What did Einstein mean by “Spooky Action at a Distance"? — Down The Rabbit Hole
— tim wood
And you're in good company - except not, apparently, in the company of how the world actually works. There's some not-so-easy high-school math to it, but all that does is make explicit that the problem is real. Which is to say that a layman's chasing the math is kind of a waste of time unless done for its own sake.but I always thought he was saying that A being here and there at the same time is spooky (i.e. BS). — James Riley
It's the scale that's wrong. How far is it from Kansas City to London, England? Ans.: thousands of inches. True, but as there are around 320,000,000 inches, the answer must call into question the knowledge, understanding, and comprehension of the speaker. Except that in the case of stars in the universe, it's a much worse answer.then "in a 50 lb. sack of rice there are a few grains of rice. True, that is, but at the same time terribly and ignorantly wrong."
What am I supposed to make of that? Claim - true. Claim - true - wrong. — tim wood
What am I supposed to make of that? Claim - true. Claim - true - wrong. — James Riley
Einstein's most impressive understanding was his ability to recognize his audiences comprehension.
Knowing that reality can not be explained, humor fills the void! — Rxspence
True, but even worse than claiming that in a 50 lb. sack of rice there are a few grains of rice. True, that is, but at the same time terribly and ignorantly wrong. It's the kind of mistake that anyone who knows does not make. If she told me what time it was, I'd look at a clock. — tim wood
Make clear what was incoherent or gibberish. — tim wood
As it is you seem congenitally unable to answer any question. You've made a substantive evaluation of my post, that it is incoherent and gibberish. See if you can get enough of your foot out of your mouth to say why you think so. I'll read and acknowledge any sense you make. — tim wood
What did Einstein mean by “Spooky Action at a Distance"? — Down The Rabbit Hole
To see what I mean, forget all about quantum mechanics for a moment. Suppose I have two socks that are identical, except the one is red and the other one blue. I put them in two identical envelopes and ship one to you. The moment you open the envelope and see that your sock is red, you know that my sock is blue. That’s because the information about the color in the envelopes is correlated, and this correlation can span over large distances.
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But isn’t this the same with the two socks? Before you open the envelope the probability was 50-50 and then when you open it, it jumps to 100:0. But there’s no spooky action going on there. It’s just that the probability was a statement about what you knew, and not about what really was the case. Really, which sock was in which envelope was already decided the time I sent them.'
Yes, that explains the case for the socks. But in quantum mechanics, that explanation does not work. If you think that really it was decided already which spin went into which direction when they were emitted, that will not create sufficiently strong correlations. It’s just incompatible with observations. Einstein did not know that. These experiments were done only after he died.
What did Einstein mean by “Spooky Action at a Distance"? — Down The Rabbit Hole
If the argument developed in EPR has its roots in the 1930 Solvay conference, Einstein’s own approach to issues at the heart of EPR has a history that goes back to the 1927 Solvay conference.
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On the supposition that quantum theory offers a complete account of individual processes then, in the case of localization, why does the whole wave front collapse to just one single flash point? It is as though at the moment of collapse an instantaneous signal were sent out from the point of collapse to all other possible collapse positions telling them not to flash. — The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Argument in Quantum Theory - SEP
But on the other hand, I have objections to make to conception II. The scattered wave directed towards P does not show any privileged direction. If |ψ|² were simply regarded as the probability that at a certain point a given particle is found at a given time, it could happen that the same elementary process produces an action in two or several places on the screen. But the interpretation, according to which |ψ|² expresses the probability that this particle is found at a given point, assumes an entirely peculiar mechanism of action at a distance, which prevents the wave continuously distributed in space from producing an action in two places on the screen.
In my opinion, one can remove this objection only in the following way, that one does not describe the process solely by the Schrödinger wave, but that at the same time one localises the particle during the propagation. I think that Mr de Broglie is right to search in this direction. If one works solely with the Schrödinger waves, interpretation II of |ψ|² implies to my mind a contradiction with the postulate of relativity. — Quantum Theory at the Crossroads Reconsidering the 1927 Solvay Conference, p487 - Bacciagaluppi, Valentini
two particles are entangled — SupernovaGirl
By the phrase "spooky action at a distance", Einstein was referring to the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. — SupernovaGirl
I cannot make a case for my attitude in physics which you would consider at all reasonable. I admit, of course, that there is a considerable amount of validity in the statistical approach which you were the first to recognise clearly as necessary given the framework of the existing formalism. I cannot seriously believe in it because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance.
