gupyuson

Extending the concept to macro-entanglement seems to still require that you have some single speed-of-light event that bridges the entangled particles at a common point in space-time. At some point, two entangled atoms come share an undertermined quantum state, the subsequent measurement of which in one atom causes the second atom to instantaneously correspond with the first. If a fundamental quantum event is mitigated by a single speed-of-light interaction, then could an undetermined quantum state be considered a single quantum event in progress? An event that occurs at the speed of light doesn't necessarily have to cover any net distance. Think of a photon orbiting a black hole. From an external perspective it could orbit many times, passing through the same points in space over and over, only to collide with something near the same point in space where it originated. It's position is only determined at it's emition and absorption, so what you have is a photon that took 10 minutes to move a net distance of one micrometer. In the same way, you could have a single speed-of-light event that is the nucleus of an atom going into an undetermined quantum state (spinning two directions at once) and concluding with the determination of the quantum state. If the nuclei of two atoms become entangled in their undetermined quantum state, their mutual coalescence to a determined quantum state is just two apparent manifestations of the conclusion of the same quantum event.

I was reading an archived posted in this forum from 2004 where someone asked about how space and time appear from the perspective of a photon. The common response was that such references have no meaning when refering to a photon; that it has no frame of reference. It seems at least that there should be such a thing as a photon's mathematical perspective. If it can be in the equation, it can be put on it's own side of the equal sign as it were. If nothing else, thinking of things from a photon's point of view seems to make some physical curiosities seem a lot simpler. So here's the idea: If space-time contracts to infinitessimality for a photon, then it sounds like it "experiences" the universe as a single point and instant. However, anything moving at less than the speed of light perceives a photon to travel through space and exist for a period of time. What I perceive as an electron emitting a photon, that photon travelling through space and then hitting an electron in my eyeball; from a photon's "perspective" would be something like one electron bumping into another. This is obviously very simplistic, but it demonstrates the idea that the interaction is on some level transcending or unifying space-time. From the mathematical perspective of the photon, the universe would be one big equation with an infinite set of variables and a single solution. These variables would represent the state of everything in the universe. Their values would be set and unchanging for the existence of the photon, although they would represent the states of objects at different points in time; the states of objects (in their time) when they could encounter the photon. Since there is no time for the photon, these states coincide in a single moment even though they exist as successive moments in any external frame of reference. The photon's existance is simply an evaluation of the equation; how it is expressed in the universe is the one solution to the equation. No succession of cause and effect- just a condition that gives rise to it's being and ending all at once. Even if a photon takes 100 years from my perspective to get from a star to my eyeball and I have a lifetime from it's creation to its ultimate demise to decide if I'm going to see it or blink, it's fate is determined the instant it comes into being. It's creation 100 light years away does not coincide with my birth, but with the moment it impacts my eye. I recently read a bit on how a successive measurement of a photon's polarity can possibly affect the results of an earlier measurement. This poses no conceptual mystery if one imagines both measurements occuring simultaneously from the photon's perspective. One could imagine two entangled photons as being part of each other's equation. Trying to evaluate this equation on paper would probably result in infinite recursion, but photons are already dealing with infinities anyway so they can hack it. The point is that their observed instantaneous syncronicity is not a mystery when their entire existance is considered to be instantaneous. I know this isn't necessarily a new line of thought, but it seems that the photon's "perspective" is crucial in understanding all those "spooky interactions" we're starting to observe and play with.