they're pointing out that what matters is the math of quantum mechanics. It's just math. Equations. There's no mental model, no story in words about how reality works. The interpretations are just stories.

On 08/05/2016 02:29 PM, juan wrote:

On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 13:56:15 -0600 Mirimir wrote:

...

First you create entangled electrons in two distant diamonds [separated by 1.5 km in Hensen et al. (2015) and apparently 750 mi in the Chinese-Austrian experiment described in the news article]. You do that by exchanging photons, which travel at light-speed or less. Then you measure the spins of those entangled electrons. And you find that the spins are correlated in a way that's predicted by quantum mechanics, but would be possible under classical mechanics (aka realism)

And full stop. You are not talking about physics. You are talking about bad philosophy.

I'm just explaining what Hensen et al. (2015) https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05949 reported. Read the damn paper if you don't like my explanation. But read http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2464 first ;)

So, classical mechanics is realism. Fine. And the stuff the mainstream calls 'quantum mechanics' is what, then? Looks like it's not realism. So it is...bullshit.

The problem with classical mechanics is that it's not consistent with measurements. Quantum mechanics is. The equations. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, only the math matters. I don't like it any more than you seem to. Because I'm not a mathematician. But many worlds is very cool :) Read Stephenson's _Anathem_.

...

only if the entangled electrons could communicate at greater than light-speed.

So basically, they find that the classical model of reality is fucked.

lol lol lol

You must be a local realist ;)

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Here's the abstract from Hensen et al. (2015) https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05949:

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For more than 80 years, the counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory have stimulated debate about the nature of reality. In his seminal work, John Bell proved that no theory of nature that obeys locality and realism can reproduce all the predictions of quantum theory. Bell showed that in any local realist theory the correlations between distant measurements satisfy an inequality and, moreover, that this inequality can be violated according to quantum theory. This provided a recipe for experimental tests of the fundamental principles underlying the laws of nature. In the past decades, numerous ingenious Bell inequality tests have been reported. However, because of experimental limitations, all experiments to date required additional assumptions to obtain a contradiction with local realism, resulting in loopholes. Here we report on a Bell experiment that is free of any such additional assumption and thus directly tests the principles underlying Bell's inequality. We employ an event-ready scheme that enables the generation of high-fidelity entanglement between distant electron spins. Efficient spin readout avoids the fair sampling assumption (detection loophole), while the use of fast random basis selection and readout combined with a spatial separation of 1.3 km ensure the required locality conditions. We perform 245 trials testing the CHSH-Bell inequality S≤2 and find S=2.42±0.20. A null hypothesis test yields a probability of p=0.039 that a local-realist model for space-like separated sites produces data with a violation at least as large as observed, even when allowing for memory in the devices. This result rules out large classes of local realist theories, and paves the way for implementing device-independent quantum-secure communication and randomness certification.

The news article is full of bullshit.

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China apparently is putting this experiment in space - are they winning a game on prediction of one particular bit with > 75% probability, and if so, can they run that game numerous times to get that probability close to 100%, and if so, can the random inputs to each side be made not random so that the result of the game is transmission of information?

I cannot begin to answer any of these questions sorry...

As I understand it, they're just pushing the separation to 750 miles. We're still a long way from transmitting useful data. And recall that creating entanglement requires synchronization at light-speed or less.

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Me, I like the many worlds interpretation. But it's just an interpretation. What matters is the math.

That sounds much more interesting than the implications of 'dull' said to be arising from qubits :)

The hope is that since some say the experiment is pretty dull to begin with, then perhaps there is a soul alive who could answer the above questions... we can only hope.

In saying that it's dull, they're pointing out that what matters is the math of quantum mechanics. It's just math. Equations. There's no mental model, no story in words about how reality works. The interpretations are just stories.

On 08/06/2016 02:04 PM, juan wrote:

On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 15:31:13 -0600 Mirimir wrote:

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The problem with classical mechanics is that it's not consistent with measurements.

Not consistent with what measurements?

The fucking paper that I've cited. And more generally, all experiments that reject the null hypothesis that the outcome of the CHSH game is 75% or less.

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Quantum mechanics is. The equations. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, only the math matters. I don't like it any more than you seem to. Because I'm not a mathematician.

"Only the math matters" doesn't make sense. This might come as a shock, but physics is supposed to 'measure' 'reality'. Then the measured magnitudes may end up in some equations, used to calculate other aspects of...reality.

Like, you measure the volume of object X, you then put 'volume' and 'density' in a equation, and you get the weight of object X.

Math is just a tool that deals with numbers. And numbers without units have no physical meaning.

Quantum mechanics is math. It makes predictions about reality that can be tested. By experiments where stuff gets measured. The problem is that some predictions of quantum mechanics, such as this stuff about entanglement, 1) have been verified experimentally, but 2) don't make obvious sense. That is, a wave function comprising two entangled electrons can apparently collapse instantaneously, even though the electrons are arbitrarily far apart. You could try to give up light as a universal speed limit. But that creates other paradoxes.

