- #1
Untangled
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FTL communication: might QM entanglement "trump" relativity?
As we presently understand entanglement, it can't be used for FTL communication, since some speed-of-light exchage of information between Bob and Alice is required. So c apparently still remains the communication speed limit.
But is it crystal clear that entanglement does not somehow permit FTL communication? My thinking is as follows:The speed of light limit on signaling times is predicted by a "classical" physics theory, i.e., relativity. But the apparent instantaneity (>10,000xc according to a recent experiment) of "effects" between entangled particles is a quantum mechanical phenomenon. At this point, the two theories are of course incompatible and thus incomplete, since no testable unified theory has yet been developed. But when experiments examined Bell's inequality, and thus whether (classical) locality/separability or QM entanglement is correct, QM won out. This type of result implies to me that the current QM theory may represent a significantly more basic description of the universe than does the current relativity theory. If so, perhaps the final unified theory will in fact permit FTL signaling, utilizing some aspect of entanglement not yet envisaged.
Comments on this admittedly intuitive (and possibly wrong-headed) argument will be appreciated.
As we presently understand entanglement, it can't be used for FTL communication, since some speed-of-light exchage of information between Bob and Alice is required. So c apparently still remains the communication speed limit.
But is it crystal clear that entanglement does not somehow permit FTL communication? My thinking is as follows:The speed of light limit on signaling times is predicted by a "classical" physics theory, i.e., relativity. But the apparent instantaneity (>10,000xc according to a recent experiment) of "effects" between entangled particles is a quantum mechanical phenomenon. At this point, the two theories are of course incompatible and thus incomplete, since no testable unified theory has yet been developed. But when experiments examined Bell's inequality, and thus whether (classical) locality/separability or QM entanglement is correct, QM won out. This type of result implies to me that the current QM theory may represent a significantly more basic description of the universe than does the current relativity theory. If so, perhaps the final unified theory will in fact permit FTL signaling, utilizing some aspect of entanglement not yet envisaged.
Comments on this admittedly intuitive (and possibly wrong-headed) argument will be appreciated.