bangstrom

Causality may not be violated but the cause and effect is instant and not mediated by a direct physical contact and that makes the interaction non-local. I like to visualize entanglement as something like a game of tug-of-war. If the rope breaks, the participants all fall but in opposite directions so their directions of fall are anti-coordinated. There is no need to communicate that one side has fallen to the left for the other side to know they should fall to the right. Both sides respond to their local loss of equilibrium. A connection by rope is a classical connection and the break in that connection can not be transmitted through the rope any faster than light speed so the timing of events is space-like or slower. On the other hand, a connection by entanglement is instant and simultaneous at all points in space. This never happens at the macro level but it is possible at the particle level. With entanglement, the break, and loss of entanglement at both ends are all simultaneous. The conventional explanation for the quantum identities of entangled particles is that their identities are in a state of superposition. Their polarities are both horizontal and vertical and their spins are both up and down like Schroedinger’s dead and alive cat. Superposition is difficult to visualize. I prefer to think that entangled particles lie on opposite ends of a common wave function such that when one particle is a the peak of the wave the other is at the trough. This explains how they can be constantly anti-coordinated. And, when entanglement is lost their identities drop out as determinate but anti-coordinated depending upon whether they happen to be at the peak or the trough end of the wave when it was lost. We must have a different understanding of what you mean by, "Now, and here's the point, if you measure the same observable, the correlation is perfect. But if you measure incompatible observables, they're totally non-correlated. Does this mean you can measure only all 'heads' or all 'tails' as the observable and find them coordinated. Or, you can measure only 'heads' here and 'tails' there and find them non-coordinated"? I don't see where your measurements are not classical. And what does having been made in Hamburg have to do with it? The timing between the first observation as either + or - instantly determines what the second will be. That is the part that is instantaneous. The identities as either + or- is random at the time of observation but it was not fixed from the start as with the gloves in boxes.

Your example sounds totally classical. When two particles are entangled their quantum identities are random and indeterminate until one of the particles is measured. This instantly breaks the entanglement and their identities become determinate on both ends. The identities will always be anti-correlated. For example, if two formerly entangled electrons are observed and one is found to be spin-up the other will be spin-down so their combined spins add up to zero. And the timing between the two events is instant even if the the events are light years apart. Instant action at a distance makes the observations non-local and no longer classical. To go with the coin example, when one coin lands ‘heads’ the other will land ‘tails’ every time. The events are ‘local’ if the measurement of one has no affect on the other. But they are non-local, in the case of entanglement, because the measurement of one particle instantly fixes the identity of the formerly entangled partner. Here is a short video that explains entanglement and non-locality in greater detail. https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/video/brilliantly-simple-explanation-of-quantum-entanglement A beam of polarized light can't be entangled because the first measurement breaks entanglement. A polarizer at the source is that first measurement. With entanglement, you can only measure one property of one particle at a time. The measurement of the first particle is random, as is the second, third etc.. Every particle can have a different polarization.

We are observing results in the field as data and not equations on paper. There are some experiments dealing with the middle such as variations of the Wheeler delayed choice experiments. Correlation is an observation- not an explanation. It could serve as an explanation, as with “Bertelman’s sox” if the quantum identities could be demonstrated to be unchanging. This is not the case. If the correlations are impossible to change, quantum teleportation would be impossible. The entanglement itself is the non-local part. The experiments are planned, set up, and run and that is the reality before the observations are made. If a coin flip in Ukraine is random and a coin flip in Andromeda is also random and there is no correlation between them, the events are local. But, if the coin flips are correlated such that the observation of one appears to affect the outcome of the other, the interaction is non-local. The probabilities are in two different locations. That makes them local. The entanglement spans the two different locations simultaneously even though they are separated separated by space and time. That makes the entanglement itself non-local.

