Entangled Photons ?

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté

I read 3 things of interest this week and thought to share them with you. I am asking sanjaya to help out in our (my) understanding of this information... He has added great value to the comprehension of this material, perhaps he can help again.

I am reading the following in Astronomy Magazine and it says the following:
Since the whole universe was born together this experiment ( I will get to in a second) implies that everything may be interconnected.

You can imagine my pleasant surprise when I read this as it aligns perfectly with the following:

• The principle or truth is this: sarvaṃ sarvātmakaṃ
  • sarva सर्व - everything, all; whole, completely
  • ātmakaṃ or ātmaka आत्मक- belonging to or forming the nature of
  • Hence sarva + sarva + ātmaka = everything + everything all + belonging to or forming the nature of; Or in prose , everything pervades everything else.
• Another view is daśa santaiḥ tat kṛtam - What is created of that One becomes 10. (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 4.3.8)
  
  • He is the One that shines ( rāṭ ) in every specific form ( vi ) ~ virāṭ ¹ ~ . He manifests in all the worlds.

It is all One as we learn from the upaniṣads again and again.

So where is my brain cramp? It is with entangled photons. This insight of the interconnectedness of everything comes from an experiment of Nicolas Gisin of Geneva Switzerland. He used 'entangled photons' 7 miles apart for an experiment that showed the interconnectedness of matter and its inferred wave function.
Now do I know what I am talking about - absolutely not. Sanjaya, please help.

Items 2 and 3 I will offer in another post -how empty space is as measured by the number of atoms in a cubic meter and the other , a 5th state of matter.

praṇām

[sanjaya]

Hi Yajvan. You always raise such interesting issues.

So regarding this business of interconnected photons, the author of the Astronomy article is referring to a process called quantum entanglement. In quantum mechanics, we typically use a wavefunction to describe particles. This was inspired by light, which is a wave that sometimes behaves like a particle (some would phrase it by saying that it's both a particle and a wave). In the early twentieth century, physicists suggested that if light can behave like a particle, then perhaps particles of matter can behave like waves as well. Thus was born quantum mechanics.

In QM, a wavefunction is usually used to describe an individual particle. But a wavefunction can also be used to describe two particles at once. Then, if one particle interacts with something, the second particle can feel the effects instantly because both particles are described by the same wavefunction. This is the so-called "quantum entanglement." It's usually applied to matter particles, but in the Astronomy article photons are being considered. Physicists are disturbed by quantum entanglement, since it suggests that information can be transmitted instantaneously rather than at the finite speed of light.

However, the issue of instantaneous transmission of information doesn't seem to be the hot topic here. Quantum entanglement does seem to provide a physical mechanism for distant particles being somehow interconnected, which I think is what you were getting at.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast� sanjaya,

Hi Yajvan. You always raise such interesting issues.

So regarding this business of interconnected photons, the author of the Astronomy article is referring to a process called quantum entanglement. In quantum mechanics, we typically use a wavefunction to describe particles. This was inspired by light, which is a wave that sometimes behaves like a particle (some would phrase it by saying that it's both a particle and a wave).

However, the issue of instantaneous transmission of information doesn't seem to be the hot topic here. Quantum entanglement does seem to provide a physical mechanism for distant particles being somehow interconnected, which I think is what you were getting at.

Yes, I recall wave-particle from physics and remember the experiments on how one could see light as a wave and/or a particle.


What I don't comprehend is the notion of some matter-particles/photons being in one location and the others being 7 miles away and they are called entangled. Where to you go buy 'entangled' particles for this experiment? how does that occur - or what is the dynamics for that to occur? Is there natural occuring entanglements out there ?

Very perplexing me thinks.

praṇām

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam:

A former student of mine (I taught him in Grade 5, he had repeated grade 4... nice example of how western education model doesn't fit everyone) ) worked on the accelerator in Switzerland for about 5 years. He loves this stuff. Want his email? (I jest, but the interconnectedness is fascinating. )

Aum Namasivaya

[sanjaya]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast� sanjaya,






Yes, I recall wave-particle from physics and remember the experiments on how one could see light as a wave and/or a particle.


What I don't comprehend is the notion of some matter-particles/photons being in one location and the others being 7 miles away and they are called entangled. Where to you go buy 'entangled' particles for this experiment? how does that occur - or what is the dynamics for that to occur? Is there natural occuring entanglements out there ?

Very perplexing me thinks.

praṇām

Ah, this is a good question, and I seem to have glossed over that point. If two photons are in close proximity to each other, they can be described by the same wavefunction. If they separate later, they will still be entangled. Any measurement process, however, will disturb this, which is why quantum entangled systems have to be isolated from their environments.