- #1
michael879
- 698
- 7
Ill start this question with an example of entanglement (to make sure I have it right).
Take two electrons in the ground state of an atom. They are both in the superposition state that is 50% spin up and 50% spin down. You then split these electrons apart, without measuring their state. Now you measure one of them to be spin up. The other one instantly goes from being in a 50/50 superposition to being spin down.
Now my question is, doesn't this suggest a flaw in quantum mechanics? While it is true that you can't use this phenomenon to transmit information, information IS being transmitted. The far away electron instantly changes it's state in response to your distant measurement. A classical view of this situation explains entanglement in a much better way.
Assume instead of the electrons being in a superposition (superpositions don't exist classically), they're true spin is just unknown to us due to either some invisible undiscovered particle or just because we havnt measured them. To clarify, they are either up and down or down and up. There is no true randomness here, only apparent randomness. Since they are fermions, we know they have opposite spin however. After seperating them and measuring one of them to be up spin, we instantly know the other is down spin. This thought experiment has the exact same results as the quantum mechanics one. However, this one does not involve the distant electron changing due to your measurements.
Correct me if I have anything wrong, but if I don't I don't understand how quantum mechanics can be a complete theory. Information IS traveling faster than light because both particle's states change at the exact same time. Just because we can't exploit this fact doesn't mean that it doesn't violate special relativity...
Take two electrons in the ground state of an atom. They are both in the superposition state that is 50% spin up and 50% spin down. You then split these electrons apart, without measuring their state. Now you measure one of them to be spin up. The other one instantly goes from being in a 50/50 superposition to being spin down.
Now my question is, doesn't this suggest a flaw in quantum mechanics? While it is true that you can't use this phenomenon to transmit information, information IS being transmitted. The far away electron instantly changes it's state in response to your distant measurement. A classical view of this situation explains entanglement in a much better way.
Assume instead of the electrons being in a superposition (superpositions don't exist classically), they're true spin is just unknown to us due to either some invisible undiscovered particle or just because we havnt measured them. To clarify, they are either up and down or down and up. There is no true randomness here, only apparent randomness. Since they are fermions, we know they have opposite spin however. After seperating them and measuring one of them to be up spin, we instantly know the other is down spin. This thought experiment has the exact same results as the quantum mechanics one. However, this one does not involve the distant electron changing due to your measurements.
Correct me if I have anything wrong, but if I don't I don't understand how quantum mechanics can be a complete theory. Information IS traveling faster than light because both particle's states change at the exact same time. Just because we can't exploit this fact doesn't mean that it doesn't violate special relativity...