Separability in space but not time is what makes the connection non-local. This is impossible in the classical model but possible for quantum correlations. I do read your what you write and try to follow the math but I find it unconvincing because your views are contrary to nearly everything I read from reliable outside sources often including ones whose names you drop as having the same views as yours. What you say may be true for Gell-Mann and Kracklauer to name one other claiming that QM is non-local but I don’t think that applies to Feynman. The Wheeler-Feynman Absorber theory had instant, non-local connections going both forward and backward in time preceding an actual EM transfer of energy. Feynman interpreted the transaction as a direct action between emitter and absorber. As John Wheeler said, “I have always believed that electrodynamics is completely symmetric between events running both forward and backward in time. There is nothing fundamental in the laws that makes things run in only one direction. The one-way flow of events that is observed is of statistical origin. It comes about because of the large number of particles in the universe that can interact with each other.” The W-F absorber theory never caught traction likely because they explained their theory by inventing swarms of photons moving at every possible speed, including all speeds in reverse, and taking every possible path between the sender and absorber of an EM signal. The W-F Absorber theory survives today as John Cramer’s scrubbed clean version of the old theory. Your saying you are not allowed to use math is like me claiming I am not allowed to use quotes. I am not the only audience here and this is not my forum. A wave function does not carry signals that “propagate’ in any direction. A time zero between remote events can’t be measured but the timing of decoherence can be measured up to technical limits and it has been measured to be far faster than ‘light speed’. The MWI and SD and likely Bohm’s double solution are not scientific in that they eliminate Popper’s “falsifiability” by vanishing any contrary evidence. Unblemished locality of the wave function? The S. wave function itself functions non-locally. The theoretical physicist Hugo Tetrode demonstrated the non-locality of the wave function with several pages of math explaining how the wave function applies simultaneously over any possible distance and that it extends both forward and backward in time. Tetrode published this in 1921 in Zeitschrift fur Physik, volume 6 as I recall. He later marred is good work by trying to make the wave function sound local in volume 10 as did Wheeler and Feynman much later.

We are not just dealing with “models” we are dealing with actual physical experiments and the physical measurements describe events that defy our ‘common sense’ classical view of physicality. That doesn’t mean they are not real. The mathematics is used to describe what we are first observing with physical measurements of reproducible quantum experiments suggesting a non-local connection but not necessarily a communication. The conflict we observe is primarily physical and the mathematics follows from that The main difference between QM and classical physics is that classical physics requires a physical connection between a cause and effect while QM does not. The main difference between QM and classical physics is that the classical physics requires a physical connection between a cause and effect while QM does not.

I already did. Now you go back and read. I don't want this to be me doing all the work, while you dash off a note declaring your incredulity and proving to everybody that you haven't read anything. As I recall I did read your quote by John Bell somewhere else but I recall that he got to the point about non-locality in the next paragraph which went something like this: “If the hidden variable extension is local it will not agree with quantum mechanics, and if it agrees with quantum mechanics it will not be local." John Bell I find this to be a misrepresentation of the current condition. Check it out. "Nearly all physicists agree that the experiments have shown that local realism is an untenable position. The viewpoint of most physicists is that the violation of Bell’s inequality shows us that quantum mechanics is nonlocal. This nonlocality is exactly what Albert Einstein called “spooky”; it seems eerie that the act of measuring one particle could instantly influence the other one."- Anton Zeilinger “Dance of the Photons” by Anton Zeilinger 2010 p. 286

It is non-local interaction at a distance without a direct physical contact. I have never disputed that quantum correlations reflect non-separability. When the common wave function between remote particles is lost, the loss is instant (non-local) on both ends no matter how far apart the particles may be. When entanglement is lost, the identities of the particles become determinate and they are also anti-coordinated. The simultaneous loss of entanglement on both ends is the non-local part of this scenario. Now I understand! Generally speaking, non-locality is like a ‘big foot’ that some claim to see but no one believes anymore. Since when was this true, and why wasn’t I informed?

