I want to develop a plausible way to travel across the universe by using Quantum Entanglement. I understand that it is not possible to send information by Quantum Entanglement with ordinary matter so I thought I could use as yet undiscovered "Dark Matter" as the agent for a type of Quantum Entanglement that allowed transmission of information. Any observation, suggestion and critique welcome Cheers Tony
You say "travel" and then "send information", two different things in my mind. Are you only talking about the latter? There are some researchers currently using quantum entanglement to send information. It's controversial but they believe the results prove it occurs. I saw the author, Anton Zeilinger, discuss his book and work, Dance of the Photons, at Seattle's Town Hall a year or so ago. From what you are asking, this book is a must read for you and your research. In my limited understanding of the talk, (a physicist here might find my understanding incorrect), the group was able to take entangled particles and exert an effect on one of them which affected the other so that physicists elsewhere observing the connected particle could observe/detect what was done to the one they did not observe. Welcome to the forum, by the way
Hi Tony, You still can't send information faster than light in dark matter. The value of the speed of light comes from the Planck length. There's no getting around it, though some theories have been proposed. However, a lot of the science fiction authors I've read take liberties with the physics. You could do the same because I don't really mind when I'm reading these books.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0716760126/?tag=postedlinks04-20 The above includes FermiLab data that describes the initial expansion of the universe to have taken 10 ^ -43 seconds to occur. Even in a universe that contains only the known star body, intergalactic dust/gases and mean free path subatomic particles, ignoring the quantum of dark matter, a uniform, omnidirectional expansion to a radius inclusive of all that in that time frame would require an initial velocity approaching infinity. I recommend keeping in mind that all science, including mainstream dogma, is speculation. F=MA is universal because it is arbitrarily abstract, where E=MC^2 is a finite abstract. The latter only applies to parts of the universe where light exists. FermiLab and CERN's LHC may have confirmed the existence of the Higgs field-particle-wave, still the mechanism is widely speculative. Where dark matter/energy are concerned the atom interferometer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_interferometer is the state-of-the-art apparatus used in hope of measuring dark energy surrounding atoms. It's ironic that you came here, because I have a low energy type of one of these growing in my own lab. I'm using He as the atom of the species, unlike some others that, as the wiki article depicts, use Na, Ar and Kr. I arrived at the concept for this type by observing manipulation of low power plasmas in the presence of meso-strength magnetic fields. Using the first device, I was able to manipulate the plasma into a uniform matrix, where the emitter otherwise generated a chaotic array of arcs. IMO photons morph into W+ particles upon assimilation by dark matter particles only to re-emerge as W- or possibly Z+. I should be able to confirm or dismiss this later in 2014.
What about quantum tunneling experiments where some particles traveling at the front of the wave exceed the speed of light even though only by a fraction? (Again, I may not have the details right on this but I've seen the experiments discussed and the conclusions plausibly defended.)
Hi GingerCoffee, The phase velocity of a wave can exceed the speed of light, but no useful information can be transferred that way. As for quantum tunneling, particles can tunnel at a rate faster than the speed of light, but information still can't be transferred faster than the speed of light. I haven't read much of the research about this, but based on what I know I would be careful about how these results are interpreted. There is a lot of ambiguity about the role time plays at the quantum level. One thing is for sure, however. There is good evidence to suggest that all of these faster than light experiments do not violate relativity. Consider this as an example. If there's a particle moving from point A to point B and I want to measure the time it takes for the particle to move that distance, my first guess would be measure the time at which the particle reached A and then B, and I would then take the difference. That can't be done at the quantum level because taking a measurement at point A would introduce a very large error in my measurement at point B because of various QM principles. Therefore, we need better ways of looking at the transit time between two points. This is where we would need to consider the effects of time, frame dragging, and other such goodies at the quantum scale. I know of a few models that try to solve this problem, but these models make assumptions about things we do not yet understand. Therefore, it may be a while before we truly understand what's going on.
The argument was made, no useful information, then the researchers played the musical piece they sent faster than light as a rebuttal. I don't have the expertise to know which argument was evidence based but one could clearly tell one was listening to a recognizable musical score. The fact we don't know exactly what is going on leaves a lot of room for a sci-fi writer to delve into.
