From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Fri Sep 20 2002 - 12:12:17 MDT
"Ross A. Finlayson" <extropy@apexinternetsoftware.com> Wrote:
> I have an idea about that. Let's say for the experiment there are two
> random states, at point A and point B. Each varies from zero to nine.
> Now, A has the capacity to send a given state to B instantaneously.
> Yet, A doe snot know the current state of B and B does not know the
> current state of A. Also, as the random state changes for each to a
> random number each time interval, neither A nor B has the immediate
> knowledge if A's value was just sent in the immmediately previous time
> interval. However, they do have synchronized clocks. Now, the goal of
> A is to send a message, a bit of information, within an interval of the
> smaller time intervals. Say the time intervals are seconds. At exactly
> twelve midnight, A starts monitoring the state and whenever the state is
> zero, a one in ten chance, then itis sent over to B. Now B also has a
> one in ten chance of having a zero, yet also, there is the added
> probability of it being a zero from aA sending a zero. Now, being
> random, over the 3600 seconds in the hour from 12:00 to 1:00, B would
> expect 360 zeros if none were sent from A. However, with A sending each
> zero, then when B sees around 360+36-3.6 zeros in the hour, about 392,
> then he knows A has been sending a message for the last hour.
But it's not like there is a random process and then you decide if you are
going to send a message or not, the randomness is inextricably linked to the
transmission process. This is how it would work, a million years ago a
series of green photons hit a crystal of potassium dihydrogen phosphate and
turned into 2 lower energy red photons with identical but unknown
polarization. The photons are thus entangled and sent in opposite
directions, one to me and the other to you. A million years later I
spin my Polaroid sunglasses to a random direction, one second later you
do the same thing 2 million light years away. If my photon makes it through
my filter (and there is a 50% chance it will) and if you happen to set your
sunglasses to the same angle then there is a 100% chance it will make it
through your filter, if it is 90 degrees off there is a 0% chance. In
general the square of the cosign of the angle between the 2 detectors for
each photon pair is proportional to the probability that a photon will make
it through your detector. There is no doubt I have instantly changed
something in your detector 2 million light years away but there is no way
I can use that to send a message because from your point of view it all
looks random, sometimes the photon makes it through your detector and
sometimes it does not and the probability it just what you would expect,
50%. It is only when we compare notes, and that can only be done at
the speed of light or less, does it become obvious that I am influencing
your receiver much faster than light.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:11 MST