> At 08:16 PM 6/7/2010, Mauro Lacy wrote: >>On 06/07/2010 07:29 PM, <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] >> wrote: >>> >>>In reply to Roarty, Francis X's message of Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:31:49 >>> -0400: >>>Hi, >>> >>>I think the whole notion of quantum entanglement is nonsense. When two >>>*correlated* particles are produced, they are like mirror images of >>>one another. >>>That means that the subsequent response of one is *correlated* to >>>the response >>>of the other (not caused by it). >>>Take as an example a box containing pairs of red and blue balls. If >>>one ball of >>>any given pair in New York is red, then it's no surprise that the >>>other ball of >>>the pair in LA is blue, and it didn't suddenly become blue when someone >>> first >>>saw that the other ball was red. It was already blue from the start. The >>>separation distance is irrelevant. >>> >> >>As far as I know, quantum entanglement is different, because it's >>possible not only to observe but also to change the status of one of >>the particles, and the other will immediately reflect the opposite >>change. It's like the two particles are not only mirror images one >>of the other, but one and the same, or better said, mirror aspects >>of something underlyingly unique. >>It's like if instead of having a pair of color balls, you'll have a >>pair of switches, and whenever you change one of the switches, the >>other changes accordingly. > > I tried to write a response to Roarty's comment and found it > difficult to distinguish the "change" from there simply being a > maintained difference from the beginning. If I'm correct, the > separated entities (photons, atoms, electrons) behave as a > superposition of states, which would show up as being able to pop up > as either state, and also to interfere with themselves, as in a > two-slot experiment (which requires that they be superpositions, if > I'm correct, i.e., "waves" rather than "particles,"), but then, when > one is "collapsed" into a unique state, the other behaves, then, as > the opposite state only. This is the "spooky action at a distance" > that Einstein was concerned about. > > Roarty's comment assumes that the two entangled entitys are "really" > only one or the other state, from the beginning. > > I searched for and found no really good explanations of quantum > entanglement and why this interpretation isn't considered legitimate, > but my sense is that this is because it then leaves unexplained the > behavior of each particle, before one is "revealed," and the other > then is revealed immediately as the opposite, as if it is both states at > once. > > Mauro, how can you tell the difference between the "pair of > switches," with one of the pair in one state and the other in the > other, from the beginning, only hidden, from quantum entanglement, > which assumes that both switches are in both states until one is > checked, and then both are revealed. All the explanations I saw did > not explain why one would follow the "both-states" interpretation. I > think it has to do with the behavior of each "particle" prior to > collapse, just as a beam of electrons impinging on two slits will > form an interference pattern on a screen, as if each electron goes > through two holes, as a wave, but anything that one does to cause or > determine that a particular electron goes only through one hole will > eliminate the interference pattern, and one will get only an image of > each hole from the separate passages. >
As you say, this seems to be related to the process of observation in itself. The example then will be: The two entangled color balls are inside closed boxes. The entanglement would be manifested by the fact that when you open one of the boxes to check the color of its contained ball (i.e. collapse of the wave function of one of the particles) the other box also opens "magically" and reveals a ball of the other color. That is, the "magic" lies not in the complementary colors of the balls (something that can be defined from the beginning, but unobserved (and here we have the epistemological debate of QM, Copenhagen interpretation, etc.)), but in the fact that when one of the entangled balls is observed, the other one also reveals its color. I was thinking that what could be interesting to answer is a question like this: What operation or process in a higher dimensional manifold can produce what would look like a reflection on a lower dimensional one? The idea would then be that a higher dimensional particle would be equivalent(i.e. it would be the same higher dimensional entity) to any number of these reflections on a lower dimensional manifold. That is, that higher dimensional particle could "reflect" or "proyect" as one, two, four, etc. particles in lower dimensions. Mauro
