Sadly, at the time I said "Aha! Fascinating!" and now I have now idea what the deal was. Shetline?
Quantum entanglement works sort of like this...
Imagine you're flipping a coin and recording the results... HHTHTTHTTTHH.... Someone else is flipping a mutually entangled coin 10 light years away at the same time, at the same rate (say one flip per minute). The results are completely random, and completely unpredictable, but, weirdly enough, the results you and your distant colleague get are exactly the same. You only way know that this is true for certain, however, is when, ten years later, your colleague's results arrive by radio for comparison. The correlation you see only works when you and your colleague flip the coin and let it land randomly -- neither of you can deliberately set the coin down heads up or tails up and make the other coin do the same thing.
It also turns out the when your colleague sits on a different side of his desk when he flips the coin, his results and yours, instead of being exactly the same, are exactly opposite. He can't send an FTL message to you by changing where he sits, however, because no matter where he sits, the pattern of heads and tails you see looks just as random as ever. The sudden, immediate switch from perfect correlation to perfect anti-correlation only shows up clearly when, after ten years, you compare notes.
Something that works faster than the speed of light somehow binds these two coins together (or, more realistically, two distantly separated entangled particles), but whatever that thing is, it eludes any form of manipulation which we can exploit to send information or to cause a definitive FTL effect at a distance, an effect which is clear without waiting for light-speed messages to confirm the effect.
Adda: I believe it is because in the course of "looking at" the information it destroys or changes it.
It's more than that. The information doesn't exist until you measure it. It's not simply a matter of not being able to make a measurement subtle enough that you avoid disturbing the thing you're measuring. Google the "double slit experiment" to get a better understanding of this. This experiment (which is a real, do-able and confirmed experiment, not just a thought experiment like Schroedinger's Cat) really highlights the weirdness of wave/particle duality.
It's more than that. The information doesn't exist until you measure it. It's not simply a matter of not being able to make a measurement subtle enough that you avoid disturbing the thing you're measuring. Google the "double slit experiment" to get a better understanding of this. This experiment (which is a real, do-able and confirmed experiment, not just a thought experiment like Schroedinger's Cat) really highlights the weirdness of wave/particle duality.
Hey, I just realized I can ask you the question I wanted to ask the guy who wrote the book about entanglement that I read.
And forgive me if this is just too stupid to bear, but:
Is there any though that entangled particles are somehow a manifestation of the same "thing"? In the sense that they are not two different particles somehow connected but rather the same particle somehow separated?
I kept picturing a long dowel whose circular ends would appear to somehow "know" what the other end was doing, which would appear mysterious if you didn't realize you were dealing with a dowel but thought you had two separate circles.
Presumably if I had a "dowel" 10 light years long and I gave it a little push perpendicular to its long axis, the two ends would move in tandem, again seemingly in defiance of logic, if the interconnecting dowel-ness of the set-up were somehow obscured.
Is there any though that entangled particles are somehow a manifestation of the same "thing"? In the sense that they are not two different particles somehow connected but rather the same particle somehow separated?
Before measurement reveals the particle nature of a quantum entity, all you have is a wave function, and entangled particles have connected wave functions. Beyond that, it's more of a philosophical question about what one means by "same thing".
Are the words you're reading from your screen right now the same words I wrote, or just a copy of them? Different words which say the same thing, or the same words because they say the same thing?
Quote:
I only ask that you not mock me savagely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
That might be asking too much.
Addabox has nothing to worry about, at least until turnwrite catches hell first.
It's more than that. The information doesn't exist until you measure it. It's not simply a matter of not being able to make a measurement subtle enough that you avoid disturbing the thing you're measuring.
I thought it was that quantum particles only retain their superposition until you measure them, at which point they randomly take on the form of "ON" or "OFF" and no longer have any difference from normal particles.
But I learned all my quantum mechanics from a "For Dummies" book, so what do I know..
Is there any though that entangled particles are somehow a manifestation of the same "thing"? In the sense that they are not two different particles somehow connected but rather the same particle somehow separated?
I kept picturing a long dowel whose circular ends would appear to somehow "know" what the other end was doing, which would appear mysterious if you didn't realize you were dealing with a dowel but thought you had two separate circles.
Presumably if I had a "dowel" 10 light years long and I gave it a little push perpendicular to its long axis, the two ends would move in tandem, again seemingly in defiance of logic, if the interconnecting dowel-ness of the set-up were somehow obscured.
