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I am reading a book by George Friedman called The Next 100 Years. In the book its predicted that there will be manned orbital platforms called Battlestars in GSO by the 2050's that will manage constellations of military satellites and transfer command and control of ground based weapons to space. The platforms are supposed to be constructed because of innovations in commercial rockets that will lower the price to orbit of the necessary materials and partially because the vast amount of material being launched will cause economies of scale.
I am wondering what people think of this concept and what possible designs for such platforms are probable?
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If we're in space enough at that point, then why not construct them, since we're obviously going to be firmly into the abundance economy for the people there, and having a full defence fleet for the homeworld from rogue cultists and xenos will be a trivial cost. Not launched from Terra, though. Cheap asteroidal steel, covered by meter thick titanium plating, built on location at strategic locations in cis-Lunar space (can you imagine moving one of those things?), powered by giant Polywells...
But I don't think any current government will construct them. Too many civil problems at home - they can roll with the times and lose control over their population, so they won't have the resources (but their populations will), or they can try to hold back the time and not be able to divert attention to such projects.
Didn't Tom Kalfbus mention these ages ago?
Use what is abundant and build to last
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I believe the reverse. Development of quantum entanglement communication will mean instantaneous and completely secure communication over significant distance. That means the NAVY will place command and control in a room in the bowels of an aircraft carrier, rather than a Hawkeye aircraft. No communication relay will be required, but sensors will, so Hawkeye aircraft will be replaced with UAVs. Air Force AWACS will also be replaced by UAVs with sensors only. Their command and control will be at an Air Force Base in the continental US. I saw a piece on TV some time ago that the Air Force was working to move NORAD from Cheyenne Mountain to a base on the surface. It's a lot less expensive. And the argument was a high precision cruise missile could fly a small nuke right down the access tunnel, right to the heavy armoured door. That door isn't designed to withstand a direct nuclear blast. So the argument was, if it isn't effective anyway, why incur the expense? So why would they consider moving anything to a space platform?
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Because a few kilometres of asteroidal steel might be able to withstand a nuclear blast that would destroy the door to Cheyenne mountain? Though, they could always build more doors, including one right at the entrance - ablative nuclear protection. I doubt the enemy would be able to launch enough missiles in quick enough succession. Or include charges to collapse the entrance.
Your plan seems predicated on being able to use quantum entanglement to communicate classical information, though... I thought I had a way, but it turns out I was just getting confused by the whole observer idea.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Last I heard about quantum entanglement, you could send a signal, but not understandable information. Not sure anybody really knows, not yet. Edge-of-the-known physics stuff is always very iffy and subject to reversals-of-opinion.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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You can't use quantum entanglement to send discernible information faster than light.
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Last I heard about quantum entanglement, you could send a signal, but not understandable information. Not sure anybody really knows, not yet. Edge-of-the-known physics stuff is always very iffy and subject to reversals-of-opinion.
You can't use quantum entanglement to send discernible information faster than light.
This sounds like "It hasn't already been done, so therefore cannot be done." We would never have discovered fire with that attitude. What happened to NASA's can-do attitude? Besides, I read about quantum entanglement in 1999. The original paper was written by Einstein/Podolsky/Rosen in 1930. An electron can be contained and manipulated in a quantum well of a semi-conductor. Quantum wells were first discovered in 1973, and well characterized by 1993. The more people claim it can't be done, the more I'm convinced the military is already doing it. This is ideal for stealth aircraft.
Besides, I've been slowly playing with a physics idea. If I'm right, quantum entangled electrons have a maximum range, while photons do not. And there is no "speed" to information sent via quantum entanglement. Time delay is a mathematically exact number: exactly zero. Divide any finite distance by zero time and you get infinite speed. You can't divide by zero, so any talk of "speed" of quantum entanglement just doesn't make sense. There are no relativity effects, it's just instantaneous.
Gregori: you asked about the idea of Battlestars. The answer is "no". This is an idea from the 1950s. Back then the military had visions of military space stations, and "Dynosoar" space fighter. Then modern electronics were invented. No need to put people in space, when spy satellites can radio down digital images. And an ICBM does the job better than Dynosoar. If you want to harden the weapon against enemy attack, then a concrete silo surrounded by lots of dirt is far better than tonnes of asteroid metal.
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This sounds like "It hasn't already been done, so therefore cannot be done." We would never have discovered fire with that attitude. What happened to NASA's can-do attitude?
No, it sounds like "The laws of physics as we know them prohibit it." A can-do attitude isn't going to overturn speed of light limits any more than a can-do attitude is going to make rocks start falling up!
You have to send information via a classical channel to use quantum entanglement to transfer information. I'd like to see some papers claiming otherwise if you disagree.
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You really don't understand quantum entanglement, do you? It's part of quantum mechanics. That's physics.
As for papers, I ordered a paper copy of one. The doctoral thesis by Alain Aspect.
ORSAY no d'ordre: 2674
UNIVERSITE DE PARIS-SUD, CENTRE D'ORSAY
THESE présentée Por obenir
Le GRANDE de DOCTEUR ES SCIENCES PHYSIQUES
PAR Alain ASPECT
SUJET: TROIS TESTS EXPERIMENTAUX DES INEGALITES DE BELL
PAR MESURE DE CORRELATION DEPOLARISATION DE PHOTONS
soutenue le 1er février 1983 devant la Commission d'examen
Are you capable of tracking down the doctoral thesis of a researcher mentioned in the media? Then locating the library that archives doctoral theses, and ordering a copy? Neither the receptionist who answered the phone, nor the librarian, were able to speak English. Ordering that paper tested my grade school French. By the way, after reading the actual thesis, the media got it wrong.