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...

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So basically, they find that the classical model of reality is fucked.

lol lol lol

You must be a local realist ;)

I of course am a rationalist and a realist. I don't know what 'local realism' is supposed to mean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_locality#Local_realism

On 08/06/2016 04:50 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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Not consistent with what measurements?

The fucking paper

An impressive piece of paper. New Japanese art form?

Hensen et al. (2015) Experimental loophole-free violation of a Bell inequality using entangled electron spins separated by 1.3 km https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.05949v1.pdf

On 08/06/2016 05:31 PM, juan wrote:

On Sat, 6 Aug 2016 17:14:23 -0600 Mirimir wrote:

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On 08/06/2016 04:50 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

...

...

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Not consistent with what measurements?

The fucking paper

An impressive piece of paper. New Japanese art form?

Hensen et al. (2015) Experimental loophole-free violation of a Bell inequality using entangled electron spins separated by 1.3 km https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.05949v1.pdf

Can't you get the schroedinger article about zombie cats? Now that might be an interesting read. I'm assuming somebody in this list must have privileged access to some sort of university archive.

The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics: A Translation of Schrödinger's "Cat Paradox" Paper http://www.jstor.org.secure.sci-hub.cc/stable/986572

Meanwhile :

Schroedinger - What is life - 1944

http://whatislife.stanford.edu/LoCo_files/What-is-Life.pdf

I suggest people take a look at the epilogue where he talks about free will and determinism, about his budhist creed, and how human are actually immortal god...or something like that.

...

On Sat, 6 Aug 2016 17:50:27 -0600 Mirimir wrote:

The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics: A Translation of Schrödinger's "Cat Paradox" Paper http://www.jstor.org.secure.sci-hub.cc/stable/986572

So, the zombie cat is indeed a reductio-ad-absurdum of sorts (the translator uses the word 'ridiculous') and schroedinger's view is less stupid and crazy than what vulgar QM 'philosophers' believe. At least as far as 'blurring' ('superposition') goes. On the other hand he does present a rather retarded 'rejection' of 'naive realism'...justified by 'epistemology' (hahaha). Which of course means that what the mainstream calls QM is not physics but pseudo-philosophy. -------------------- 5. Are the Variables Really Blurred? The other alternative consisted of granting reality only to the momentarily sharp determining parts- or in more general terms to each variable a sort of realization just corresponding to the quantum me chanical statistics of this variable at the relevant moment. That it is in fact not impossible to express the degree and kind of blurring of all variables in one perfectly clear concept follows at once from the fact that Q.M. as a matter of fact has and uses such an instrument, the so-called wave function or psi-function, also called system vector. Much more is to be said about it further on. That it is an abstract, unintuitive mathematical construct is a scruple that almost always surfaces against new aids to thought and that carries no great message. At all events it is an imagined entity that images the blurring of all variables at every moment just as clearly and faithfully as the classical model does its sharp numerical values. Its equation of motion too, the law of its time variation, so long as the system is left undisturbed, lags not one iota, in clarity and determinacy, behind the equations of motion of the classical model. So the latter could be straight-forwardly replaced by the psi-function, so long as the blurring is confined to atomic scale, not open to direct control. In fact the function has pro- vided quite intuitive and convenient ideas, for in- stance the "cloud of negative electricity" around the nucleus, etc. But serious misgivings arise if one notices that the uncertainty affects macroscopically tangible and visible things, for which the term"blur- ring" seems simply wrong. The state of a radioactive nucleus is presumably blurred in such degree and fashion that neither the instant of decay nor the direction, in which the emitted a-particle leaves the nucleus, is well-established. Inside the nucleus, blur- ring doesn't bother us. The emerging particle is described, if one wants to explain intuitively, as a spherical wave that continuously emanates in all di- rections from the nucleus and that impinges continu ously on a surrounding luminescent screen over its full expanse. The screen however does not show a more or less constant uniform surface glow,but rather lights up at one instant at one spot, or, to honor the truth, it lights up now here, now there, for it is im- possible to do the experiment with only a single radio- active atom. If in place of the luminescent screen one uses a spatially extended detector, perhaps a gas that is ionised by the a-particles, one finds the ion pairs arranged along rectilinear columns that project backwards on to the bit of radioactive matter from which the a-radiation comes (C.T.R. Wilson's cloud chamber tracks, made visible by drops of moisture condensed on the ions). One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the fol lowing diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of one hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube dis- charges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts. It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality ---------------

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Meanwhile :

Schroedinger - What is life - 1944

http://whatislife.stanford.edu/LoCo_files/What-is-Life.pdf

I suggest people take a look at the epilogue where he talks about free will and determinism, about his budhist creed, and how human are actually immortal god...or something like that.