All I see here is a lot of unsupported personal opinions. Ernst Mach was opposed to the use of “metaphysicals” to explain physical phenomenon and high on his list of metaphysicals was the assumption that light energy exists in the space between a signal and receiver. If non-locality is impossible, then what are quantum experimenters examining that looks like ‘non-local’ interaction? And, is the Newtonian view of time, where instant action-at-a-distance does not exist, still valid in QM? You said,”I hope that is clear. If it is, we can all jump to the same page and proceed to Bohm, CHSH-Bell, Aspect.” Can you give us a quote of what either Bell or Aspect had to say about the implication behind the non-existence of ‘hidden variables’? You claim I said, “Non-locality is a time.” OK, I did say that but the timing of events between the emission and absorption of a light signal is zero but we can never observe the time between two simultaneous events as zero because our observation is ‘space like’ where every measurement of space includes a measurement of time (spacetime). For light, the proper relativistic timing is zero time. Emission and absorption are simultaneous events from the perspective of a light signal but we can never observe two events separated by distance as instantaneous. Our observation of two simultaneous events separated by distance is always ‘space-like’ where the observed time is equal to d/c for all observers. That does not imply that the timing of events when measured at the individual particle level is necessarily ‘space like’. I have a definition for 'non-locality'. Do you?

Underlined in the quote below was my definition of non-locality: On 9/15/2022 at 4:35 AM, joigus said: So now I think it's your turn. What is non-locality? (my reply below) You never responded when I asked you the question… so now its my turn? Einstein’s view of non-locality works for me. “Spooky action at a distance.” Non-locality is a non-observable time interval between an action and a reaction because the timing is either instant or far too fast to measure. It is instant action at a distance. This is a quote from wiki: "In theoretical physics, quantum nonlocality refers to the phenomenon by which the measurement statistics of a multipartite quantum system do not admit an interpretation in terms of a local realistic theory. Quantum nonlocality has been experimentally verified under different physical assumptions.[1][2][3][4][5] Any physical theory that aims at superseding or replacing quantum theory should account for such experiments and therefore cannot fulfill local realism; quantum nonlocality is a property of the universe that is independent of our description of nature. Quantum nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication,[6] and hence is compatible with special relativity and its universal speed limit of objects. Thus, quantum theory is local in the strict sense defined by special relativity and, as such, the term "quantum nonlocality" is sometimes considered a misnomer. Still, it prompts many of the foundational discussions concerning quantum theory." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality I am still waiting for your definition of non-locality.

Non-local interactions have been demonstrated as “real” in both theory and practice so I don’t understand the futility of explaining why there is no such thing. That reminds me of the mathematician long ago who published his calculations about the very minimum size for a functional radio coil. Unknown to him, a radio experimenter had already patented a working radio coil that was far smaller than his theoretical limit. This is still happens now. Mathematicians calculate the minimum size of an IC junction but the manufacturers don’t care. They they keep designing working chips that are smaller and better than theory allows. As Feynman said about IC’s, “There is room at the bottom”. You and others may have equations where what appears to be non-locality is really local but there are others such as John Cramer who showed how the mathematical formalism of QM can be interpreted in terms of direct interaction (non-local) between emitter and absorber. Hugo Tetrode did the same in 1922. If you can site some physical experiments that demonstrate what you are saying, you have my attention. I don’t know of any such experiments but there are many that demonstrate non-locality. Yes, it does but the interaction is not physical. In TIQM a "photon" is not a space traveling, energy carrying particle. A 'photon' is Cramer's name for the single quantum of energy involved in the transaction.

Thanks, that is good to know. Copy and paste is doing it the old familiar way.

What is the nature of this "wavelike connection"? I think the loss of some connection can count as communication. I agree that there is no transfer of information, and as such there's no point in arguing about non-locality, since no communication removes any need to determine if communication is superluminal or not. But it also requires that there be no "connection" or "transaction" between the particles. You can't have it both ways. I can agree that the loss of a connection can count as a communication but the word ‘communication’ has been specifically defined by the quantum computer people. They claim that no communication can be faster than light. The loss of entanglement is an exception because it amounts to only one qubit of information and nothing intelligible can be gathered from a single qubit. I don’t remember how many qubits it takes to officially qualify as a ‘communication’ but it may be something as low as three. The John Cramer- Ruth Kasner team refer to entanglement as a “transaction” in their TIQM theory where T is for transactional. I prefer the word ‘transaction’ as well and I think that has come to be the most commonly used term for what is happening.