We do know what's going on. Which is why we know that people continually misuse group velocity vs phase velocity, even when they should know better. Playing music doesn't change the fundamental laws of physics. And 'entanglement' is just an artifact of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, so you shouldn't be surprised that people keep trying to make it carry information faster than light.
Just a side note: You guys are awesome. I don't know how much research I would have to do before I understood this at this level. I'm smart enough to follow, but I can't do the math or the reading to keep up on my own. I need explanation here and there. Kudos to you of the science-minded.
Some of the reading is actually fairly easy to understand. Books like A Brief History of Time are geared towards the general audience, so your average person should be able to follow along. I've only had an intro physics class and have only read a few of these general physics books, but I was still able to follow most of what @AJC was saying. It's worth looking into some of these books if you get the time. It's actually really fun reading about this kind of stuff. That being said, some of the members here have degrees in physics, so I would expect them to know physics at an advanced level.
Whoops I let my hands get ahead of myself. I can scarcely do the math, and havent the time to do the reading. I can follow along fairly well while reading and even in theoretical discussions if the ideas are explained, I just don't have the time to lie my life reading. My reading list has already grown tremendously... On a science note, I just don't know enough about this to keep up when discussions get heavy, and I applaud those who have degrees in physics. It takes a sharp mind for that.
No one said anything about changing the laws of physics. But you have to admit there are exceptions to the speed of light, such as the effect of the expansion of the Universe in the first fractions of a second. If it is nothing but some 'misuse' going on, why did the researchers, who surely know what they are doing, disagree? Who are these "people" that misuse phase velocity? I was not the person conflating FTL and q. entanglement. But when you say "artifact" I have to question that. I don't see how doing something to one particle and it's counter particle changes despite being separated by distance is nothing but some 'artifact'. I'm well aware of people reading magic and gods into vague notions of the quantum world. Claims that maybe it explains ESP when ESP is not even an evidence supported phenomena in the first place is laughable. I assure you I am not in that category. Layperson, yes, when it comes to physics, but well read and not ignorant. When two groups of knowledgeable experts disagree and one says, we're right and they're wrong, well, I need more than that. Now if it were someone other than the tunneling experimenters who declared something was going on, that would be different. But I've not seen anything that said the researchers were incompetent. If you have some more recent stuff (the experiment I saw the documentary on was a while back) and if that stuff clearly explains why the researchers conclusions were wrong, then I'd be happy to update my knowledge. And as for the q. entanglement, I heard one of the major researchers explain the experiments they were doing and I was impressed. Whereas I don't know anything about you. I'm not saying you don't know your stuff, mind you, just that you may or may not and I've heard the researchers themselves describe their experiments and results directly in both cases, one in person and one in a documentary.
The metric expansion of space should not be confused with a violation of the special relativistic light-speed limitation on the transfer of information, as explained here. Quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance," won't get you information transfer at faster-than-light speeds. What could work for your purposes is an Alcubierre drive.
If this is directed at me, my point was only that absolutes have exceptions, not that the laws of physics are iffy.
Yikes. People sometimes ask me why I don't try my hand at writing sci-fi, since I love reading it. This is why. I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about! I'd feel stupid, if that was anywhere on this scale at all...
But since you read science fiction, you know that it is very common for writers to hand-wave certain issues, particularly FTL travel. You'll find this even in some 'hard' science fiction, where an author might use a lot of physics as a backdrop, and provide a lot of terminology, but ultimately make a leap from there to something that doesn't quite hold up.