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On Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 03:18:36PM -0600, Mirimir wrote:

On 08/06/2016 02:04 PM, juan wrote:

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On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 15:31:13 -0600 Mirimir wrote: Math is just a tool that deals with numbers. And numbers without units have no physical meaning.

Quantum mechanics is math. It makes predictions about reality that can be tested. By experiments where stuff gets measured.

The problem is that some predictions of quantum mechanics, such as this stuff about entanglement, 1) have been verified experimentally, but 2) don't make obvious sense. That is, a wave function comprising two entangled electrons can apparently collapse instantaneously, even though the electrons are arbitrarily far apart. You could try to give up light as a universal speed limit. But that creates other paradoxes.

Sound. Light. Bah humbug! Next thing they'll be telling us that thought is the universal speed limit.

On Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 08:10:33PM -0300, juan wrote:

My remark was sarcasm. There's only one kind of realism - the real one.

In art there is Magic Realism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism I like most of these paintings: http://www.sapergalleries.com/Gonsalves.html

On Fri, 05 Aug 2016 14:38:42 -0700 Spencer wrote:

Hi,

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juan: physics [&] bad philosophy

Are often the same thing XD

Indeed.

Wordlife, Spencer

On Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 03:30:19PM -0600, Mirimir wrote:

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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light#Quantum_mechanics:

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Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, might give the superficial impression of allowing communication of information faster than light. _According to the no-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; they only let two observers in different locations see the same system simultaneously, without any way of controlling what either sees._ Wavefunction collapse can be viewed as an epiphenomenon of quantum decoherence, which in turn is nothing more than an effect of the underlying local time evolution of the wavefunction of a system and all of its environment. Since the underlying behaviour doesn't violate local causality or allow FTL it follows that neither does the additional effect of wavefunction collapse, whether real or apparent.

And of course storing entangled photonic pairs in separate gold photon cages will blow that stupid -theory- out of the water. Like duh!

On Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 03:30:19PM -0600, Mirimir wrote:

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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light#Quantum_mechanics:

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information faster than light. _According to the no-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; they only

Thanks for the explanations and the papers. Where is the bug in Zenaan's idea about array of photons and Observed + Not Observed = 1 bit?

On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 01:33:51AM -0600, Mirimir wrote:

On 08/07/2016 12:12 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote:

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On Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 03:30:19PM -0600, Mirimir wrote:

...

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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light#Quantum_mechanics:

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information faster than light. _According to the no-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; they only

Thanks for the explanations and the papers.

Where is the bug in Zenaan's idea about array of photons and Observed + Not Observed = 1 bit?

I think that's the next bit that you didn't quote:

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they only let two observers in different locations see the same system simultaneously, without any way of controlling what either sees.

You can establish that both observers saw an entangled wave function collapse, after the fact. But before the wave function collapses, neither one can know what they'll see, and so they also can't know what the other will see.

But, apparently, they can predict what the other will see with > 85% accuracy, whilst theory says they should only be able to do so with 75% accuracy. So, each side tests their respective entangled photon (85% certainty of what the other side saw), then does it all again (another 85%), giving: 85% + 85% = 169% probability that each will "guess" what the other side saw! That sounds pretty close to certainty to me... PS: I'm sure someone can do the math better than I... but hopefully you get the idea - each side "simultaneously" 'observes' their 'half' of an entangled photon pair, say each second, and use these to reduce the uncertainty, thereby reaching "1 bit" of information transfer...

From: Zenaan Harkness On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 09:10:42AM -0600, Mirimir wrote: ...

Here, from http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2464:

...

The violation of the Bell inequality has a schizophrenic status in physics.  To many of the physicists I know, Nature’s violating the Bell inequality is so trivial and obvious that it’s barely even worth doing the experiment: if people had just understood and believed Bohr and Heisenberg back in 1925, there would’ve been no need for this whole tiresome discussion.

Seriously, I am none the wiser and cannot yet make sense of what they are saying. China apparently is putting this experiment in space - are they winning a game on prediction of one particular bit with > 75% probability, and if so, can they run that game numerous times to get that probability close to 100%, and if so, can the random inputs to each side be made not random so that the result of the game is transmission of information? I cannot begin to answer any of these questions sorry...

