If momentum could be transferred faster than the speed of light, then a mass could be accelerated without an opposite momentum (energy) being transferred to a local mass. This would be a violation of the conservation of energy and the conservation of momentum. However, suppose it was possible to slightly modulate the quantum fluctuations of entangled electrons or entangled photons. No energy would be transferred faster than the speed of light, but it appears that a superluminal message could be sent. Therefore, is there any fundamental reason that a superluminal message cannot be sent between two points in space?
No, because entanglement refers to phase space, not spacetime. In addition, in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the causal structure is the same as that of non-relativistic classical mechanics. NR quantum mechanics describes more states than nr classical mechanics, but the causal structure is the same.
The opening statement is incorrect. In non-relativistic classical mechanics momentum is transferred instantaneously in a rigid body; nevertheless, Newton's third law still holds.
What prohibits superluminal propagation-which occurs in spacetime-is the causal structure of spacetime, beyond the non-relativistic approximation.
Entanglement does not transmit any momentum. What changes instantaneously in two distant places, at once, is a phase, that is neither energy nor momentum.
One can think of preparing a system C composed of A and B entangled, so that after the material sepration of B at a certain distance from A, he can produce instantaneous changes in B by just manipulating A.
Stam Nicolis Thank you for your answers. I really am interested in understanding your statement: "No, because entanglement refers to phase space, not spacetime." I visualize phase space as an abstract mathematical concept and spacetime as a real medium that is capable of propagating waves at the speed of light. If two photons are separated by a large distance yet can instantly adjust a physical property such as polarization, this appears to me to require an explanation that incorporates spacetime. Please elaborate on your answer.
Photon polarization states in non-relativistic quantum mechanics can adjust instantaneously, just like all points of a rigid body in non-relativistic classical mechanics react instantaneously. Once more: The causal properties of spacetime in non-relativistic quantum mechanics are the same as the causal properties of spacetime in non-relativistic classical mechanics. The fact that the quantum system has more states-so its phase space is larger-than its classical limit doesn't affect the causal properties of spacetime. That's why it's wrong to talk about wave propagation in this context. No wave are propagating in spacetime, either in the quantum or in the classical system.
Yes, because (Shannon) information is a gauge phenomenon. That doesn't mean that nothing meaningful can be communicated superluminally.
Think of Mach's principle applied to a massive elementary particle, its mass obviously produced by (something along the lines of) the Higgs mechanism.
It's my view that Goldstone modes constituting the scalar field self-interaction that underlies the Higgs mechanism are superluminal, however with the caveat that the Higgs mechanism in its present form is still immature.
A more developed "Higgs mechanism" would not be based on an ad hoc potential well, but on a more natural, harmonic self-interaction, essentially of negentropic nature.
It's the latter, that is, a negentropic propensity carried by Goldstone modes (k=0), that could be transported almost instantly throughout the Universe.
The same could account for entanglement, provided EPR's mistake of an a priori conservative paradigm is abandoned.
John A. Macken
"If two photons are separated by a large distance yet can instantly adjust a physical property such as polarization"
I think that's not actually what happens. "Entanglement" is a name for connectedness prior to spacetime. When EPR framed it as an a priori conservation law, the conceptualization of the problem itself went off the rails, and that's exactly what Bell proved (no local solutions).
Referring to my comment before, a critical reader might argue that the Higgs mechanism has no business with photons. That's true, but I think that scalar modes in some fashion do, obviously without imparting mass.
The distance-in spacetime-between two photons doesn't enter anywhere in the calculation of the evolution of their polarization states and, in particular, the entanglement thereof, in the framework of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. That's why it's wrong to bring it up.
The quantum system, whose classical limit describes the propagation of waves in spacetime, isn't the system of a fixed number of photons. That's, simply, wrong.