Findings over time tend to do that. Just because someone completes a doctoral course in physics doesn't mean the material isn't flawed, to include some aspects of relativity. Most academics believe gravity is an attraction because they were taught so. Most Christians believe Jesus will swing by and scoop them up because they were taught so. Memes, scientific or otherwise, are just that. If you challenge the memes, you commit academic suicide. There was a time when relativity was science fiction. The problem with Quantum Tunneling evidence and FTL evidence is our instrumentation is based upon light mechanics. As I've mentioned and the OP hints, dark matter holds some promise. In today's world of scientific dogma, I trust the independent mind working in freedom far more than a constrained academic who has to make the decision to sacrifice their paycheck or sacrifice validity and logic. Look at the arguments over global warming and climate change. By the time academia catches up to undeniable truth, guys like me will have constantly been accused of being "counter-intuitive" at best, while ice continues to disappear and harmonic tremors occur at increasing frequency. Don't think money doesn't talk loud enough to have certain revealing findings wiped off servers and search engines.
Faster than light information transfer would radically change everything we currently know about the universe. Everyone who claims that tunnelling allows faster than light information transfer. The actual tunnelling may happen instantaneously, but there's a finite time required before tunnelling will occur, so information travels slower than the speed of light. This isn't even post-grad physics, yet people continue claiming otherwise. People use non-relativistic quantum mechanics and then go 'woo... look, I got faster-than-light travel... woo... ain't that spooky?' Relativistic quantum mechanics eliminates that, as you would expect, because relativity doesn't allow faster than light travel. 'Entanglement' only exists because mathematics has no easy way to say 'the particles were in state X since they interacted but we couldn't tell that until we measured it', so it has to make up waveforms going backwards in time to do that.
Only for significant mass. Any bona fide physicist knows this. E=MC^2 is only an equivocation and does not represent the entire mechanism of relativity, whether applied to quantum states or grand scale mass. C ^2 is a constant. E and M are proportional. As mass approaches infinitesimality http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/infinitesimality so does E. This is why quantum tunneling, same as entanglement, are low energy experiments. I doubt if there's a physicist on this planet that can offer an accurate dimensional datum of the cross-section of a quantum vortex in superfluid He[4]. Nonetheless, I'm certain there are gregarious throngs of them who will find reasons to buy high energy equipment just to say "Mine's bigger than yours."
Well, the quote function doesn't seem to work for me. GingerCoffee, my point was simply that the metric expansion of space is not an exception to any rule. It's fully consistent with special relativity's light-speed limitation on information transfer, just as SR is fully consistent with quantum entanglement. The Alcubierre warp drive, if it could be built, would take advantage of the metric expansion of space to circumvent the light-speed limitation, without breaking it. This is because, inside the bubble of warped space, you would still be subject to the light-speed limit, just as in the expanding universe we are subject to the limit. As the linked page explains, the universe can expand "faster" than the speed of light, because strictly, nothing is actually moving during this expansion. It's just that from moment to moment, distances between objects on a cosmological scale are greater and greater.
So would a Mass Amplexity Gravitational Geodesic Interdimensional Envelope. Amplexity is a contraction of Amplitude Complexity; EPR superpositioning grown up. As a device, either of these conceptual devices are no more unrealistic than the proverbial "flux capacitor." All, involving the processes of negative energy, are specters of evolving physics constrained by the academic food chain. Even in Blish's "Cities in Flight" the spindizzy was the invention of a crackpot scientist. Leave flux out of it. The capacitor was the invention of a crackpot. Without that crackpot, the Internet would be an elaborate matrix of cup and string communication, likely coupled to a mechanical typewriter.
You mean Warp Drive is just a fairy tale...? Awwww...that's my day ruined... Seriously, though. You guys are really smart. If 'we' ever get into space, it'll be because of guys like you. I'm in awe. As well as awwww....
No it wouldn't, not if the evidence explained what was going on. For example, if we discovered evidence of one of the additional dimensions of string theory it would add to our knowledge of physics, not change everything we know about the Universe. I see no reason to repeat what else I've already said in my previous posts.
Hit 'reply', not 'quote'. Or hit 'quote' then at the bottom of the screen, 'Load Quotes'. 'Quote' is really the multi-quote function. I understood what you meant and I know what the problem of infinite mass as one approaches the speed of light is. My point was that one who talks about laws of physics as absolutes ignores the potential new discoveries. They don't have to defy the laws of physics to change what we know. As another example, it was once thought atoms were the smallest divisions of mass. It didn't change what we know about physics to find that wasn't true, it added to what we know.