I will explain what I think they are doing in the fiber-optic version of the experiment,at least so nobody is permanently misled by my previous analogy. Imagine a central location on earth, let's call it Location B.  20,500 meters west of that is Location A, and 20,500 meters to the east of "B" is Location C.  There's anoptical fiber going from "A" to "B", and another optical fiber going from "B" to "C".Two entangled photons are produced at Location B, then one is launched into fiber going to "A", and the other photon is launched from "B" into the fiber going to "C". After about 100 microseconds later (since the speed of light in that fiber is about 'c'/1.4584, where 1.4584 is the index of refraction of infrared in silica, thus 205.5 meters /microsecond), those photons emerge from their respective ends.  Notnecessarily at the same time, because the length of the fibers may not be quiteidentical.  They do the detection at Location A, and through prior arrangement theyschedule the detection at "C" a few nanoseconds later, possibly adjusting the physical length of the fiber to get the timing close to being correct..  Good synchronization could be achieved by GPS-controlled clocks, or perhaps a third fiber being used to synchronize local clocks at "A" and "C". They first detect at "A", and then detect at "C".  And they might reverse the order, forcompleteness.  But that's not the end:To determine that there has been more than a 50% correlation of the measured spins, they haveto transmit the type (angle) of measurement they make by ordinary optical fiber.  (Although,it wouldn't have to be on an optical fiber:  It could be a USB memory stick glued to theshell of a fast snail, I suppose.  the important thing is that the information eventually getsto the other side, not how fast it takes to get there.)   The information eventually gets to the other end, and they do the calculations andverify that SOMEHOW, the fact that a measurement at "A" somehow affected themeasurement at "C".   If they "schmoo plot" (meaning carefully adjust, then plot on a graph)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmoo   , they can determine how fast some affecting particle or signal would have to travel to affect the receiver at the other end.  Since the delay from Location "A" to "Location "C" would be (100+100) = 200 microseconds in a fiber, it would be 200/1.4584 = 137.136 microseconds from location A to location C,by air.  (or in a vacuum, or by radio, etc.) That figure I found from an article a few years ago, that said it would have to travel at least 10,000x that of 'c' to affect the measurement, would require that the delay is measured by:137.136 microseconds/10,000 = 13.7126 nanoseconds.   If the measurement at "A" occurred only 13.7136 nanoseconds before the measurement at "C", and yet there wasstill correlation, this shows that a velocity of at least 10,000 'c' to affect the outcome at "C". Therefore, I conclude that it would be easy to measure the minimum effective speed of the  hypothetical interfering particle or wave.  That particle or wave would have to travel 41,000meters in less than 13.7 nanoseconds, to achieve that interference.  Time measurement to 1 nanosecond is easy, to 1 picosecond is doable, and in fact measurement of time valuesfar less than 1 picosecond can be accomplished.              Jim Bell

From: jim bell To: Zenaan Harkness ; "cypherpunks@cpunks.org" Sent: Saturday, August 6, 2016 12:06 AM Subject: Re: Quantum entangled-photon Chinese satellite: Article on Bell Inequality test experiments in Wikipedia article.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments  This article describes the various experiments over the years.   I don't remember where i foundthe factor of 10,000 'c' velocity that the hypothetical interfering signal would have to travel atto interfere.   Ooops!  Found it at:  http://newatlas.com/quantum-entanglement-speed-10000-faster-light/26587/   Quantum "spooky action at a distance" travels at least 10,000 times faster than light Brian Dodson  March 10, 2013  The speed of entanglement dynamics is at least 10,000 times faster than light according to Prof. Juan Yin and colleaguesQuantum entanglement, one of the odder aspects of quantum theory, links the properties of particles even when they are separated by large distances. When a property of one of a pair of entangled particles is measured, the other "immediately" settles down into a state compatible with that measurement. So how fast is "immediately"? According to research by Prof. Juan Yin and colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai, the lower limit to the speed associated with entanglement dynamics – or "spooky action at a distance" – is at least 10,000 times faster than light.Despite playing a vital role in the development of quantum theory, Einstein felt philosophically at odds with its description of how the universe works. His famous quote that "God does not play dice" hints at his level of discomfort with the role of probability in quantum theory. He believed there exists another level of reality in which all of physics would be deterministic, and that quantum mechanics would turn out to be a description that emerges from the workings of that level – rather like a traffic jam emerges from the independent motions of a large number of cars.[...] Prof Yin's experiment, which was a bit more complicated in detail than the above simplification, observed no difference in polarization direction. The time it would take light to travel between Alice and Bob was about 50 μs, while the action of the entanglement dynamics had to be less than 0.35 ns. The minimum speed of the entanglement influence is just the one divided by the other, or 144,500 times the speed of light. However, a number of factors go into the interpretation of the results, which reduce the lower limit of the speed of entanglement influence to about 10,000 times the speed of light. Notice that this result does not eliminate the possibility that the influence of entanglement actually is instantaneous – it merely sets a limit saying how close the influence must be to infinitely fast. Another possibility that is gaining credence is that entanglement dynamics may operate external to time, or at least may ignore time as it ignores distance. [end of portion quoted]              Jim Bell From: jim bell From: Zenaan Harkness On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 09:10:42AM -0600, Mirimir wrote: ...

Here, from http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2464:

...

The violation of the Bell inequality has a schizophrenic status in physics.  To many of the physicists I know, Nature’s violating the Bell inequality is so trivial and obvious that it’s barely even worth doing the experiment: if people had just understood and believed Bohr and Heisenberg back in 1925, there would’ve been no need for this whole tiresome discussion.

