Re: Polarization is weird, definitely

From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Apr 29 1997 - 07:37:43 MDT


At 01:17 PM 4/28/97 -0700, John Clark wrote:

>position. If the photon makes it through the polarizer (and there is a 50%
>chance that it will) then the photon is polarized 100% in the horizontal
>position and always has been, even if it started it's journey from a distant
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>galaxy to your detector ten billion years before you decided in what
>direction to turn it. If the photon doesn't make it through the detector
then
>the photon was always in the vertical position.

`And always has been', as I understand it, is the *common-sense error* in
interpreting QT. Actually the state is not fixed *until* the interaction,
which is what makes non-local connections weird. A different relativistic
reference frame can show that your distant pal was the one who `first' set
the polariser, entraining the result you see here and now. Without
simultaneity, traditional causality vanishes. Strange world.

Damien Broderick



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