Stam Nicolis Frank van den Bovenkamp
Thank you Stam and Frank. I will address the most concrete of the various statements given. Stam said, "No waves are propagating in spacetime, either in the quantum or in the classical system." I will disagree with this statement. One interpretation of gravitational waves (GWs) is that they are physically propagating in the medium of spacetime. For example, the first GW detected by LIGO was GW150914. At Earth, its maximum amplitude was about ΔL/L ≈ 1.3x10-21 with a frequency of about 200 Hz. At Earth this was very hard to detect. However, close to the rotating black holes that produced this GW, the displacement amplitude over one wavelength would have been kilometers. This violent distortion produced by the passing GW would cause a near-by planet to become a violently oscillating ellipsoid. This is mentioned because GWs are clearly distorting spacetime. GWs are propagating in the medium of spacetime and encounter the impedance of spacetime: c3/G ≈ 4x1035 kg/s.
The article attached below shows that it is plausible for spacetime to be a sonic medium that propagates waves at the speed of light. This model achieves Lorentz transformations without requiring Einstein's two postulates (invariant speed of light and invariant laws of nature). Also, this medium generates a plausible model of an electron including an electron's electrical charge and gravitational force.
Preprint A Single Field Model of the Universe
No waves are propagating in the non-relativistic approximation that’s of relevance here!
It just doesn't make sense to ask about the relativistic properties of a non-relativistic description.
While photons are relstivistic,quantum, particles, the description of their polarization states can be done without invoking relativity.
There is no measurable cause and effect using entanglement. There is no measurable flow of time. Did A cause B or did B cause A. But if you could by some magical means measure what caused what, you would be left with two choices 1) give up thermodynamics. 2) measure a sidereal footprint. Everybody, like Michelson and Morley, chose number (2) and try to measure an aether but without success.
Entanglement simply means that a multiparticle probability distribution doesn't factorize into a product of single particle distributions. It doesn't have anything to do with transmitting signals, in spacetime, at any speed. That many, even famous, people, were confused about this point is a statement about sociology, not physics.
Many people couldn't understand that the space of states of a quantum system is much larger than the space of states of its classical limit and tried to argue that the additional states weren't physical. They were wrong. The space of states of a quantum system is spanned by all linear combinations of its basis, not just those that describe the solutions of the classical equations of motion.
Statements about spacetime only make sense upon assuming what are the symmetries of spacetime. In the approximation of non-relatvistic quantum mechanics signals can be transmitted instantaneously in spacetime. In relativistic quantum mechanics they aren't. Just as is the case in non-relativistic vs. relativistic classical mechanics: In the former rigid bodies make sense, in the latter they don't. How to describe entanglement in non-relativistic quantum mechanics is different from relativistic quantum mechanics.
In non-relativistic quantum mechanics that two events in spacetime are space-like separated doesn't mean anything. And in relativistic quantum mechanics events that are separated by a space-like distance don't affect each other.
Dear John A. Macken
At the smallest scale size properties are singular. The reasoning is simple: if a property exists of 2 different properties, it can be split. So it can not be a property of the smallest scale size.
“Super luminal” effects can be measured, for example tunnelling. But tunnelling doesn’t violate the (conservation) laws of nature. In other words, your statement isn’t correct.
In QFT there are a number of basic quantum fields and each field has different mathematical properties. For example the universal scalar field – Higgs field – is a 3D field that looks like a lattice. Because there is only 1 geometrical scalar in the universe: the sphere. These scalars don’t “drift around” in vacuum space because a change of magnitude (for scalars it is the size of the radius) has only 1 direction. Thus if 1 scalar decreases its radius, it is because of an influence from the outside of the scalar. The return to the previous magnitude is because of an influence from the inside of the scalar. Thus the Ricci scalar curvature in Riemannian geometry cannot exist in nature because the magnitudes of the scalars are imaginary (without a causal mechanism).
Energy is a property of the universal electric field. It is a 3D field and the volume of the structure of the field is invariant. That means that the changes within the universal electric field can be described with the help of topology. However, the changes within the universal electric field are quantized (Planck’s constant) and the linear propagation of Planck’s constant within the structure has a constant velocity, the speed of light.
In other words, the law of conservation of energy is about the universal electric field. But momentum is about energy and the direction of the energy (vectors). That means that the conservation of momentum envelopes not only all the energy in the universe but also all the vectors. In line with the existence of the universal electric field and its corresponding magnetic field (vector field). Thus 1 quantum of energy has momentum because it represents a fixed amount of energy (1h) and the corresponding vector(s) of the quantum of energy within the magnetic field.