Seriously, I am none the wiser and cannot yet make sense of what they are saying. China apparently is putting this experiment in space - are they winning a game on prediction of one particular bit with > 75% probability, and if so, can they run that game numerous times to get that probability close to 100%, and if so, can the random inputs to each side be made not random so that the result of the game is transmission of information? I cannot begin to answer any of these questions sorry...

I will explain what I think they are doing in the fiber-optic version of the experiment,at least so nobody is permanently misled by my previous analogy. Imagine a central location on earth, let's call it Location B.  20,500 meters west of that is Location A, and 20,500 meters to the east of "B" is Location C.  There's anoptical fiber going from "A" to "B", and another optical fiber going from "B" to "C".Two entangled photons are produced at Location B, then one is launched into fiber going to "A", and the other photon is launched from "B" into the fiber going to "C". After about 100 microseconds later (since the speed of light in that fiber is about 'c'/1.4584, where 1.4584 is the index of refraction of infrared in silica, thus 205.5 meters /microsecond), those photons emerge from their respective ends.  Notnecessarily at the same time, because the length of the fibers may not be quiteidentical.  They do the detection at Location A, and through prior arrangement theyschedule the detection at "C" a few nanoseconds later, possibly adjusting the physical length of the fiber to get the timing close to being correct..  Good synchronization could be achieved by GPS-controlled clocks, or perhaps a third fiber being used to synchronize local clocks at "A" and "C". They first detect at "A", and then detect at "C".  And they might reverse the order, forcompleteness.  But that's not the end:To determine that there has been more than a 50% correlation of the measured spins, they haveto transmit the type (angle) of measurement they make by ordinary optical fiber.  (Although,it wouldn't have to be on an optical fiber:  It could be a USB memory stick glued to theshell of a fast snail, I suppose.  the important thing is that the information eventually getsto the other side, not how fast it takes to get there.)   The information eventually gets to the other end, and they do the calculations andverify that SOMEHOW, the fact that a measurement at "A" somehow affected themeasurement at "C".   If they "schmoo plot" (meaning carefully adjust, then plot on a graph)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmoo   , they can determine how fast some affecting particle or signal would have to travel to affect the receiver at the other end.  Since the delay from Location "A" to "Location "C" would be (100+100) = 200 microseconds in a fiber, it would be 200/1.4584 = 137.136 microseconds from location A to location C,by air.  (or in a vacuum, or by radio, etc.) That figure I found from an article a few years ago, that said it would have to travel at least 10,000x that of 'c' to affect the measurement, would require that the delay is measured by:137.136 microseconds/10,000 = 13.7126 nanoseconds.   If the measurement at "A" occurred only 13.7136 nanoseconds before the measurement at "C", and yet there wasstill correlation, this shows that a velocity of at least 10,000 'c' to affect the outcome at "C". Therefore, I conclude that it would be easy to measure the minimum effective speed of the  hypothetical interfering particle or wave.  That particle or wave would have to travel 41,000meters in less than 13.7 nanoseconds, to achieve that interference.  Time measurement to 1 nanosecond is easy, to 1 picosecond is doable, and in fact measurement of time valuesfar less than 1 picosecond can be accomplished.              Jim Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

More amazingness from scientific boffins: http://newatlas.com/light-switch-bose-einstein-polaritons-cambridge/44805/

On Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 05:09:41PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

Next question, can they truly isolate the two entangled photonic wave parts? (Not sure if the question makes sense.)

Yesterday I asked something very similar: will photons communicate if they are on the opposite sides of Earth (or Sun). To isolate, I would try throwing one of the photons in a Black Hole. Or "destroy" one of them, but this is close to cheating. Once again suggest: someone who understand physics to ask on physics forum, possibly physics.stackexchange.com.

On Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 08:10:38PM +0000, jim bell wrote:

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To isolate, I would try throwing one of the photons in a Black Hole. That would be a fascinating experiment!  It would be a way to probe thenature of a black hole.  Generate a stream of entangled photons, throw one pair of each into a black hole, and at a varying delay, and see whatthe detection shows.  One problem might be that the photon thrown intothe black hole can never be 'detected', at least by conventional means.Would there be a detectable result?  Or just random?

lol, I was partially joking. AFAICT such experiment can't be made by humans in the foreseeable future. Isn't there software simulator for entangled stuff? It appears doable (not counting getting really fast).

On 08/06/2016 01:09 AM, Zenaan Harkness wrote: <SNIP>

I consider that the wave function of the photon, although centred at the "geometric center" of the photon, is in fact continuous, and for all intents and purposes, affecting one point of the wave (say 40,000 km away), affects the photon at the other end of that wave.

Well, it's actually the electrons that are entangled. The photons are just messengers. But yes, that's how I understand it. Wave functions collapse faster than light speed.

Next question, can they truly isolate the two entangled photonic wave parts? (Not sure if the question makes sense.)

