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Quantum Entanglement and State


Spameriko

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Hello smart people!

I'm not a physicist, nor do i have any degree in physics, but i'm a Senior Software Engineer whom like reading lot of popular science.

One of the topics I'm curious about most, is Quantum Physics, specifically all the oddities around it, at least, when trying to interpret the meanings into our world at large scale.

It's being said that when two or more quantum particles are entangled, they have a special bond, where if you "observe" one, it's "multiple simultaneously state", say spin, collapses into specific state, and at the exact same time, all other entangled particles states collapses into the same state, so when they are observed (same time? later on?), we can see the same state as the original first particle one observed.

I don't know if I got it right, if not, will be happy if you could better explain in simple words  :-)

As odd as it sounds, few things are not clear:
1. When we say quantum state, such as spin, what is the meaning of a quantum particle is in all possible states at once? Does the meaning is that the particle spins all over, 1-360 degrees all possible combinations (in a 3D sphere ...), same time, so it's neither 30, or 140, or 250, it's all of the possibilities same time? (a qubit in a quantum machine is neither 0, nor 1, it's all the value range from 0 to 1 same time ...).

2. If what I said in 1 is true, then couldn't we just say that a quantum particle has no state at all, but when we observe it, it's being set to specific state, randomly?

3. Based on my understanding above, if i'm not wrong of course, how could we be possibly sure that a quantum particle is not in a single state? maybe it's in a single state, that's it, and when we observe it we see that state exact, nothing more, simple as that?

4. If 3 is true, then all we can say about entangled particles is that they just share the same state: When particle A "touches" particle B, either by being created from the same origin, same time, or collides in each other on the way, they actually get entangled, we can also say that they actually "observe" each other, so from now on, they have/share the same state ... :-)

Thanks!!

Edited by Spameriko
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Only pop-sci says it’s a special bond, since it’s not actually an interaction

Spin states are quantized. a spin 1/2 system is either spin up or spin down (1/2 h-bar of the z-component of angular momentum, pointing along the + or - direction)

”any state possible” is one of those two options, for that situation. There are no other states.

There are experiments where being in a determined state gives different answers than being in an undetermined state. So we know the particles are not secretly in a specific state. 

This thread and video might help

 

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