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Quantum entanglement


NathanKenney

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I have heard of quantum entanglement before, but really with no concept of what it actually was or how it worked. Turns out, surprise surprise, that it is incredibly complicated but also really amazing. In short, quantum entanglement consists of 2 particles becoming  identical, or having the same spin and charge. After they have become entangled, they remain that way. This means that if one is spun the other way, the other will instantaneously react inversely to the particle it is paired with. As if this in itself isn't complicated enough, it also poses the question of how that information is able to travel faster than the speed of light since nothing is supposed to travel faster than the speed of light. The entanglement of particles can be broken by contact with the environment around it, such as making a measurement. Einstein himself beloved that quantum entanglement was a violation of quantum mechanics as it stands, and that part of the theory must be missing. He believed this because according to quantum mechanics, there should be a 50% chance that a particle will be spinning any particular way on any particular axis when measured, however when entangled particles are measured on the same axis, there is always a negative coralation, since both particles always seem to know what the other is going to do, which also causes an issue of cause and effect, since it is impossible to know which of the particles in the system caused the other to spin the other direction. Experiments done with entangled particles have been done where measurements have been taken within a hundredth of the time it would take light to travel between the tow particles, proving that this information does in fact travel faster than the speed of light, especially since quantum entanglement violates Bell's inequality, which in its absolute most basic form essentially states that no measurements, wether they are made of not, can ever reproduce every prediction of quantum mechanics. However, naturally this becomes even more complicated as researches claimed that in exprements conducted in 2012-2013 two photons were able to be entangled without ever consisting at the same time. This discovery leads to the conclusion that information is not only able to travel through space, but also through time, and at a speed faster than the speed of light. The possibilities of what we could do with this knowledge if we are ever able to use this information in a productive way is endless, and is really exciting for the future of science and technology as a whole. And, in my opinion, the most astonishing part of this whole theory is that is was discovered over 80 years ago, and we still don't fully understand it. Physics truely never ceases to amaze me, and I can't wait to learn about more insane stuff like this in the future.

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I can think of two wild yet simple explanations, both probably incorrect but still worth thinking about. The first is that we're inside a computer simulation, and physics is just a giant attempt to understand what the computer is thinking. The second, and slightly more likely, is akin to folding a piece of paper and having an ant move from point a to point b instantly. Simply put, there are other dimensions that we don't fully understand yet, and because of those dimensions, it's possible to bend three dimensional space such that point a is technically touching point b, similar to an ant. This would imply that trying to measure the entangled particles somehow unbends 3d space, however that would be possible.

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