From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Sep 26 2002 - 22:38:40 MDT
John Clark writes
>> There are an infinite number of angles I could set my filter at, but
>> whatever one I chose your photon 2 million light years away will instantly
>> be polarized at that angle if my photon makes it through or be polarized
>> exactly 90 degrees off if it does not. That's spooky but true.
>
> "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
>
> > Instantly? In whose frame of reference?
>
> For simplicity I was assuming the two detectors were not moving with respect
> to each other, but if you want to modify the thought experiment so can I.
> Give me a length of time, I don't care how short (well actually I do, it
> can't be near the Plank Time), and I can make changes in your detector (but
> not communicate) in less time than that just by moving my polarizing filter
> closer to my detector.
This notion of making *changes* in my detector arises
because you're using the Copenhagen interpretation.
If you use MWI, then it simply turns out (much later)
that you and the apparatus you discover at the distant
location are merely in the same universe, while your
opposite numbers are in a different universe.
>> If one polarizer is moving relative to the other, then the
>> Special Theory kicks in and it's impossible to say "instantly".
>
> That's true, the distance in time is ambiguous, but the
> distance between two events in space-time is well defined.
Yeah, but "spacetime interval" is more customary than
"distance".
Besides, if there is even the smallest differential in
velocity between the two locations, then for some
observers your turning your polarizer happened *after*
the the changes in *my* detector took place; so you
can't assign causality.
All you end up with in *any* case is random sequences
slightly correlated.
Lee
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