Send me a text about anything at 8016-TEXT CM, or (801) 683-9826.
Will the phenomenon of quantum entanglement someday facilitate communication at speeds that exceed the speed of light? -Jason
The speed of light is like, crazy. It’s a weird thing. It’s not like some kind of wave moving through a gas. It’s a fundamental limit on the way electromagnetic radiation, space, and time work. It’s not even some random arbitrary limit, either. It makes sense in sort of a practical way. Einstein’s General and Special Relativity explains it, and I don’t really truly understand it yet, but I’ve been reading a lot on it lately. It’s an elegant theory, short and sweet, and almost infinitely profound. All of the sudden, space and time are just two sides of the same coin. Energy and matter are just two sides of the same coin. Heads and tails are just two sides of the same coin.
By the way, nothing is immune to the speed of light, including information. You could never ever get information to someone on another planet faster than sending them a little Morse code message with a flashlight (also, radio waves or any kind of electromagnetic radiation).
Jason’s question, though, is whether we can use quantum entanglement to somehow cheat the speed of light. Physics discoveries of late (not even that recent, but people are just now starting to buy it) seem to imply that quantum particles, photons of light, notably, interact with photons from alternate universes. It sounds like sci-fi but most physicist are starting to lean towards the Multiverse Theory, or Everett Multiple Worlds Model, or whatever it’s called. It should be noted, however, that most physicists are huge fans of the show Quantum Leap. By the way, if I had to go on a dinner date with a man, I would maybe choose Scott Bakula. Hey did I tell you I went on a dinner date with Hugh Jackman, another nerd-god? Well I’ll tell you about it sometime but now I’m kind of off-topic here.
Here’s the problem, Jason. Let’s not beat around the bush any longer. Let’s say, Jason, you encrypted a message “80085″ on a quantum calculator. You could be standing in Dijibouti and I could be here in New York, although we would have already broke the record for distance between entangled particles, as they are extremely difficult to keep fresh. We could both observe the same quantum filtering process simultaneously, which is pretty cool. But even so, by the time I called you up and said, “Dude, that was so funny, it looked like you spelled “BOOBS”, our communication would be well within c (the speed of light). Well, what if I had a quantum telephone?
Unfortunately, it’s all in vain anyway, because the way quantum entanglement works is that I wouldn’t know how to decode my calculator’s output without comparing my data to yours, which would require some form of classical communication. Although, as far as my understanding goes, faster-than-light communication is still an open-ended question. But, keep in mind, if you can send information faster-than-light, then you can send matter faster-than-light, and you would also be able to travel through time. And you can also jump into alternate universes where Earth is populated by only women. Wasn’t that an episode? Anyway, the hopeful nerd in me thinks it all theoretically possible, but it will be a tough nut to crack for the wheelchair guys.
To tour? market? Or produce? What is most important? -Annonymous
To produce. Marketing music and touring with music are two things that are becoming obsolete maybe. Well, maybe not even obsolete, just obnoxious and uninteresting. I’m about one step away from putting together a studio in Virginia and producing as much music as humanly possible until I die. Oh, before I forget, there’s a show on Monday at The Living Room and it should be fun. Get there at 7.
Thanks for the questions. Send me a text about anything at 8016-TEXT CM, or (801) 683-9826. Include your first name!