If a vector of the magnetic field has a long range – because there are hardly opposite vectors – the vector can influence a local quantum of energy at a larger distance from the source of the vector. The influence is instantaneous – there is no transfer of energy – but we can only detect the influence with the help of the “manipulated” quantum. Thus for the experimenter there is always a delay of time; the duration of the increase or decrease of energy from 0 → 1h or the opposite.
With kind regards, Sydney
The clash of ideas is happening because I have a different model of the universe. In my model, there are not 16 or 17 different overlapping fields, (electromagnetic, electron, muon, Higgs, etc.). There is only one fundamental field. Spacetime itself has the properties of a single universal field that is capable of generating all the laws of nature, all the secondary fields, all particles and all forces. The secondary fields are lower frequency resonances in the Planck frequency fundamental field.
In 1955, John Wheeler concluded that the uncertainty principle and vacuum zero-point energy implied that spacetime must have Planck length oscillations at Planck frequency (ωp = 1.2x1043 rad/s). It is possible to build everything in the universe from this model of spacetime because it becomes a sonic medium with quantum mechanical properties. To see this, it is necessary to abandon the concept of corpuscular particles and visualize fermions as rotating soliton waves that exhibit wave-particle properties in this medium. Fermions are modeled as rotating waves with ħ/2 quantized angular momentum and amplitude of Planck length.
In this model, entanglement is part of a larger concept designated "unity". A distributed wave with ħ/2 or ħ angular momentum can collapse instantly to a more compact soliton wave in the medium of the spacetime oscillations. For example, in a double slit experiment, a quantized wave (photon) passes through both slits and only collapses into a single atom when its quantized angular momentum (energy) is transferred.
This alternative model is conceptually understandable for education. However, most important, it explains electric charge and gravity in a bottom-up approach based on waves.
For a vacuum endowed with a huge positive energy density (as potential energy) it is reasonable.... but current theories with space-time consider vacuum with negative definite energies..
Dear John A. Macken
Your idea that there exists only one fundamental “field” is really old and you find this concept in ancient Greece, China, India, etc. However, in physics they have measured different properties in vacuum space at the smallest scale size and the corresponding properties are arranged in categories. These categories are termed “fields” because in classic physics most of these properties were known as spatial extensions of “tangible composite phenomena” (electric field and magnetic field, gravitational field, etc.).
So there is a conceptual difference between the “one field concept” and the spatial properties that are created by this “one field”. Compare it with the sea (one field) and waves (local detectable properties). The “one field concept” is about absolute reality and the categorized properties are about the mutual relations between the local differences of absolute reality. Actually the local differences represent phenomenological physics.
I don’t like it to disappoint you but I cannot “conceptual understand” the model you try to develop. If the whole universe represents your “one fundamental field” you cannot pick up some mutual relations and state that these relations represent absolute reality. You have to describe (and explain in a mathematical way) how this model of absolute reality can transform into the categories as we have detected. So you have to build up your (mathematical) concept with more scrutiny.
Moreover, you cannot use the ideas of John Archibald Wheeler as the cornerstone of your model because a lot of his ideas are speculative physics and didn’t result in a theoretical break through. So it is really tricky to spend a lot of years thinking about a “one field model” if the basis ideas are not free of contradictions. But of course I hope that you are really successful!
With kind regards, Sydney
Sydney Ernest Grimm
From your comments, it appears as if you have not read any of the supporting papers that contain the proofs you claim do not exist. I go far beyond Wheeler's concept and develop the impedance, bulk modulus, "interactive density" and other wave properties of this medium. I then show it is capable of generating a wave-based model of an electron with an electron's energy, de Broglie waves properties, spin and undetectable volume. Most important, the quantum mechanical electron model generates an electron's electric and gravitational forces. The model also makes numerous predictions. For example, one correct prediction is that the electron's gravitational radius (rG) can be derived from the electron's quantum mechanical properties (Planck length Lp and electron's Compton radius rc)
rG = Lp2/rc = 6.76x10-58 m Electron's gravitational radius
Also, the ratio of the gravitational force between two electrons (FG) and the electrostatic force (Fe) between two electrons is FG/Fe = 2.397x10-43. This wave-based model correctly predicts this ratio should be obtainable from the electron's quantum mechanical properties and the fine structure constant α.
