Friday, April 03, 2009

Implications of Quantum Entanglement


Quantum Entanglement, aside from being intuitively boggling to some, is a challenge to one or more of three certainties. First, our model of particles, learned since childhood from dodgeball and pool halls, is one which has been ruled out by the general sense that we are talking about fields and eigenstates of energy bundles.


The second is our model of energy. The violation of instant information transfer across a distance that occurs when quanta link their states means that the information joining them "transfers" at FTL speeds. This implies extra-spatial dimensions, or something even further afield.


The third, little considered, is that our understanding of space itself is awry. Newton's infinite box of space worked well for his equations and their scale, but not for Feynman's. But even Feynman's, as far as I know about them, did not tackle the issue of whether space is --just for one example--a function of light or a function of perception.


Our legacy is to tend toward considering the two interchangeable. Perhaps that is something we should outgrow. That space might be a function of viewpoint is hard on the materialist legacy of "physics envy", but it is aligned with a large number of instincts from many philosophical traditions.


As a practical matter, one could see what happens if he sets out to intentionally change space, make more space, or (horror of horrors) throw some space away. Trying these steps for an hour or so instead of watching a television show might be instructive.