I only ask that you not mock me savagely.
there are a few explanations of this - shetlines is one and the most recognised and accepted. But i've found other possible explanations.
a) John Cramers transactional model explains how entangled particles can affect each other instantly over any distance instantly, without nothing wierd happening like information breaking the speed of light. Its beautiful, symmetric and very simple to understand.
b) from string theory, it is possible that extra dimensions that didn't expand in the big bang, thus having a size of zero, but are connected thus to every physical point in the 4 dimensional universe we see, and information is thus sent through these dimensions, thus causing immediate effects over long distances in the 4th dimensional universe.
c) my own model, which basically says that the universe needs to be observed and understood from the relative pov of the most fundamental constituents of what it is made from, ie pure energy, therefore there is no fundamental time, size, distance - thus what we perceive is a consequence of our relative pov.
its quite possible, that with the exception of c (which could be the mutterings of someone mentally ill) that all the explanations are correct, and when the 'theory of everything' is known it is possible that all these models were correct, and are unified to be explained as being correct depending upon how you chose to answer the question of why depending from the starting point of the way you chose to ask the question.
LOS ANGELES ? A provocative new study of photographs taken from orbit suggests that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars as recently as several years ago, raising the possibility that the Red Planet could harbour an environment favourable to life.
The crisp images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor do not directly show water. Rather, they show apparently recent changes in surface features that provide the strongest evidence yet that water even now sometimes flows on the dusty, frigid world. Water and a stable heat source are considered keys for life to emerge.
Until now, the question of liquid water has focused on ancient Mars, and on the Martian north pole, where water ice has been detected. Scientists have long noted Martian features that appear to have been scoured by water or look like shorelines, and have tried to prove that the Red Planet had liquid water eons ago.
"This underscores the importance of searching for life on Mars, either present or past," said Bruce Jakosky, an astrobiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who had no role in the study. "It's one more reason to think that life could be there.''
The new findings were published Wednesday in the journal Science and NASA scheduled a news conference for Wednesday afternoon to announce the results.
Oded Aharonson, an assistant professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, said that while the interpretation of recent water activity on Mars was "compelling," it's just one possible explanation. Aharonson said further study is needed to determine whether the deposit could have been left there by the flow of dust rather than water.
The latest research emerged when the Global Surveyor spotted gullies and trenches that scientists believed were geologically young and carved by fast-moving water coursing down cliffs and steep crater walls.
Scientists at the San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, who operate a camera aboard the spacecraft, decided to retake photos of thousands of gullies in search of evidence of recent water activity.
Two gullies that were originally photographed in 1999 and 2001 and re-imaged in 2004 and 2005 showed changes consistent with water flowing down the crater walls, according to the study.
In both cases, scientists found bright, light-colored deposits in the gullies that weren't present in the original photos. They concluded the deposits ? possibly mud, salt or frost ? were left there when water recently cascaded through the channels.
The Global Surveyor, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, abruptly lost radio contact with Earth last month. Attempts to locate the spacecraft, which has mapped Mars since 1996, have failed and scientists fear it is unusable.
NASA's durable Mars rovers have sent scientists strong evidence that the planet once had liquid water at or near the surface, based on observations of alterations in ancient rocks.
"We're now realizing Mars is more active than we previously thought and that the mid-latitude section seems to be where all the action is," said Arizona State University scientist Phil Christensen, who was not part of the current research.
Mars formed more than 4.5 billion years ago and scientists generally believe it went through an early wet and warm era that ended after 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion years, leaving the planet extremely dry and cold.
Water can't remain a liquid for long because of subzero surface temperatures and low atmospheric pressure that would turn water into ice or gas.
But some studies have pointed to the possibility of liquid water flowing briefly on the surface through a possible underground water source that periodically shoots up like an aquifer.
...Then again, this could just be some deviously clever promotion for that idiotic Transformers movie soon to be released...
then i guess they just start looking of another solar system.
Eh, I don't think alien life is to be found in this solar system. NASA is wasting time and money exploring here any more. They need to get their engineers working and design an interstellar space ship. No one cares about dead planets.
Comments
- Vernor Vinge
Sadly, at the time I said "Aha! Fascinating!" and now I have now idea what the deal was. Shetline?
Sadly, at the time I said "Aha! Fascinating!" and now I have now idea what the deal was. Shetline?
