- #1
MnM Show
- 5
- 1
Based on the results of every variation of the two-slit experiment so far, the presence or absence of the interference pattern is based on whether or not which-path information can be known or not. The Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser
puts an additional twist on this in that the dispersion pattern (additive or interference) is created before the which-path information is revealed (or lost). It does this by virtue of the fact that it uses two entangled photons; the “signaler” photon is directed at the screen where the dispersion pattern is created while the “idler” photon is directed through additional apparatus and eventually either reveals the which-path information or loses it based on what happens when the photon encounters some beam splitters in the path. (See link above) The important point here however is that the dispersion pattern is created before the which-path information is revealed or lost.
So as a thought experiment, what if you were to increase the distances between the various beam splitters and mirrors so that it took the idler photon an hour or two before it finally arrived at a detector? Realistically this is impossible but theoretically you could build a giant version of the experiment in space and put many light-minutes of distance between the various apparatus. Meanwhile you place the screen where the dispersion pattern forms much closer to the point where the entangled photons are created. In this way you would have a dispersion pattern formed well before the idler photons had arrived at their final destination. The results of quantum experiments, including the real world version of this same experiment, suggest that the presence or absence of an interference pattern will correctly predict at which detectors the various idler photons will arrive, either at a detector which reveals which-path information or at one that does not. Actually this is already what happens but since light moves so fast the “prediction” happens only a fraction of a second before the idler photon confirms it. (Technically since this experiment loses some which-path information and reveals some, you would get both patterns super-imposed but that is not relevant to where I am going with this idea.)
What I am proposing is this, if you can create some version of the experiment similar to this where there are two entangled quantum particles, and one particle is sent to the detector screen to create (or not) the interference pattern, while the other is somehow contained for an indefinite period of time (along with the which-path information), the presence or absence of the interference pattern should exactly correlate with what happens to the contained particle, regardless if, whatever happens to it, happens an hour later, or a week later.
So for example what if the above mentioned experiment were modified so that the idler photon instead of traveling through the various apparatus and hitting one of the 4 detectors, were instead manipulated into one of 2 enclosed containers (one for each of the two slits) and left reflecting in an infinite loop using mirrors?
Essentially, which container it was in would reveal the which-path information. In addition, I propose that both containers be constructed in such a way that the photons could be channeled out a common path (in which case you wouldn’t know which container it had been in) or an individual path (in which case you would). My theory is that as long as you did not find out which container the photons had been in (in other words released them on the common path which does not reveal which container they were in and likewise does not reveal the which-path information of the original photon) then you will get an interference pattern. This should be true even if you released the photons an hour or a week later. I can think of nothing in the existing experimental evidence to contradict this assertion.
But here is the paradox, if you get an interference pattern, this means that you will not get which-path information. But if you have those photons contained indefinitely, and they contain the which-path information, then the temptation to try and get that information after already getting an interference pattern would be great. In other words, once the presence of an interference pattern predicts that you cannot get the which-path information, how could you not be tempted to try and get it anyway knowing that the contained photons still have it? But because I believe the quantum particles will not predict wrongly, you will never get an interference pattern and be able to obtain the which-path information. So it may be that if you are prone to give into that temptation, the signaler photons would never create the interference pattern to begin with. They cannot be “tricked” so to speak. I believe that you would have to absolutely resolve not to even try and obtain the which-path information if you get an interference pattern. Keep reading to see why I say so.
First I think it would be important to establish that the entire setup is capable of creating an interference pattern to begin with, to prove that something about holding the which-path information in limbo for an extended time period would not in itself erase the interference pattern. Perhaps setup the whole experiment to run by computer control and come back later to see the results. Again, my assertion is that you will never get an interference pattern if the which-path information is discovered, even if it is discovered a week later. So by running the experiment automated, with no-one around to mess with it, and configuring it to say wait an hour before releasing the captured particles on the common path so that you lose the which-path information, you should get an interference pattern.
So far I have not proposed anything that contradicts current experimental evidence, and in fact I don’t intend to. But if experiment bears out the theories I am proposing here then there are some rather important implications. For example, if you established that the experimental setup could indeed create an interference pattern as proposed above (and based on current experimental results I don’t see why it wouldn’t) then what would happen if you intentionally decided to retrieve the which-path information every time you got an interference pattern? I assert that your intention would in itself guarantee that you never got one. Blasphemy I know but there you go.
So what about this thought experiment? Suppose you got a volunteer who knew nothing at all about the experiment and you had them come in and hit one of two buttons. One button releases the photons on the common path and thereby loses the which-path information, and the other button releases the photons on the individual path which reveals the which-path information. Will the presence or absence of the interference pattern correctly predict the choice of a human being in advance? I believe that it will. Current experimental evidence suggests that it will. If true this has huge implications. And it is these implications that are the destination of this post.
