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+--- Thread: Testing quantum entanglement back to billions of years ago (/thread-6379.html)
Testing quantum entanglement back to billions of years ago - C C - Nov 8, 2018
https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/the-quest-to-test-quantum-entanglement
EXCERPT: . . . The experiment was designed to study quantum entanglement, a phenomenon that connects quantum systems in ways that are impossible in our macro-sized, classical world. [...] Scientists have long speculated that previous experimental results can be explained best if the world does not obey one or both of the first two of Bell’s assumptions—realism and locality. But recent work has shown that the culprit could be his third assumption—the freedom of choice. Perhaps the scientists’ decision about the angle at which to let the photons in is not as free and random as they thought.
The quasar experiment was the latest to test the freedom of choice assumption. The scientists determined the angle at which they would allow photons into their detectors based on the wavelength of the light they detected from the two distant quasars, something determined 7.8 and 12.2 billion years ago, respectively. The long-traveling photons took the place of physicists or conventional random number generators in the decision, eliminating earthbound influences on the experiment, human or otherwise. At the end of the test, the team found far higher correlations among the entangled photons than Bell’s theorem would predict if the world were classical.
That means that, if some hidden classical variable were actually determining the outcomes of the experiment, in the most extreme scenario, the choice of measurement would have to have been laid out long before human existence—implying that quantum “weirdness” is really the result of a universe where everything is predetermined. “That’s unsatisfactory to a lot of people,” Hall says. “They’re really saying, if it was set up that long ago, you would have to try and explain quantum correlations with predetermined choices. Life would lose all meaning, and we’d stop doing physics.”
Of course, physics marches on, and entanglement retains many mysteries to be probed. [...] “No information can go from here to there instantaneously, but different interpretations of quantum mechanics will agree or disagree that there’s some hidden influence,” says Gabriela Barreto Lemos, a postdoctoral researcher at the International Institute of Physics in Brazil. “But something we all agree upon is this definition in terms of correlation and statistics.”
[...] entanglement may hold the key to some of the most fundamental questions in physics. Some researchers have been studying materials with large numbers of particles entangled, rather than simply pairs. When this many-body entanglement happens, physicists observe new states of matter beyond the familiar solid, liquid and gas, as well as new patterns of entanglement not seen anywhere else. “One thing it tells you is that the universe is richer than you previously suspected,” says Brian Swingle [...]
Such interesting properties are emerging from these materials that physicists are starting to realize that entanglement may actually stitch together space-time itself—a somewhat ironic twist, as Einstein, who first connected space and time in his relativity theory, disliked quantum mechanics so much. But if the theory proves correct, entanglement could help physicists finally reach one of their ultimate goals: achieving a theory of quantum gravity that unites Einstein’s relativistic world with the enigmatic and seemingly contradictory quantum world....
MORE: https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/the-quest-to-test-quantum-entanglement
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RE: Testing quantum entanglement back to billions of years ago - Zinjanthropos - Nov 8, 2018
Love this kind of talk. The way minds approach a problem, something reality seems to be. I used to believe in a simple answer for a TOE but the more I see & hear the less enamoured I become of the simplicity idea.
Don't know why but for some reason a thought about the brain popped into my head. I thought, wtf, why all of a sudden am I thinking the universe is alive? Is it because my imagination was triggered into thinking of a brain cell communicating with other brain cells, communicating with other body cells and so forth, even though for all intents and purposes they are vast distances apart from one another? Maybe I'm wrong but appears to me that there's always this connection in a living system. I'll call it the Pandoran effect in a tribute to Hollywood film making (Avatar).
I honestly don't like thinking this way since it seems to go against conventional wisdom and it probably has nothing to do with the topic at hand. I only marvel at how a mind can be triggered into thinking about something entirely different....casually speaking of course
RE: Testing quantum entanglement back to billions of years ago - Syne - Nov 8, 2018
(Nov 8, 2018 03:12 AM)C C Wrote: That means that, if some hidden classical variable were actually determining the outcomes of the experiment, in the most extreme scenario, the choice of measurement would have to have been laid out long before human existence—implying that quantum “weirdness” is really the result of a universe where everything is predetermined.
IOW, this only points to predeterminism if you assume some hidden classic variable, which is not assumed by QM.
