# Hey guys I have an interesting topic for all of you who interested

1. Jan 2, 2007

### drphysica

Hey guys I have an interesting topic for all of you who interested. From the EPR paradox we know that principle of non-locality indeed exist and yet it is suggests that information cannot be transferred between A and B due to quantum mechanics uncertainty principle since information gets scrambled by that uncertainty. But Nimtz and his co-workers at the University of Cologne transmitted Mozart’s 40th symphony as frequency modulated microwaves through an 11.4 cm length of barrier wave-guide at an FTL group velocity of 4.7 that of a ‘c’ receiving audibly recognized music from microwave photons that survived their barrier passage. So my question to all of you is, what causes the information to transfer faster then light without actually effecting the Einstein causality? I can see that the reality of the observer “us” is limited by the light cone and we don’t really know what happens out there on the other side and we might never will, however quantum mechanically it is possible that information is transferred FTL unless the quantum channelling experiment is some kind of a hoax. But if it is not, there is only one explanation to it. The information can be transferred superluminary without effecting the causality is if that information is “ethereal” and not “causal” thus no law special and general relativity holds and non-communication theory also holds. The non-locality of EPR experiment also suggests that all matter and energy in the universe as we know it is interconnected to every existence which is yet je ne sais quoi. What do you guys think?

2. Jan 2, 2007

### ZapperZ

Staff Emeritus
What you are describing is the apparent "superluminal tunneling". H. Winful has written a series of papers addressing this issue, and to me, it isn't convincing that such information did undergo a superluminal transfer.

You may find the following sources useful in addressing this issue:

H. Winful, PRL v.90, p.023901 (2003)
M. Buttiker and S. Washburn, Nature v.422, p.271 (2003)

The most recent comprehensive treatment of this issue was published by H. Winful, where he again expanded upon is PRL paper and explained away the apparent superluminal paradox in various tunneling phenomena.

H. Winful, Phys. Rep. v.436, p.1 (2006).

Zz.

3. Jan 2, 2007

### disregardthat

Wouldn't the waves be going back in time then, if they travelled at 4.7 times c?

4. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

NonLocality = Universal TimeFrame (= Universal ReferenceFrame?)

Ah yes, tunnelling! That's the word I was thinking of in my sleep last night! Thanks for reminding me of it, as I wanted to bring it up with you all today.

Tunnelling is real. It's just as real as non-locality. Actually, it's the most immediate commonplace demonstration/manifestation of non-locality, isn't it?

So is Bell's Inequality the result of tunnelling then?

Regarding what you've said -- how do you differentiate between causal information and non-causal information?
Isn't any information going to be causal?

To me, if we accept non-locality, then this inherently means that Faster-than-C is *not* about going back in time.

Because non-locality means that the remote locale is perfectly synchronized with your own locale, so that by the time your effect reaches the remote locale -- whether propagated at C or whether FasterThanC -- the timeframe at the remote locale has already advanced anyway, in the same way that your own local timeframe has advanced. Doesn't that make sense? It's because all parts of the universe are identically synchronized in the same timeframe, if you believe in non-locality. It's only that effects which propagate at C take more time to reach the remote locales than the FasterThanC effects. It's not that time at the remote locale ceases to march on until it's felt the effects of your own locale.

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5. Jan 2, 2007

### disregardthat

You would have to use complex numbers to find out the square root of the nominator in the relative factor equation right?
If we went in 10 times 'c'

what is the 'quadr' of -9? Is it possible to find out in complex numbers?

6. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

Why should Faster-Than-C mean going back in time, or grandfather paradox?

If you and I are separated by a distance of 1 lightyear, then that means it will take me 2 years to reach you if I travel at half of C, 1 year to reach you if I travel at C, 6 months to reach you if I travel at 2C (not that I'm claiming one can travel Faster-than-C). My only point is that in all cases, the travel time is positive, and not negative. If C were defined as being infinity, then yes, I could then understand that traveling at C would mean instantaneous arrival (you arrive at your destination in the same moment you started out for it) and traveling faster than C would mean negative trip time (you arrive at your destination at a moment that is ahead of when you started out for it)

But lightspeed is NOT infinite, and therefore Faster-than-C travel would simply mean having a smaller fractional trip time than if you were traveling at C. After all, how does traveling a distance of 1 lightyear in 6 months mean you've gone back in time and arrived at a moment before you started? You've arrived 6 months after you started, and not ahead of when you started.

7. Jan 2, 2007

8. Jan 2, 2007

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
It's an easy consequence of the Lorentz transforms. FTL travel, as measured in one frame, will be instantaneous in some frames, and it will be backwards in time in other frames.

I assume that you all of these measurements are to be taken in my rest frame?

By your clock, incidentally, if you could travel at those speeds, SR predicts you would observe the trip as taking:

1.73 years,
0 seconds,
0.87 i years, (Yes, that's an imaginary number)

respectively.