There is no "isolate" in this model ;)

Therefore, I conclude that it would be easy to measure the minimum effective speed of the hypothetical interfering particle or wave. That particle or wave would have to travel 41,000meters in less

On 08/06/2016 12:48 AM, jim bell wrote: <SNIP> than 13.7 nanoseconds, to achieve that interference. OK, so they've shown that reality (for lack of a better word) cannot be both realistic (as in classical mechanics) and locally constrained (as in inability of information to travel faster than light speed). But that is just what quantum mechanics (a bunch of math) predicts. That is, one of realism and locality must be wrong. One interpretation is that spacial separation is just an illusion. <SNIP>

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 11:07:13AM +0300, Georgi Guninski wrote:

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 04:50:37AM -0300, juan wrote:

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On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 23:33:47 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

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If I see a horse running in the prairie, and yet I cannot capture him, Icannot use him to travel at horse-speed rather than man-speed.

OK, I understand that. But to use your analogy, what's being discussed here is not how the horse could eventually be used, but whether the horse exists at all.

Is the horse just some mathematical artifact in some mystical theory, or is there unambiguous experimental data associated with it?

Disclaimer: I am lamer in physics.

I think the analogy shows that FTL (superluminal) speed exist and is experimentally observed, this doesn't contradict relativity.

What contradicts relativity is _communication_ or clock synchronization faster than light.

I'll accept the clock synchronisation not being possible FTL, but not the communication part. The reason being, that the remote side makes an observation, and although the entangled photon state change shall be observable at a FTL time-delta into the future for the other side, the other side cannot know when to make his observation in order to "read" the bit. And, the side receiving information can only synchronize according to the most accurate clock he has at his disposal - which runs at most, at the speed of light, so he cannot make more than some very large number of observations --below-- the speed of light, and so i.e. his observational capacity exists as -slower- than the speed of light. Thus the basic limitation. Firstly, I suspect the Chinese (and Google who bought the bullshit on that "quantum computer" company a year ago) have jumped the gun, as we are missing at least a second superluminal communication primitive. This point should be obvious. A full (e.g. FTL) comms circuit requires a minimum of two primitives, and at the moment all the quantum boffins have is a single possibly FTL "primitive" (that is, the purported capacity to read one half of an entangled photon). And this, with being not able to determine that you changed the state (not sure on this assumption), and being not able to determine the state; "at your end". "At the other end" however, apparently, the corresponding read action can be done (but without synchronization yet, we don't have such a primitive, yet), to determine IF the first side has already performed its own read/observation action, up to and including the same point in time as we are doing our read/observation - i.e. "now". But not into the future (presumably, hey wtf do I know). So, some yet to be properly modelled substrata of the entangled quantum universe apparently provides for 'instantaneous' communication, given the following caveats: 1 - the time synchronization limits of the two sides 2 - the source/originating 'observation action' must happen no later than the time that the destination/receiving side makes their observation (should be obvious) Physics vs engineering? As in, the physicists are so focussed on the single qubit, they forgot to state "the obvious"? I suspect that the physicists and quantum mathematicians may have simply failed to state the limitations of their new toy in a simple way. May be they did, I have not read any literature and am dependent on this thread and possibly a pop sci article some years back.

IIRC if you point powerful projector at the Moon and move it slightly, this light on Moon will move FTL at least from your point of view. Jim's horse was something like this.

Check wikipedia for faster than light for more examples like this.

On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 11:29:07 +1000 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 09:58:11PM +0000, jim bell wrote:

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From: juan On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:49:12 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

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   being transmitted, then by definition, there's no way to measure   >  speed and the claim makes no sense. Well, that's the problem.  Knowing that SOMETHING is being

  >  If 'something' is moving at faster than light speed, then some   > information must be being transmitted. If no information is transmitted, and actuallyUSING that method to transmit useful information, are (quite strangely) two differentthings.  That, also is the amazing implications of entangled photons.

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", 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.

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 don't know if it works or not, though I notice that Cari posted a source claiming "Everyone agrees that quantum entanglement does not allow information to be transmitted faster that light. " I take that to mean that the authorities don't actually agree, although perhaps the majority says : no. Regardless, if there is something propagates at faster than light speed, then it should be possible to send information using that AND there would be nothing absurd about that, contrary to Jim B's abssurd defense of absurd, pseudo cientific 'interpretations'. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/absurd?s=t "utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue" It should be self-evident that absurdities have no place in science or even in philosophy.

What are we missing here?

On Fri, 05 Aug 2016 07:19:19 +0200 Bastiani Fortress wrote:

As i can remember, the point was when two particles are entangled, they bear the same quantum state, and they simultaneously shift their states önce either of them is "observed".

OK.

So you know that the other twin is in the same state, but you cannot code it at will,

Not sure what you mean by "code it".

and since you don't know its first state without having "observed" it, you cannot determine whether the other twin has been observed or not

And now I'm even more confused =P But let's go back to your first sentence. You have a couple of 'entangled' particles. Trying to measure particle 'A' triggers a change in particle 'B' - is that what you are saying? If that's the case, then you do have 'information transfer' - one bit.