The effect of the loss of a wavelike connection is immediate and there is no transfer of information from one particle to the other so this does not qualify as a communication. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Now, give me a definition of a non-local theory, please, so that this discussion is not taking place in a conceptual vacuum. Your claim that QM is local is not on the level of claiming, ‘The Earth is flat.’ but it lies in that direction. The burden of explaining one’s view when it runs counter to the conventional wisdom lies mainly with the person making the claim. I gave you a perfectly good example of non-locality and you said I was wrong and confused and then you offered another personal obfuscation to prove your point. Why should I give you another example of non-locality so you can issue more demeaning comments about my competence and state of mind and complain that I am playing ping-pong. I gave you my definition of of non-locality and I have asked for your definition more than once but you have never given me an answer. I have no Idea of what you consider to be “non-locality” except that it is always other what I consider to be non-locality. That is part of the conceptual vacuum here.

To simplify this discussion I would be satisfied if everyone ignores all of my questions and just answers those on Eise's list. When entanglement is lost, it is not renewed. Multiple particle entanglements have been observed. As I recall, nearly one hundred particles have been observed to be part of a group entanglement and the count is rising.

My understanding is that the topic here is about quantum entanglement and about the use of entanglement for superluminal communication at the macro level. That is Alice and Bob. I thought the we had put to rest with certainty that superluminal communication at the macro level (Alice and Bob) is absolutely impossible under any circumstances. I hope we can also agree that impossibility of non-local communication at the macro level is irrelevant to what may be happening at quantum level. Your two recent references, are about macro communication of the Alice and Bob type. I have explained in detail why the classical view is irrelevant to what is happening at the quantum level. More references about the dead issue of classical communication being local is just another irrelevant ‘ping’ waiting for a ‘pong’. You did have an interesting but lengthy article that included a discussion of the EPR/B experiment that was about quantum entanglement at the quantum level and the authors’ conclusion was that the events were local. My first impression was that they were ignoring the wave-like entanglement itself which is where non-locality resides. I intend to review the article when I have the time but I don’t intend to comment until I have reviewed the article in detail and considered the validity of my first impression. Are you saying, QUANTUM MECHANICS IS LOCAL ? From my reading, QM allows for non-locality and this appears to be the long term, widely held consensus. I know there are contrary opinions about all physics being local, including QM, from dubious sources like the Superdeterministic school but can you support your views with more than just personal opinion or your impressions of what Aspect or Bell had to say. I know what they said.

I have never stated that entangled particles have an observable state before they are observed. I have repeatedly stated that the quantum state of entangled particles is indeterminate prior to the first observation and I have never stated that they communicate. Apparently you have imagined a model different from my own. You only presented one side of the issue. Entanglement is necessarily two or more sided. I explained how your analogy works on both sides. Your complaint I changed your analogy is petty.

The coin flip analogy is a good one. But if one person flips a coin in Hong Kong and another flips a coin in London and their random flips are always anti-coordinated this demonstrates a non-local connection of a sort not permitted by classical physics. QM does not require a direct physical connection for one particle to be able to effect the condition of a remote particle if the two particles are entangled. QM permits non-locality. Classical physics does not. That is a major distinction between the two. That’s right, hidden variables have been eliminated as an alternate explanation for non-local interactions. Classical mechanics does not permit non-local interactions without a direct physical contact. “Spooky action at a distance” is not possible according to classical physics. In QM non-local interactions are possible. Here via wiki are quotes from Bell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem "In the words of physicist John Stewart Bell, for whom this family of results is named, "If [a hidden-variable theory] is local it will not agree with quantum mechanics, and if it agrees with quantum mechanics it will not be local."[1] Also, from another source. "Bell's theorem is a "no-go theorem" that draws an important distinction between quantum mechanics (QM) and the world as described by classical mechanics. It proves that quantum physics is incompatible with certain types of local hidden-variable theories. This theorem is named after John Stewart Bell." Classical mechanics is always local, QM is not. That may be your personal interpretation of “Bertelman’s Socks” but not mine. When the particles involved are separated by a distance beyond the range of a “light speed” signal and the results are both random and always correlated like coin flips on two continents, the results are not classical. They demonstrate a non-local correlation.