Quantum entanglement works sort of like this...
Imagine you're flipping a coin and recording the results... HHTHTTHTTTHH.... Someone else is flipping a mutually entangled coin 10 light years away at the same time, at the same rate (say one flip per minute). The results are completely random, and completely unpredictable, but, weirdly enough, the results you and your distant colleague get are exactly the same. You only way know that this is true for certain, however, is when, ten years later, your colleague's results arrive by radio for comparison. The correlation you see only works when you and your colleague flip the coin and let it land randomly -- neither of you can deliberately set the coin down heads up or tails up and make the other coin do the same thing.
It also turns out the when your colleague sits on a different side of his desk when he flips the coin, his results and yours, instead of being exactly the same, are exactly opposite. He can't send an FTL message to you by changing where he sits, however, because no matter where he sits, the pattern of heads and tails you see looks just as random as ever. The sudden, immediate switch from perfect correlation to perfect anti-correlation only shows up clearly when, after ten years, you compare notes.
Something that works faster than the speed of light somehow binds these two coins together (or, more realistically, two distantly separated entangled particles), but whatever that thing is, it eludes any form of manipulation which we can exploit to send information or to cause a definitive FTL effect at a distance, an effect which is clear without waiting for light-speed messages to confirm the effect.
Adda: I believe it is because in the course of "looking at" the information it destroys or changes it.
It's more than that. The information doesn't exist until you measure it. It's not simply a matter of not being able to make a measurement subtle enough that you avoid disturbing the thing you're measuring. Google the "double slit experiment" to get a better understanding of this. This experiment (which is a real, do-able and confirmed experiment, not just a thought experiment like Schroedinger's Cat) really highlights the weirdness of wave/particle duality.
It's more than that. The information doesn't exist until you measure it. It's not simply a matter of not being able to make a measurement subtle enough that you avoid disturbing the thing you're measuring. Google the "double slit experiment" to get a better understanding of this. This experiment (which is a real, do-able and confirmed experiment, not just a thought experiment like Schroedinger's Cat) really highlights the weirdness of wave/particle duality.
Hey, I just realized I can ask you the question I wanted to ask the guy who wrote the book about entanglement that I read.
And forgive me if this is just too stupid to bear, but:
Is there any though that entangled particles are somehow a manifestation of the same "thing"? In the sense that they are not two different particles somehow connected but rather the same particle somehow separated?
I kept picturing a long dowel whose circular ends would appear to somehow "know" what the other end was doing, which would appear mysterious if you didn't realize you were dealing with a dowel but thought you had two separate circles.
Presumably if I had a "dowel" 10 light years long and I gave it a little push perpendicular to its long axis, the two ends would move in tandem, again seemingly in defiance of logic, if the interconnecting dowel-ness of the set-up were somehow obscured.
I only ask that you not mock me savagely.
I only ask that you not mock me savagely.
That might be asking too much.
Is there any though that entangled particles are somehow a manifestation of the same "thing"? In the sense that they are not two different particles somehow connected but rather the same particle somehow separated?
Before measurement reveals the particle nature of a quantum entity, all you have is a wave function, and entangled particles have connected wave functions. Beyond that, it's more of a philosophical question about what one means by "same thing".
Are the words you're reading from your screen right now the same words I wrote, or just a copy of them? Different words which say the same thing, or the same words because they say the same thing?
I only ask that you not mock me savagely.
That might be asking too much.
Addabox has nothing to worry about, at least until turnwrite catches hell first.
The ability to do such a thing, utterly and completely apart from how you manage to do it, leads to shoot-your-own-grandfather causality paradoxes.
What?
It's more than that. The information doesn't exist until you measure it. It's not simply a matter of not being able to make a measurement subtle enough that you avoid disturbing the thing you're measuring.
I thought it was that quantum particles only retain their superposition until you measure them, at which point they randomly take on the form of "ON" or "OFF" and no longer have any difference from normal particles.
But I learned all my quantum mechanics from a "For Dummies" book, so what do I know..
Is there any though that entangled particles are somehow a manifestation of the same "thing"? In the sense that they are not two different particles somehow connected but rather the same particle somehow separated?
I kept picturing a long dowel whose circular ends would appear to somehow "know" what the other end was doing, which would appear mysterious if you didn't realize you were dealing with a dowel but thought you had two separate circles.