This experiment and its prediction are not a prediction of the behavior of the human being, nor of any other real world event. It is a prediction of the fate of the which-path information, nothing else. The ability to use this to predict real world events depends on the ability to correlate those real world events to the fate of that information. In the above thought experiment the fate of the information, either revealed or lost, is directly correlated to the choice of the human being so it appears to be a prediction of the choice of that human being. But as long as you can correlate the real world events strongly with the fate if the which-path information, you should be able to get equally strong correlation of the prediction.
So for example you may even be able to predict the outcome of an election. If you set it up so that a computer would release the contained photons on the common path (and lose the which-path information) if candidate A wins, then you could simply run the experiment and see if you get an interference pattern. Again the predictive value is only as good as the correlation between the real world event and the fate of the which-path data. So an interference pattern is not a prediction that candidate A will win, it is a prediction that the which-path data will not be recovered. Other unforeseen circumstances could easily come into play such as a computer glitch or malfunction of some part of the experimental apparatus. As long as the which-path information is lost, the interference pattern has correctly predicted the outcome.
The fewer the elements involved in an event the easier something like this would be to use to predict it. If you had a horse race with 10 horses you could setup one experiment for each horse, correlate the loss of the which-path information with that specific horse winning and then run them all and see which one gives an interference pattern. Keep in mind that in order for the correlation to be effective you must actually make sure that the mechanisms you put in place actually do release the photons on the common path when the event actually occurs. If not the predictive value is meaningless in regard to the event itself and only meaningful in regard to the which-path data.
I know all of this will seriously rub up against some strong objections with some people, but in truth I cannot see where it contradicts what we already know about quantum behavior and it does in fact follow from the experiments that have already been done. (Well most of it anyway, the ability to correlate real world events with the loss of the which-path information is more or less untested and may not work out quite as simply as I have proposed it.) But in truth the weirdness of it is not all that much different than any of the other weirdness of quantum behavior discovered up until now, and it is in fact the same weirdness just taken to a new extreme. How do the quantum particles “know” about the entire experimental setup so as to change their behavior accordingly? Well the answer to that isn’t actually necessary in order to make use of that uncanny ability. Since the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment has essentially demonstrated that the “knowing” extends into the future, there should be no reason to suspect there is a limit to how far into the future it extends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser
puts an additional twist on this in that the dispersion pattern (additive or interference) is created before the which-path information is revealed (or lost). It does this by virtue of the fact that it uses two entangled photons; the “signaler” photon is directed at the screen where the dispersion pattern is created while the “idler” photon is directed through additional apparatus and eventually either reveals the which-path information or loses it based on what happens when the photon encounters some beam splitters in the path. (See link above) The important point here however is that the dispersion pattern is created before the which-path information is revealed or lost.
So as a thought experiment, what if you were to increase the distances between the various beam splitters and mirrors so that it took the idler photon an hour or two before it finally arrived at a detector? Realistically this is impossible but theoretically you could build a giant version of the experiment in space and put many light-minutes of distance between the various apparatus. Meanwhile you place the screen where the dispersion pattern forms much closer to the point where the entangled photons are created. In this way you would have a dispersion pattern formed well before the idler photons had arrived at their final destination. The results of quantum experiments, including the real world version of this same experiment, suggest that the presence or absence of an interference pattern will correctly predict at which detectors the various idler photons will arrive, either at a detector which reveals which-path information or at one that does not. Actually this is already what happens but since light moves so fast the “prediction” happens only a fraction of a second before the idler photon confirms it. (Technically since this experiment loses some which-path information and reveals some, you would get both patterns super-imposed but that is not relevant to where I am going with this idea.)
What I am proposing is this, if you can create some version of the experiment similar to this where there are two entangled quantum particles, and one particle is sent to the detector screen to create (or not) the interference pattern, while the other is somehow contained for an indefinite period of time (along with the which-path information), the presence or absence of the interference pattern should exactly correlate with what happens to the contained particle, regardless if, whatever happens to it, happens an hour later, or a week later.
So for example what if the above mentioned experiment were modified so that the idler photon instead of traveling through the various apparatus and hitting one of the 4 detectors, were instead manipulated into one of 2 enclosed containers (one for each of the two slits) and left reflecting in an infinite loop using mirrors?
Essentially, which container it was in would reveal the which-path information. In addition, I propose that both containers be constructed in such a way that the photons could be channeled out a common path (in which case you wouldn’t know which container it had been in) or an individual path (in which case you would). My theory is that as long as you did not find out which container the photons had been in (in other words released them on the common path which does not reveal which container they were in and likewise does not reveal the which-path information of the original photon) then you will get an interference pattern. This should be true even if you released the photons an hour or a week later. I can think of nothing in the existing experimental evidence to contradict this assertion.