I am, however, not yet firmly convinced that it can really be achieved with a continuous field theory, although I have discovered a possible way of doing this which so far seems quite reasonable. The calculation difficulties are so great that I will be biting the dust long before I myself can be fully convinced of it. But I am quite convinced that someone will eventually come up with a theory whose objects, connected by laws, are not probabilities but considered facts, as used to be taken for granted until quite recently. I cannot, however, base this conviction on logical reasons, but can only produce my little finger as witness, that is, I offer no authority which would be able to command any kind of respect outside of my own hand. — Einstein letter to Born - March 3, 1947 (via StackExchange)
In short, I'm offering an alternative "solution" to the EPR paradox viz. that...someone (god? :smile: )...knows beforehand what the states of the particles are, we just don't know about it. The way the situation will evolve is that the experimenters who make the observation will erroneously infer that faster-than-light or instantaneous transmission of information had occurred but this is an illusion just like in the socks analogy. — TheMadFool
In 1978 Bertlmann went to CERN, where he worked together with J. S. Bell.[1] Bertlmann always wore socks of different colours. In 1981 Bell wrote the article "Bertlmann’s socks and the nature of reality", where he compared the EPR paradox with Bertlmann’s socks: if you observe one sock to be pink you can predict with certainty that the other sock is not pink. Thus you might assume that quantum entanglement is just the same. However, this is a non-admissible simplification, and Bell in his article explains why.[2] — Bertlmann’s socks - Wikipedia
The philosopher in the street, who has not suffered a course in quantum mechanics, is quite unimpressed by Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen correlations. He can point to many examples of similar correlations in everyday life. The case of Bertlmann's socks is often cited. Dr. Bertlmann likes to wear two socks of different colours. Which colour he will have on a given foot on a given day is quite unpredictable. But when you see (Fig. 1) that the first sock is pink you can be already sure that the second sock will not be pink. Observation of the first, and experience of Bertlmann, gives immediate information about the second. There is no accounting for tastes, but apart from that there is no mystery here. And is not the EPR business just the same? — Bertlmann's socks and the nature of reality - J.S. Bell, 1981
However, this is a non-admissible simplification, and Bell in his article explains why. — Andrew M
If one asks what, irrespective of quantum mechanics, is characteristic of the world of ideas of physics, one is first of all struck by the following: the concepts of physics relate to a real outside world... It is further characteristic of these physical objects that they are thought of as arranged in a space time continuum. An essential aspect of this arrangement of things in physics is that they lay claim, at a certain time, to an existence independent of one another, provided these objects "are situated in different parts of space".
The following idea characterizes the relative independence of objects far apart in space (A and B): external influence on A has no direct influence on B. — Einstein in a letter to Born
There seems to me no doubt that those physicists who regard the descriptive methods of quantum mechanics as definitive in principle would react to this line of thought in the following way: they would drop the requirement... for the independent existence of the physical reality present in different parts of space; they would be justified in pointing out that the quantum theory nowhere makes explicit use of this requirement.
I admit this, but would point out: when I consider the physical phenomena known to me, and especially those which are being so successfully encompassed by quantum mechanics, I still cannot find any fact anywhere which would make it appear likely that (that) requirement will have to be abandoned.
I am therefore inclined to believe that the description of quantum mechanics... has to be regarded as an incomplete and indirect description of reality, to be replaced at some later date by a more complete and direct one. — Einstein
you can do just that. You can take two separated points on a plane and "glue" them together, making them one and the same point. — SophistiCat
That apparently common-sense conclusion is just what Bell addresses. — Andrew M
Interestingly, in topology, where you can imagine all sorts of exotic spaces, you can do just that. You can take two separated points on a plane and "glue" them together, making them one and the same point. You can do that with lines and surfaces as well. That's not to say that puzzling quantum mechanical correlations should be explained by weird space topology. (Although if someone were to produce a topological account, I would be open to it. I just doubt that it would be the topology of the physical space - configuration space perhaps?) — SophistiCat
Quantum gravity may have as much to tell us about the foundations and interpretation of quantum mechanics as it does about gravity. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and Everett’s Relative State Formulation are complementary descriptions which in a sense are dual to one another. My purpose here is to discuss this duality in the light of the of ER=EPR conjecture. — Copenhagen vs Everett, Teleportation, and ER=EPR - Leonard Susskind
A version of the ER=EPR conjecture is recovered, in that perturbations that entangle distant parts of the emergent geometry generate a configuration that may be considered as a highly quantum wormhole.
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...as far as we know we’re the first to start directly from Hilbert space, rather than assuming classical variables, a boundary, or a background spacetime. — Space emerging from quantum mechanics - Sean Carroll
I don't have an unshakable commitment to quantum physics in its standard form, but neither do I have an unshakable commitment to the conventional metaphysical ideas articulated by Einstein. Like those physicists whom he opposes, I would consider relaxing some of those ideas if it helps us better accommodate lessons from physics.
What if we are now in the position of the inhabitants of Flatland who reluctantly conclude that they may in fact live in a Klein bottle? — SophistiCat
1. Some observer who already has information on the state of entangled particles. God??? — TheMadFool
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