(that would be 1 bit of data streaming).

This is what i remember from what i read years ago, please correct me if i'm wrong.

On Fri, 05 Aug 2016 07:11:11 +0100 oshwm wrote:

would the case for no data travel require that both particles exist in the same space and time? also, if measuring a quantum object changes it, can you not measure twice or similar using the measurements to both derive its original state and return it to its original state?

Going by BF's description, states don't really matter. All that matters is that you can do something to one of the particles and that action triggers a change in the other particle, a change that you can detect. If you can do something 'at will' to one particle, and then detect a change in the other particle, you have transmitted one bit.

(yep, now the schoolboy physicists are getting involved :D )

Ever heard stories about naked rulers, or emperors without clothes?

On 5 August 2016 06:58:15 BST, juan wrote:

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On Fri, 05 Aug 2016 07:19:19 +0200 Bastiani Fortress wrote:

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As i can remember, the point was when two particles are entangled, they bear the same quantum state, and they simultaneously shift their states önce either of them is "observed".

OK.

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So you know that the other twin is in the same state, but you cannot code it at will,

Not sure what you mean by "code it".

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and since you don't know its first state without having "observed" it, you cannot determine whether the other twin has been observed or not

And now I'm even more confused =P

But let's go back to your first sentence. You have a couple of 'entangled' particles. Trying to measure particle 'A' triggers a change in particle 'B' - is that what you are saying?

If that's the case, then you do have 'information transfer' - one bit.

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(that would be 1 bit of data streaming).

This is what i remember from what i read years ago, please correct me if i'm wrong.

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 07:19:19AM +0200, Bastiani Fortress wrote:

As i can remember, the point was when two particles are entangled, they bear the same quantum state, and they simultaneously shift their states önce either of them is "observed".

And if you 'observe' at the other side, you can determine that the first side was already observed. Apparently. Which is 1 bit (perhaps 1/2 a bit) of data transfer. If this is not the case, then the descriptions on this list so far are ambiguous to the point of not being interpretable... which would be unfortunate. I think someone's gonna have to try explaining again..

So you know that the other twin is in the same state, but you cannot code it at will, and since you don't know its first state without having "observed" it, you cannot determine whether the other twin has been observed or not (that would be 1 bit of data streaming). This is what i remember from what i read years ago, please correct me if i'm wrong.

5:11 AM, August 5, 2016, juan :

On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 11:29:07 +1000 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 09:58:11PM +0000, jim bell wrote: > From: juan > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:49:12 +0000 (UTC) > jim bell wrote: > > If 'something' is moving at faster than light speed, then some > > information must be being transmitted. If no information is > > being transmitted, then by definition, there's no way to > > measure > > speed and the claim makes no sense. > Well, that's the problem. Knowing that SOMETHING is being > transmitted, and actuallyUSING that method to transmit useful > information, are (quite strangely) two differentthings. That, also > is the amazing implications of entangled photons. 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", 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. 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 don't know if it works or not, though I notice that Cari posted a source claiming "Everyone agrees that quantum entanglement does not allow information to be transmitted faster that light. " I take that to mean that the authorities don't actually agree, although perhaps the majority says : no. Regardless, if there is something propagates at faster than light speed, then it should be possible to send information using that AND there would be nothing absurd about that, contrary to Jim B's abssurd defense of absurd, pseudo cientific 'interpretations'. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/absurd?s=t "utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue" It should be self-evident that absurdities have no place in science or even in philosophy.

What are we missing here?

-- You’re not from the Castle, you’re not from the village, you are nothing. Unfortunately, though, you are something, a stranger.

-- Free Australia: www.UPMART.org Please respect the confidentiality of this email as sensibly warranted.

9:45 AM, August 5, 2016, Zenaan Harkness :

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 07:19:19AM +0200, Bastiani Fortress wrote:

As i can remember, the point was when two particles are entangled, they bear the same quantum state, and they simultaneously shift their states önce either of them is "observed".

And if you 'observe' at the other side, you can determine that the first side was already observed. Apparently. Which is 1 bit (perhaps 1/2 a bit) of data transfer. If this is not the case, then the descriptions on this list so far are ambiguous to the point of not being interpretable... which would be unfortunate. I think someone's gonna have to try explaining again..

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 09:55:16AM +0200, Bastiani Fortress wrote:

A reminder: this is based on what i've read years ago, with the brains of a high schooler... You don't know the initial state. When you make an observation at the two sides, you *magically* see that two particles are at the same state.