But here is the paradox, if you get an interference pattern, this means that you will not get which-path information. But if you have those photons contained indefinitely, and they contain the which-path information, then the temptation to try and get that information after already getting an interference pattern would be great. In other words, once the presence of an interference pattern predicts that you cannot get the which-path information, how could you not be tempted to try and get it anyway knowing that the contained photons still have it? But because I believe the quantum particles will not predict wrongly, you will never get an interference pattern and be able to obtain the which-path information. So it may be that if you are prone to give into that temptation, the signaler photons would never create the interference pattern to begin with. They cannot be “tricked” so to speak. I believe that you would have to absolutely resolve not to even try and obtain the which-path information if you get an interference pattern. Keep reading to see why I say so.
First I think it would be important to establish that the entire setup is capable of creating an interference pattern to begin with, to prove that something about holding the which-path information in limbo for an extended time period would not in itself erase the interference pattern. Perhaps setup the whole experiment to run by computer control and come back later to see the results. Again, my assertion is that you will never get an interference pattern if the which-path information is discovered, even if it is discovered a week later. So by running the experiment automated, with no-one around to mess with it, and configuring it to say wait an hour before releasing the captured particles on the common path so that you lose the which-path information, you should get an interference pattern.
So far I have not proposed anything that contradicts current experimental evidence, and in fact I don’t intend to. But if experiment bears out the theories I am proposing here then there are some rather important implications. For example, if you established that the experimental setup could indeed create an interference pattern as proposed above (and based on current experimental results I don’t see why it wouldn’t) then what would happen if you intentionally decided to retrieve the which-path information every time you got an interference pattern? I assert that your intention would in itself guarantee that you never got one. Blasphemy I know but there you go.
So what about this thought experiment? Suppose you got a volunteer who knew nothing at all about the experiment and you had them come in and hit one of two buttons. One button releases the photons on the common path and thereby loses the which-path information, and the other button releases the photons on the individual path which reveals the which-path information. Will the presence or absence of the interference pattern correctly predict the choice of a human being in advance? I believe that it will. Current experimental evidence suggests that it will. If true this has huge implications. And it is these implications that are the destination of this post.
This experiment and its prediction are not a prediction of the behavior of the human being, nor of any other real world event. It is a prediction of the fate of the which-path information, nothing else. The ability to use this to predict real world events depends on the ability to correlate those real world events to the fate of that information. In the above thought experiment the fate of the information, either revealed or lost, is directly correlated to the choice of the human being so it appears to be a prediction of the choice of that human being. But as long as you can correlate the real world events strongly with the fate if the which-path information, you should be able to get equally strong correlation of the prediction.
So for example you may even be able to predict the outcome of an election. If you set it up so that a computer would release the contained photons on the common path (and lose the which-path information) if candidate A wins, then you could simply run the experiment and see if you get an interference pattern. Again the predictive value is only as good as the correlation between the real world event and the fate of the which-path data. So an interference pattern is not a prediction that candidate A will win, it is a prediction that the which-path data will not be recovered. Other unforeseen circumstances could easily come into play such as a computer glitch or malfunction of some part of the experimental apparatus. As long as the which-path information is lost, the interference pattern has correctly predicted the outcome.
The fewer the elements involved in an event the easier something like this would be to use to predict it. If you had a horse race with 10 horses you could setup one experiment for each horse, correlate the loss of the which-path information with that specific horse winning and then run them all and see which one gives an interference pattern. Keep in mind that in order for the correlation to be effective you must actually make sure that the mechanisms you put in place actually do release the photons on the common path when the event actually occurs. If not the predictive value is meaningless in regard to the event itself and only meaningful in regard to the which-path data.
I know all of this will seriously rub up against some strong objections with some people, but in truth I cannot see where it contradicts what we already know about quantum behavior and it does in fact follow from the experiments that have already been done. (Well most of it anyway, the ability to correlate real world events with the loss of the which-path information is more or less untested and may not work out quite as simply as I have proposed it.) But in truth the weirdness of it is not all that much different than any of the other weirdness of quantum behavior discovered up until now, and it is in fact the same weirdness just taken to a new extreme. How do the quantum particles “know” about the entire experimental setup so as to change their behavior accordingly? Well the answer to that isn’t actually necessary in order to make use of that uncanny ability. Since the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment has essentially demonstrated that the “knowing” extends into the future, there should be no reason to suspect there is a limit to how far into the future it extends.