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From: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Aspect experiment
Message-ID: <766@klipper.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Mon, 25-May-87 13:21:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: klipper.766
Posted: Mon May 25 13:21:31 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 26-May-87 01:49:35 EDT
References: <1275@cci632.UUCP>
Reply-To: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 38
Keywords: aspect light faster
Xref: mnetor sci.philosophy.tech:70 sci.physics:1446

In article <1275@cci632.UUCP> mark@cci632.UUCP (Mark Stevans) writes:
>Just what is this "Aspect experiment" that may imply faster-than-light
>information transfer?  Gravity waves 2?

As far as I understood: suppose we take some small particle (I don't
know which, it doesn't matter either, so let's call it a moron).
Morons have the tendency to fall apart into two let's call them
half-wits, which always have opposite spin. So if one of them spins
left, the other one spins right. Now close your eyes (that's the
important part of the experiment) and shake a moron till it falls
apart. Since you didn't look (and you hope nobody else did), nobody
knows the spin direction of either particle. In quantum-mechanical
terms, that is: either particle is in an overlap of two states (spinning
left and spinning right, remember Schroedingers cat). Such an overlap
is described mathematically as a complex (in any sense) "wave-function".
Now jump into your car and follow one of those half-wits. After some
time you overtake it, grab your magnifying glass, and (the magic word
in QM) *observe* that the particle spins left (say). At this very same
moment, at some far distance, the wave-function for the other half-wit
collapses into the description of a right-spinning particle. So the
information that you observed your particle must have travelled in
zero time to the other half-wit. FTL information transfer. <Applause>

Now this is written somewhat jokingly, as I cannot quite see why this
reasoning is so exciting for physicists, and perhaps I don't understand
a bit of it (perhaps if my companion particle collapsed...), for me
it is just information transfer from one mental concept in my brain
to another, but the experiment (someone actually tried it out) has
caused, and still causes every now and then, lots of excitement.

Perhaps one of the philosophical physicists can comment on this?
(If they aren't already bored of it, for it keeps popping up in their
newsgroup, I believe.)
-- 
						Biep.  (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax)
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