From: Jeff L Jones (jeff@spoonless.net)
Date: Fri Sep 21 2007 - 18:47:55 MDT
Actually, you don't even need them to be moving. Any sort of
instantaneous propagation of cause and effect over a large distance
implies reverse causality (something in the future affecting something
in the past)... you just need to look at it in the right reference
frame.
However, you can prove that there is no way to use entanglement to
communicate or send any information faster than light (or
instantaneously). So no, it is not a "window into the future" since
it would be impossible to actually send information from the future
into the past. Also worth mentioning is that what is usually referred
to as the "non-locality" of quantum mechanics is just an artifact of
certain (mostly outdated) realist interpretations of quantum
mechanics. If you subscribe to the antirealist Copenhagen
Interpretation, or the realist Many Worlds Interpretation (my personal
preference) then all of physics is local, and there is no need for any
instantaneous action at a distance (and equivalently, no
reverse-causality). I call the non-local intepretations "mostly
outdated" as nearly all of the top physicists reject them now but
among lower-ranking physicists, especially those who don't work on
issues of fundamental physics such as particle physics or cosmology,
there are still many who consider them acceptable interpretations.
Jeff
On 9/21/07, Crunchy Frog <realcrunchyfrog@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here's a thought...
>
> If you were to take a pair of entangled particles, slow one of them down,
> and speed one of them up... would they not, in fact, experience different
> proper times?
>
> Assuming the quantum entanglement survives this disparity (experiments with
> K bosons show they do) wouldn't the time dilation effect build up, causing
> an increasing difference in time between the two entangled particles such
> that changing the quantum state of the slower one would manifest as the
> opposite state change in the faster one at an earlier time?
>
> Would this not effectively give us a "window to the future"?
>
> And most importantly, isn't this the last invention? Since a window into
> the future gives us access to all future inventions?
>
> Of course it's entirely possible that the slower particle in this case
> would simply stay in a persistent state of superposition with the wave
> function being unable to collapse either to prevent a causality violation
> (Novikov's Self Consistency Principle) or because of a quantum cosmology in
> which the size of our universe it not so much a function of the speed of
> light over time since the big bang as they taught us in physics 101... but
> rather a function of all the matter comprising the universe and every
> possible quantum state of that matter and every subsequent possible quantum
> state (minus the states with a quantum probability of zero).
>
> Sorry, just bored at work, thought I'd poke the hornet's nest! :D
>
> Thanks!
>
> ---- RCF
>
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