From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Tue May 07 2002 - 23:08:52 MDT
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com> Wrote:
>why can't you use the fact of measurement, whether something is in an
>"entangled state", to transmit information?
Two coins are entangled quantum mechanically, I have one and you a billion
light years away have the other. In this analogy making a measurement is
like flipping a coin. I flip my coin 10 times and like any coin I have
no control over how it lands. I get THHTHTTHTH and think " yes, that
sequence looks pretty random". At the same time a billion light years
away you flip your coin ten times and get the exact same thing
THHTHTTHTH and think "yes, that sequence looks pretty random".
At that time you have no way of knowing if I have flipped my coin or not.
I get into my spaceship and head for your house at 99% the speed of light.
A billion years later we meet and I tell you my sequence and you tell me
yours, and it is only then that we know the coins have been instantly and
powerfully influencing each other, but there is no way to use that fact to
exchange information faster than light.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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