FG/Fe = Lp2/rc2α = = 2.397x10-43.
Preprint A Single Field Model of the Universe
Dear John A. Macken
The proposed Planck length = 1,616255 x 10-35 m. The length/diameter of the smallest phenomena that can be detected is about 0,25 x 10-15 m. That means that there is a gap of about 1020 between the proposed “metric of reality” and the smallest detectable physical reality, inclusive the shortest wave length of electromagnetic waves (about 1 x 10-15 m). Even the ancient Greek philosophers argued that the structure of physical reality is finite and cannot be divided any further. Because they were aware that reality shows a structure that is directly related to an increase of complexity. So where is the increase of complexity within the gap of about 1020?
Now look at your proposed gravitational radius of the electron: 6,76 x 10-58 m. A gap of about 1023 in between the proposed Planck length and your “gravitational radius” and even a gap of about 1043 between the smallest detectable phenomena. Thus if I blow up your gravitational radius of the electron to the size of 1 m the smallest detectable phenomena are bigger than the whole observable universe. Do you think that this is real?
Moreover, the electron has no gravitational field on its own because the electron has no rest mass, it is an electromagnetic wave packet. Thus there are only 2 influences that can change “the behaviour” of an electron: changes within the structure of the universal electric field and changes within the structure of the corresponding magnetic field. It is possible to superposition vectors on an existing vector field (magnetic field). Because vectors are 1 dimensional. That means that gravity must be a vector field if we detect that a uniform gravitational field influences the “behaviour” of a free electron.
Max Planck derived his “Planck units” with the help of 4 constants, inclusive the gravitational constant G. But we don’t know why the gravitational constant is so weak in relation to the electromagnetic force. Because of the existence of the universal conservation laws (energy and momentum) we know that all the 4 main forces must be equal. Or to say it in a different way: the elementary force manifests itself in 4 different ways but we don’t understand how and why. But the consequence is that Planck’s derivation of his units is obscure.
With kind regards, Sydney
Sydney Ernest Grimm Sydney, and with all due respect, this is completely wrong: "Moreover, the electron has no gravitational field on its own because the electron has no rest mass,". I do not even know why there is a need to tell you this. Of course the electron has solid physical rest mass. And iSpace theory is able to show exactly (zero error bar by design) which one:
Preprint iSpace - Quantization of Time in iSpace-IQ Unit-System by 1/...
Conference Paper iSpace - Exact Symbolic Equations for Important Physical Con...
On the contrary - electron and positron are possibly the only required physical particles to exist at all. Papers like mine above based on exact iSpace theoretical primary quantized integer geometry deliver the hard facts all the metaphysical sort of disussion in forums like this are never tired to turn around theirs heads about ultra complex physical arguments - instead of realizing its game over for all of these already - everything is quantized as time is quantized. And this even if whole of relativistic and quantum meachnics based (mathematically zero/infinity misguided) rest of science stubbornly refused to admit most simple operation possible - multiplaction.
There is no proof for the conservation of energy and the conservation of momentum. Because both effects are often observed, this does not mean that they are universally valid. It follows that there is no proof either that information cannot be transmitted faster than light or instantaneously.