Presumably if I had a "dowel" 10 light years long and I gave it a little push perpendicular to its long axis, the two ends would move in tandem, again seemingly in defiance of logic, if the interconnecting dowel-ness of the set-up were somehow obscured.
I only ask that you not mock me savagely.
there are a few explanations of this - shetlines is one and the most recognised and accepted. But i've found other possible explanations.
a) John Cramers transactional model explains how entangled particles can affect each other instantly over any distance instantly, without nothing wierd happening like information breaking the speed of light. Its beautiful, symmetric and very simple to understand.
b) from string theory, it is possible that extra dimensions that didn't expand in the big bang, thus having a size of zero, but are connected thus to every physical point in the 4 dimensional universe we see, and information is thus sent through these dimensions, thus causing immediate effects over long distances in the 4th dimensional universe.
c) my own model, which basically says that the universe needs to be observed and understood from the relative pov of the most fundamental constituents of what it is made from, ie pure energy, therefore there is no fundamental time, size, distance - thus what we perceive is a consequence of our relative pov.
its quite possible, that with the exception of c (which could be the mutterings of someone mentally ill) that all the explanations are correct, and when the 'theory of everything' is known it is possible that all these models were correct, and are unified to be explained as being correct depending upon how you chose to answer the question of why depending from the starting point of the way you chose to ask the question.
Original article
Martian find raises chances of life
Dec. 6, 2006. 11:49 AM
ALICIA CHANG
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES ? A provocative new study of photographs taken from orbit suggests that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars as recently as several years ago, raising the possibility that the Red Planet could harbour an environment favourable to life.
The crisp images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor do not directly show water. Rather, they show apparently recent changes in surface features that provide the strongest evidence yet that water even now sometimes flows on the dusty, frigid world. Water and a stable heat source are considered keys for life to emerge.
Until now, the question of liquid water has focused on ancient Mars, and on the Martian north pole, where water ice has been detected. Scientists have long noted Martian features that appear to have been scoured by water or look like shorelines, and have tried to prove that the Red Planet had liquid water eons ago.
"This underscores the importance of searching for life on Mars, either present or past," said Bruce Jakosky, an astrobiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who had no role in the study. "It's one more reason to think that life could be there.''
The new findings were published Wednesday in the journal Science and NASA scheduled a news conference for Wednesday afternoon to announce the results.
Oded Aharonson, an assistant professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, said that while the interpretation of recent water activity on Mars was "compelling," it's just one possible explanation. Aharonson said further study is needed to determine whether the deposit could have been left there by the flow of dust rather than water.
The latest research emerged when the Global Surveyor spotted gullies and trenches that scientists believed were geologically young and carved by fast-moving water coursing down cliffs and steep crater walls.
Scientists at the San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, who operate a camera aboard the spacecraft, decided to retake photos of thousands of gullies in search of evidence of recent water activity.
Two gullies that were originally photographed in 1999 and 2001 and re-imaged in 2004 and 2005 showed changes consistent with water flowing down the crater walls, according to the study.
In both cases, scientists found bright, light-colored deposits in the gullies that weren't present in the original photos. They concluded the deposits ? possibly mud, salt or frost ? were left there when water recently cascaded through the channels.
The Global Surveyor, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, abruptly lost radio contact with Earth last month. Attempts to locate the spacecraft, which has mapped Mars since 1996, have failed and scientists fear it is unusable.
NASA's durable Mars rovers have sent scientists strong evidence that the planet once had liquid water at or near the surface, based on observations of alterations in ancient rocks.
"We're now realizing Mars is more active than we previously thought and that the mid-latitude section seems to be where all the action is," said Arizona State University scientist Phil Christensen, who was not part of the current research.
Mars formed more than 4.5 billion years ago and scientists generally believe it went through an early wet and warm era that ended after 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion years, leaving the planet extremely dry and cold.
Water can't remain a liquid for long because of subzero surface temperatures and low atmospheric pressure that would turn water into ice or gas.
But some studies have pointed to the possibility of liquid water flowing briefly on the surface through a possible underground water source that periodically shoots up like an aquifer.
...Then again, this could just be some deviously clever promotion for that idiotic Transformers movie soon to be released...
then i guess they just start looking of another solar system.
Eh, I don't think alien life is to be found in this solar system. NASA is wasting time and money exploring here any more. They need to get their engineers working and design an interstellar space ship. No one cares about dead planets.
Europa.