27 February 2010

Notes

         You are up and packed, breakfast at First Watch, an errand with fixing Carol’s new cell phone (a surprise present from Paul), then you will be on your way.

         You are getting vibes about Merlyn being somehow connected with chapter four. These are accurate. Off on an inner-dimensional aspect of entanglement – physics in a mirror – metaphysics. The purpose is to remind the reader this is not Disneyworld, nor is it Alice Through the Looking Glass. You will have to bone up on the latest in quantum entanglement and its possible consequences. It is a guiding principle and, you are right again, it has parallels with the Marsupials and their ‘Ship’ of intergalactic transportation.

         I haven’t thought about ‘Ship’ in a couple of years. I will have to reread some sections of book one. It sounds like a fun chapter though because I like new stuff as well as the old ways of the elaborate ‘shaman's dance’ of the storyteller, Merlyn.

         Go ahead and post. You can think about what you and (John) Doug Goss used to talk about in high school – the quantum jump. It was the year Doug made the cloud chamber for the district science fair, eventually he ended up with his doctorate in nuclear physics. More later.  – Amorella. 



         Saturday night. Almost time for bed after a busy day. Check your email, relax.


Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance:" one particle can instantaneously tell what another is doing without being anywhere near it. It's called quantum entanglement. And now NIST physicists have brought this effect to the real world.
They demonstrated this effect using two "entangled" mechanical oscillators. (A mechanical oscillator can be anything from a pendulum to a watch spring to a guitar string. Here, it's vibrating atoms.) First, they separated two entangled atoms from each other. Then the scientists prodded one vibrating atom of the pair, and the other vibrating atom acted like it was being prodded too - despite being nowhere near the first one. The two seem to be almost telepathically communicating with each other, faster than the speed of light.
This isn't the first strange experiment in quantum entanglement. Entangled photon pairs have been used to take ghostly photos through opaque barriers. Entanglement is also a key part of the classic Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment. But this experiment shows that entanglement isn't limited to immeasurable scales: one day, quantum computers might harness this effect for instant, efficient processing.
And there are even cooler implications from this experiment: In Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, spies can instantaneously converse with their commanders by composing messages on a resonator entangled with a receiver worlds away. This recent experiment shows that Pullman's idea of large scale entanglement is theoretically possible, making faster-than-light communication more than just speculation.
From: io9.com/5277700/scientists-measure-communication-between-quantum-entangled-atoms
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Quantum Entanglement Communications
Some people have suggested that psychic powers do exist or other communication could exist using quantum entanglement to allow instantaneous messages over any distance.

Quantum entanglement is an accepted part of quantum physics.  The concept is often associated with an argument Einstein and others used to try to demonstrate limitations of quantum theory and the Uncertainty Principle.  Einstein described an experiment in which two particles would be created by the same process, but would head in opposite directions.  If at some time you were to establish certain attributes of one of the particles, you could use that to determine that attribute of the other particle.  Einstein argued this could be used to get information on particles that was inconsistent with the Uncertainty Principle and would indicate that the particles actually have definite properties at all times rather than just probabilities of values.

However, what physicists have come to accept is that this does not mean that testing one particle tells us about attributes the other particle already had.  Instead, it is believed that when one particle is tested that fact is instantaneously conveyed to the other particle which then is forced to acquire a particular property.  This takes place by some means that does not involve exchange of photons or other means limited by the speed of light.

So, some individuals have suggested we should be able to use this phenomenon to carry out communications that are not limited by the speed of light or other factors.  It would also be a means of communication that could not be detected the way radio waves can be detected.  There are a number of considerations that must be dealt with.

1) For a pair of particles to interact this way they must have some kind of relationship before hand.  For instance, the two particles could be simultaneously created by a means similar to Einstein's experiment.   Or the two particles may become entangled by encountering each other in their travels and interacting in some way.  Any attempt at communications via quantum entanglement must arrange to have particles that have previously established a connection.  It is not possible to simply pick any particle and use it to act in an entangled way with any second particle you choose.

2) As mentioned in (1), it is possible for particles to establish a connection by coming in contact while going from here to there.  If particle A and particle B are entangled, that does not preclude particle B from becoming entangled with particles C, D and E if it encounters them later.  If this happens and particle B is now entangled with particles A, C, D and E, it is no longer possible to have clear, unambiguous communications between A and B - since C, D and E can also be influencing B.  To have reliable quantum entanglement communications via two particles we need to isolate the particles to prevent either of them from becoming entangled with any other particles.  [I’m not really sure whether such isolation is actually possible, since the isolation would presumably have to be maintained by a field – and it might be that the particles associated with the field could become entangled with the “isolated” particle.]

3) According to quantum physics, the properties of a particle are probabilities until an observation occurs, but the process of testing the properties of a particle also alters a particle.  Because of these kinds of factors, physicists do not believe meaningful communications can occur solely by manipulating a pair of entangled particles.  Although meaningful communications could be carried out in which entangled particles play a part, it would also be necessary for the sending and receiving ends to be in communications by other means in order to convey additional information to help interpret the interactions between the entangled particles.  The other means of communications between sender and receiver would, presumably, be limited by the speed of light.  Therefore, the entire process would not operate faster than light.

4) Even if this could be carried out by a hi-tech apparatus, there are issues for explaining (supposedly) naturally occurring psychic phenomena.  Unless we can identify a means by which a biological organism could create and maintain an isolated area for individual particles for this purpose, it is not feasible.  Even if an organism could maintain an isolated particle, how would it acquire an appropriately entangled one and get it to this isolation area without it becoming entangled with other particles?  How would an organism distinguish an appropriately entangled particle from any other particle?  What mechanism would an organism have to manipulate this isolated particle in order to send a message, or to check the attributes of a particle in order to read an incoming message?  Finally, what would be the point, if an additional means of communications (not involving quantum entanglement) was needed to make the entangled communications meaningful?
From: www.hardsf.org/HSFTEnta.htm 

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You found two articles that may or may not be of use.

         I don’t really see anything new here. This doesn’t feel  like something I need. I am not sure what the ‘inner-dimensional aspect of entanglement’ really is or what it suggests. I tend to agree with both articles at the same time. You may have to fill me in here Amorella, I would rather have reason over imagination.

         Until tomorrow, orndorff. – Amorella. 

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