John A. Macken John, I do unfortunately not agree (nor see) how you get to the numerical values of your equations given some 19h ago's post. Having recalculated and derived exact iSpace results for constants of nature using the ones givine in *your original book* (freely available in PDF form) these have been *correct* and you "deviated" later (for peer-review comment reasoning, I believe to remember?) but exacty these become wrong as can easily be seen with the following exact calculation (as based on your original work plus iSpace exact zero error bar integer geometric quantized spacetime);
Electrostatic unit Force (in iSpace-SI aka MKSA/SI unit system - EXACT):
FE = 0.2120136724591148922550308217378506553240381342086131887496... Volt Ampere Second/Meter
Quantum of gravitational force (exactly derived by iSpace theory based on John A. Mackens results - EXACT):
Fg = 3.713970441708360717375425215629480549647517391446617654061573187167494...*10^-46 Volt Ampere Second/Meter
Finestructure constant of gravitation (unitless: (electron rest mass)^2 over (Planck-Force)^2 - EXACT):
Fg/FE = alphaG = 1.751759874082917755847733144621321286371348303191352...*10^-45
Planck-Force (in iSpace-SI aka MKSA/SI unit system - EXACT):
FPl = 1.21028958132808242788913836675842942578224...*10^44 Volt Ampere Second/Meter
Fg = iFPl * (alphaG)^2 (!!! and this is BASICALLY 3/c^4 QUANTIZED as following ratio shows:)
Fg = (3 Volt Ampere Second) / (8077608713062490229263800746151696000000000000 Meter)
8077608713062490229263800746151696000000000000 = (299792458*10^3)^4
END OF PROOF (by iSpace theory)
Sorry all - "Finestructure constant of gravitation (unitless: (electron rest mass)^2 over (Planck-Mass)^2 - EXACT):" it must read of course (not Force).
Sorry Christian G. Wolf
In my comments to John A. Macken I only used "text books knowledge". Ik didn't advertize my own ideas because the topic is a question. So I have to use concepts that can be verified. For example electrons can vanish in the Dirac sea of electromagnetic amplitudes (vacuum space) and reappear again, although we don't know if the "new" electron is created by the vanished electron. In line with QM where an electron is a kind of wave packet.
If you don't like parts of the text books because you have another "reality" in mind, that's o.k., I don't bother. But you cannot expect me to advertise my own ideas/opinion if John A. Macken don't ask me to describe these own ideas.
With kind regards, Sydney
Sydney Ernest Grimm I stand by my statement that an electron’s gravitational radius (rG) is:
rG = Lp2/rc= Gme/c2 = 6.76ᵡ10-58 m
In this equation, Lp = Planck length, rc = electron’s Compton radius, and me = electron’s mass.
For example, at distance r from an electron, the slope of an electron’s gravitational curvature is: rG/r = Gme/c2r. Technically, this is an approximation, but at a distance exceeding an electron’s Compton radius, this is accurate to better than 1 part in 1040. Therefore, it is virtually exact.
Einstein made the assumption that mass causes space to curve. I was attempting to develop a model of an electron when I discovered the model unexpectantly was generating an electron’s gravity and electric field. The wave properties of the electron incorporate an amplitude of Planck length (Lp) and a mathematical radius of a rotating soliton wave equal to an electron’s Compton radius (rc = ħ/mec). You can read how these and other considerations predicted this gravitational radius. The gravitational force between two electrons (FG = Gme2/r2) can also be expressed as FG = (rG/r)2Fp where Fp = c4/G = Planck force.
You did not comment on the other correct prediction that the gravitational/electrostatic force ratio (FG/Fe) between two electrons is also able to be derived from this model incorporating Planck length (Lp), an electron's Compton radius (rc) and the fine structure constant α.
FG/Fe = Lp2/rc2α = = 2.39x10-43.
Preprint A Single Field Model of the Universe
Dear John A. Macken
You don't have to change your mind! We are not in some kind of a strange competition. So it is o.k. if you are convinced that your insight in physical reality is correct. Keep it!
With kind regards, Sydney
John A. Macken Dear John, this is what you talked about - exactly:
(see attached PNG for exact iSpace calculation of equation given above)
The Alain Aspect (1982) experiment showed information was transmitted faster than light. This could be entanglement. But information is not matter. So, read Special Relativity and the Lorentz Ether Theory to say no matter can travel faster than light. This would change physics theory. So, it depends on where the inertia is accounted in a theory. In General Relativity, energy-momentum (matter things) warp spacetime (an aether?) which then directs matter.
Entanglement (now demonstrated by Aspect experiment) requires new physics for all standard models.
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