From your statements, such as the one above, the implication appears to be that the lack of ‘hidden variables’ implies locality. Einstein et al. suggested the hypothesis of ‘hidden variables’ as an alternative explanation to his anathema of non-locality. What significance do you find to the lack of ‘hidden variables’ if the conclusion is ‘locality’ either way. Or, is that not the way it works? This appears to a description of non-locality. How can the wavelike connection and transaction between entangled particles be something other than non-local if the timing of events is far less than space like (super-luminal). The interaction among entangled particles is a part of our material world and not just a wave function on paper. When the wave-like connection between entangled particles is lost the quantum identities of the particles involved become determinate at both ends of the connection simultaneously. There is no time interval between the events on both ends which is why I call the event non-local. Or, global if you will.

What does that mean? Bacteriophages are not given genus and species names they are identified by numbers and letters.

I would interpret “arbitrary measures” to mean that there is no established protocol for naming bacteriophages especially when it comes to the selection of letters. Generally, the first person to characterize a new virus picks an arbitrary letter from the Greek or Roman alphabet followed by the number 1 followed by the genus of the bacteria they infect. Other variants are given numbers in sequence of their discovery. There is no systematic meaning to the choice of letters.

This is absolutely not my understanding. I agree that QM is probabilistic and I have never claimed otherwise. ‘God roles the dice’.

This is a quote from Wiki, “Physicists such as Alain Aspect and Paul Kwiat have performed experiments that have found violations of these inequalities up to 242 standard deviations.[20] This rules out local hidden-variable theories, but does not rule out non-local ones.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory As I said earlier, ruling out “hidden variables” leaves non-locality as the default explanation. It also rules out and the determinate nature of entangled particles prior to observation. The quantum identities of entangled particles are random and indeterminate prior to their first observation. 'God roles the dice.' Einstein et al. rejected the idea of “Spooky action at a distance” so they proposed the hypothesis of “hidden variables” to explain the apparent non-locality as a local interaction due to a "something" common to all local environments that affects the outcome of experiments in remote locations. Now you and “joigus” appear to be saying that the absence of hidden variables rules out non-locality which is the opposite of the historical conclusion. How bizarre, how bizarre.

Sure. It's the main theme of my cover photo. Not that you noticed, I know. I've spent a great deal of time thinking about spectral analysis. There are two definitions of "projection". One is about light and another is the name of a defense mechanism. I find the first sentence is contrary to the conventional interpretation. If there ARE “hidden variables” we would need no non-local interaction to explain correlations. Hidden variables would provide the explanation. Tests of Bell’s Inequalities ruled out the presence of hidden variables so non-local interaction became the default explanation. The second sentence appears to assume that spin eigenvalues exist prior to observation but experiments suggest that they do not. This is classical physics and the now discredited assumption found in the EPR paper. Entanglement is an exception where what happens to one particle instantly affects its entangled partner no matter what the distance. They could be galaxies apart. The second sentence appears to assume that spin eigenvalues exist prior to observation but experiments suggest that they do not.

Not exactly, the act of measurement caused the instant (superluminal) loss of entanglement between the particles (decoherence) and the particles emerged with identifiable spins. The spins were indeterminate prior to the first measurement and became determinate, instantly, and at both ends, with the loss of entanglement. The conventional explanation is that they were in a state of “superposition” prior to observation. I suspect the particles were spinning before entanglement but one question is, ‘Are the spins after entanglement the same as they were at the beginning or was their emergence anti-correlated but random? I favor the random interpretation. There is always something anthropometric about our observations of quantum events. We can not measure an event without disturbing the quantum status quo and one observation initiates changes. I'd like to hear about it. Yes, they did test the dead/alive cat thought experiment but not with a cat or a radioactive isotope. The first tests were statistical tests of Bell's inequality with anti-correlated photons. Instead of dead/alive cats they used entangled, this-way/that-way polarized photons. The results suggested that a photon is neither polarized one way or the other until first measured like Schroedinger's dead/alive cat and the quantum identities did not become fixed until the instant of the first observation.