A qwantoom of information, shall we call that? Point is, one of the purported benefits to crypto is that if one side snoops (makes that all important 'observation') - or in fact any untoward interloper goes on a 'snooping' spree (i.e. snoops at least once), then the other side can determine that the entangled quantum state(s) has/have been snooped, as distinct from 'having not been snooped/ observed'. This sounds suspiciously, distinctly, kinda may be just like a sorta you know should probably be, "bit" of information (since the first side created the entangled photon(s), and when that first side later does his own observation, he can determine if the remote side has had an observation "done" on it or not. (Given we now speak Kib, Gib, KiB, GiB etc, should we also speak of "bib"s instead of "bit"s? You know, "a bib is either 0 or 1, but in base 2 instead of in base 10. That would make a world of difference......) By simple logic, we have transmission of some information. Now I say, just like the speed of sound used to be considered "the absolute upper physical limit of the speed of travel", I suspect that soon the God almighty "physics" is going to be speaking more commonly ("tis broadly accepted that...") of some sub space, hyper space, super mega space or twisted entagled N-dimensional space, through which this "information" travels, and that "of course" and "we really should have known all along" and all the rest of the "I'm so firetrucking brilliant [[in hindsight]]" bullshit artist crowd... In the meantime, either one side (does not have to be "either side") is either able to determine that the other side made an observation of the entangled photon, or not. Let's not keep going around in circles, and await someone who has devoted some recent brain photonic activity to the problem, to such an extent that they be able to explain to us mere mortals WTF we are "missing", if indeed we are - I'm hopeful yet that we're not, and a whole bunch of 'very intellineffectuals' start spouting on about "how great FTL communication is and how obvious it was in hindsight to array a series of entangled photons to be the entanglede photonic baseband inteestellar FTL comms platform, like duh!" Alas, I am confident I am nowhere near as brainy as some other not so dumn trucks.

Quantum stuff don't come in absolutes, you're thinking in terms of classical mechanics. You don't know if the cat is dead unless you open the box and "observe". Unless you do it, you assume a collection of possibility of states.

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 08:13:39AM +0000, jim bell wrote:

I thought of an interesting thought-experiment that may clarify the situation.It's new, and doesn't precisely follow quantum, but here goes:

Much simpler stuff might violate C :) Maybe the simplest is that Tachyons actually exist, humans can't detect them yet. When CERN announced FTL several years ago, it was fun trolling orthodoxal physics, too bad CERN withdraw the result.

Is the limit of 'c' violated?   I don't know.  What do you think?

Consider asking on some physic forum, probably physics.stackexchange.com (first check if the question is elite enough for them).

On Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 08:13:39AM +0000, jim bell wrote:

From: juan On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 11:29:07 +1000 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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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--".

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and this apparently happens at at a minimum of 10k.c;

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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.

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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!

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   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...

On 04/08/16 13:33, Bastiani Fortress wrote:

Quantum entanglement does not provide information passing faster than light, afaik. Either i misunderstood the news, or it's being falsely advertised.

[quote] China to launch unbreakable quantum spy satellite - and it could one day lead to a megascope the size of Earth that could 'spot a license plate on Jupiter's moons'Satellite produces entangled photon pairs which form an encryption key

It doesn't pass info faster than light, it "generates keys" using a slower-than-light side channel to agree which of two possible perpendicular orientations to test. You can only test one orientation per photon, that's the physics part, testing in one orientation will destroy all information about its polarisation in a perpendicular orientation - and unless both ends test the same orientations for an entangled pair the test results will not match by spooky action at a distance. One way to do this, though not very secure, is for both ends to preagree which orientations to test. They can get the same information at the same, super-relativistic time, but it's a bit like DH, the information they get is random, no classical information is actually passed between ends. Another method is for both sides to test orientations at random, then choosing pairs for which both ends chose to test the same orientation. This requires an authenticated, but not necessarily secret, side channel between ends. Unless implemented vary carefully, either version can be mitm'd easily [fsvo "easily"] enough. The first method can be mitm'd by creating photons with known (but not entangled) polarisations in pairs, if you know the prearranged orientations to create the photons in. The second method is a little trickier to mitm, but the no-cloning theorem, which states you can't clone an arbitrary unknown quantum state, doesn't actually say that you can't clone a photon without testing it's polarisation in one orientation - it says that, for linear polarisation of entangled photons, you can't do it more than 2/3 of the time. Then Mallory will get it right by chance half the time when cloning fails, so overall if Mallory tries to clone photons he will get the right result 5 times out of six. This would roughly mean that the detectors would have to work correctly better than 5/6 of the time to prevent mitm - and single photon detectors which can do that, especially over orbital distances, are like hen's teeth. There are statistical methods which can work with less efficient detectors, but then the data rate drops to very slow indeed -- Peter Fairbrother

On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:20:48 +0300 Georgi Guninski wrote:

On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 02:22:05AM +0000, jim bell wrote:

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3720772/China-launch-unbreaka...

Bugs me with what energy the particles communicate. AFAICT every communication needs some energy. Two small photons far away communicate. Where the energy comes from? Even just to keep them in a relation so they can communicate?

Good question. You might get a bunch of absurd and mystical answers from the 'scientfic' 'community'.

Will they communicate if they are on the opposite sides of Earth (or Sun)?

In this question I don't care about the speed.