Monday, July 7, 2014

The nature of entanglement and Schrodinger's cat


Schrodinger's cat by Dhatfield


Quantum mechanics is unapproachable for traditional logic, and its mysterious implications become the more baffling, the more one tries to understand it. The phenomenon of interference has proven the particle's existence as a wave, but when someone tries to spy on it by measurement, the particle behaves like a stiff ball, losing its every ability for interference, as if the fact of our stepping into the bathtub would turn the water into ice! For a meaningful discussion about these mind-boggling behaviors the basic qualities, such as the spin of matter particles need to be examined. Spin is a unique, conserved quality reflecting the energy balance of the particle during measurement. For this reason, only up or down spin direction can be distinguished. Particles form one energy state, one common wave function, even if they appear separated over great distances, even millions of light years. Sister particles polarize to become complementary and separate spins states due to measurement (examination). The Bell theorem states that faster-than-light communication would be necessary to connect distant entangled particles. Einstein resisted the idea and he sought a more in-depth explanation in the particle's wavefunction. According to string theory, particle waves occupy an energetically separate, microdimensional space, which is insulated from gravity. The shared wave function of the particle now can exist across the whole universe and form entanglement over the vast distances of space. Such particles are connected as umbilical twins, who depend for their own state on their entangled twin. However, this connection does not permit the exchange of instant messages. Being insulated from the outside, the information of entangled particles is hidden until the time of the measurement. As a consequence, during a quantum process, unknown information is transmitted and manipulated until analysis. Unknown information has no ‘information’ value.

Entanglement between remote systems has been verified in many and increasingly complex experiments. In 2012 Israeli scientist could even produce entanglement between photons that never coexisted. By entanglement swapping, they entangled one of each photon pair, which was separated in time. By creating the second pair of photons only after detection of the first one, temporal entanglement was achieved. Just like our email can be checked from any computer anywhere in the world thanks to the internet, the particle exists in limitless freedom can be quickly recovered at any part of the universe. The information embedded in the particle is conserved until interaction, which is the particle’s next time moment. By disturbing the particle, you reformulate the wave function and bring forth the next time moment....ending entanglement.


Shrödinger’s cat is a mind-bending puzzle of physics. Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought-experiment takes a cat as a stand-in for a quantum particle. Schrödinger’s cat, just like a particle seems to be in a quantum limbo, until the box is intact. The box indeed plays the most critical role in these experiments, only the size of the box is mistaken. The box is none other than the particle's insulated wave function! The particle’s standing waves hide their energy until “measurement” (interaction) takes place. As if these waves were frozen in time until prodded into existence, standing waves do not transfer energy and cannot be experienced until measurement, or interaction. Interaction translates the microdimensional powers by depolarizing the particle into up- or down-spin. Out of infinite possibilities, measuring brings forth the most frugal (stationary) action.

In everyday life, things seem to be around all the time. Even if we do not look at it, we know that the moon is there. Existence, however, is dependent on the exuberant activity of the micro world. The moon and everything else continually reformulate itself in the violent, incessant interactions of the quantum world. The Pauli exclusion principle forces the continuous, endless interaction on the material world. The net result of these activities is constant aging due to change, making growing old an inherent and inalienable part of existence.

The slit experiment entails a photon (or any other particle) that has to pass through one or several slits on its way to a screen. It has been found that a single photon can pass through several slits at the same time and thus interfere with itself. How is it possible? For a time-independent quantum wave, it is possible to spread widely to pass through the slits and interfere. However, a detector, which is placed at one of the slits triggers interaction and ushers in the next time moment (decoherence). The next time moment instantly terminates the whole particle's ability for interference. To get more mind-bending ideas, sign up for my mailing list or find my book on Amazon.
 


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