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9. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

Hi Hurkyl,

Alright sure, I see that you're mentioning time dilation, so 2 years becomes 1.73 years by the traveler's clock. But if I'm traveling at C, why do you come up with 0 seconds?
As for .87i years, I'm not sure what the imaginary number translates to.

Even Stephen Hawking said he believes you could witness events from the past, but not alter them. We already know that if we witness a supernova tonight, we will be seeing an event that took place in the distant past. That doesn't mean we can travel back to the point in space and time when this event occurred. So traveling backwards in time is not possible.

As for travelling Faster-than-C, we know that virtual particles travel faster than C, and if they give a kick to a small particle, then it will travel (in tunnel fashion) faster than C as well.

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10. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

So I want to once again ask -- doesn't non-locality inherently imply a universal reference frame?

Think about it -- if Alice and Bob later compare notes to see when the correlation violation at Bob occurred relative to the change in measurement at Alice, then their comparison will show that it occurred at the same moment within their respective localities. This result then automatically forces the conclusion that there is time synchronicity between the 2 remote localities.

So then doesn't this then mean there is a universal reference frame?

11. Jan 2, 2007

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
Because I computed it. Incidentally, I didn't invoke time dilation at all -- I did the whole calculation in my rest frame. If you travelled at c, the proper time you would experience would be zero. In my rest frame, your spatial displacement was one light-year. Your temporal displacement was one year. Thus, the proper time along your path was

$$\tau = \sqrt{ (1 \mathrm{\ yr})^2 - \frac{(1 \mathrm{\ lt\ yr})^2}{c^2}} = 0.$$

Neither do I. IMO, that's a fair reason to reject FTL velocities.

Not having seen the math behind virtual particles, I feel hesitant to reply... but suggesting that an interaction between a virtual and a real particle can leave the real particle travelling FTL sounds like it goes against everything I've heard about quantum particles.

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12. Jan 2, 2007

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
Er, what are they comparing? The only thing Alice and Bob can ever see is the results of their measurements of the particles.

Incidentally, you cannot see a correlation violation in a single experiment -- you can only see it in the bulk statistics after performing many experiments.

13. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

Yes, you're right, I'm saying the experiment consists of multiple measurements, which is why I mentioned "change in measurement" (change occuring at some point(s) during this set of multiple measurements)

But they are able to each track when their events occurred, and experimental results show they occur instantaneously, don't they?

14. Jan 2, 2007

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
What change in measurement? At all points in time, Bob will find roughly half of the particles he measures will be spin up, and the other half will be spin down... no matter what Alice does.

15. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

Alright, fair enough -- you're saying that time is suspended within the traveler's reference frame, if he is travelling at C. Okay, I get you now.

Well, quantum tunnelling is itself supposed to be due to the kicks from the virtual particles, otherwise what would cause the real particle to spontaneously tunnel? Like was being discussed in the other thread, if Planck's Constant were to shrink toward zero, then the kicks from the virtual particles would also shrink towards zero. And without the kicks, then there'd be no probability distribution, and hence no tunnelling. The kicks from the virtual particles are supposed to be happening FTL, which is why they are on the sub-Planck scale.

Which then makes me wonder about how shrinking to sub-Planck scale would be the way to achieve FTL. An electron is supposed to be a lepton point-charge, having no actual diameter. So doesn't that mean it's sub-Planck in size?
What about the neutrino? That's always moving at C, isn't it? So does it have any mass, or is that just an unconfirmed rumor?

16. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

You don't have to measurements one-by one, you could do them together in batches, timestamping each one. You can record a correlation violation based on timestamp.

17. Jan 2, 2007

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus

18. Jan 2, 2007

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
Bob can't. When he does them in batches, he finds that roughly half of each batch is spin-up and half of each batch is spin-down, and that's all he can say.

Bob needs to actually see Alice's data before he can determine the correlation between his and her data.

19. Jan 2, 2007

### sanman

I did indeed say that Bob and Alice compare notes later on -- meaning that he does later see Alice's data, and the difference between his and hers. I'm saying that he can record when he's taken each measurement, and LATER match up the time of the correlation violation to the time Alice changed her measurement method.

20. Jan 2, 2007

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
This wasn't clear to me. I still don't understand precisely what your experiment is, and what you hope to determine.

If Alice and Bob both measure their particles in sequential order, and if Alice changes her settings between the 100-th and 101-th particle, then they will find that the correlation for the first 100 particles will be different than the correlation for the next 100 particles. The actual times at which Alice and Bob measure their particles is entirely irrelevant.

If Bob measures his particles a whole year before Alice measuers hers... the correlations will be exactly the same as if Alice measured her particles a whole year before Bob measured his. (as measured in the usual Earth centered coordinate chart)