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Robert, I do stand in awe of your apparent understanding of quantum entanglement, quantum mechanics and physics. Also your ability to track down and order a copy of a thesis from February of 1983 – more than 30 years ago.
As for me, I last studied physics in 1958, and, at my age, don’t remember much of what they taught back then. Besides which, my class was barely catching up with Newton, let alone Einstein and Schrodinger.
But, over the years, I have read a little bit about some of these things. And I have some naive questions:
For instance, wouldn't a discussion represented by a series of articles in multiple peer reviewed journals be more authoritative than a thesis by a single author from 30 years ago? Maybe supplemented with patents and a series of deployed applications? After all, the subject has been covered for over 80 years.
Why is instantaneous and more secure communication such a game changer for military purposes? A one second delay is so critical? Is there really a significant problem with current ciphers being broken? I don’t think Edward Snowden is an example of a broken cipher.
And, I rather doubt that the military of any country is doing instantaneous communication in secret. Remember Dr. Spock’s admonition, “Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.”
As for the physics, of which I have no background and very little understanding - but is it not the case that elementary particles, like, say, electrons, are not really particles in the classical sense? That they are something represented, apparently pretty accurately, by mathematical constructs; that we have no way of directly observing electrons, nor even of describing them, except by most imperfect analogies?
That, for instance, elementary particles have no specific location; that an electron associated in some way with my shoes has a probability of being anywhere? In Winnipeg? Of course a low probability. In Andromeda? Or Abell 732? And there’s the vacuum problem. The overall vacuum might be in a zero particle state, but it still has particles in finite regions. Then there are virtual particles, the Unruh effect, and much other weird stuff.
And what about fields? They’re quantized, which gives rise to particles (like the photon), and all the problems with particles,
Some physicists might say that it not at all clear what particles actually are; that particle physics is a misnomer. Since we don’t know what or where particles are, it’s no wonder particles can react instantaneously across the universe. Maybe they were there to begin with? Whatever they are.
To put it another way, it sounds to me like quantum entanglement is not well understood and its use for possible instantaneous communication in the near future is problematic.
One could make another observation: If instantaneous travel, communication, even just observation were practical, does that not make the Great Silence, the utter absence of ET, even more of a puzzle?
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Hi bobenf, Thank you. That's very kind.
Science moves very slowly. They're quite a conservative lot. When one scientist proposes something that changes the view of how things work, other scientists jump on him/her. It takes extraordinary evidence for new ideas to be accepted. Did you know Albert Einstein never did get the Nobel Prize for Relativity? He got it for the photovoltaic effect, which explains how photovoltaic cells (solar cells) work. Relativity was never accepted sufficiently in his lifetime.
This is a major game changer for the military. Currently, UAVs are flown with an autopilot. An operator can send way points via satellite, then the autopilot flies itself between them. Satellites produce a delay of hundreds of milliseconds (tenths of a second). That is enough that the delay between movement of controls and the aircraft actually moving is out of sync. Add an equal delay between sensors or video cameras and display on an operator's computer screen. That makes real-time flying not practical. However, instantaneous communication fixes that. A fighter pilot could sit in an office chair at an air force base in North Dakota while the high performance fighter he is operating is actually over Afghanistan. That permits a plane that can pull 25 G turns. That would put anyone onboard unconscious. And communication relay aircraft or satellites become completely unnecessary. A fighter jet needs an omni-directional antenna, because a parabolic dish can't track a satellite while it's turning-and-burning in a dog fight. But quantum entanglement means point-to-point communication, without the need for steering an antenna.
Electrons not a single particle? Well, yea. They appear to be a self-cohesive set of interacting waves. There are waves in different dimensions that "surf" on each other. Some of these waves can "turn" other waves, so they oscillate in a different dimension. A photon oscillates in one dimension, but carefully placing a series of combs, each a slightly different angle, can turn the polarization of the photon. This is typically used to "turn" the polarization by 90°. That's the most useful "turn" for any LCD display. But I suspect waves within an electron are doing something similar, but turning in other dimensions.
I've been working on a physics theory of my own. It's strongly based on Relativity. I noticed that one thought experiment by Dr. Einstein was a spacecraft travelling close to the speed of light. As it approached the speed of light, several interesting things happen. Most people are ware of time inside the spacecraft slowing, and the mass increasing. Most people are not aware that the length of the spacecraft shrinks. If the spacecraft could achieve exactly the speed of light, its length in the direction of travel would be exactly zero. I believe that's because one dimension is somehow rotating. As time speed increases, time slows, and the dimension of length also shrinks. So a spacecraft travelling close to but not quite the speed of light would no longer be a 4 dimensional space-time object within our 4 dimensional universe. Electrons do travel at close to the speed of light, so they have 3 and a fraction dimensions. That fractional dimension makes it a fractal, and fractal mathematics is the math of chaos. You cannot measure the exact position of an electron in 3 dimensional space, and the time it's there. You can say it passed through this exact spot in 3 dimensional space, but not when. Or exactly the time an electron passed through a plane, but not exactly where. I believe the reason for this is the premise is wrong. It just doesn't make sense to try to measure the 4 dimension position of an object that doesn't have 4 dimensions. It's like asking the length of water. Water doesn't have a length, it has volume. Its length depends on the container you pour it into. Same with an electron.
This explains quantum entanglement. From the perspective of a pair of electrons, the dimension between them doesn't exist. From their perspective they're sitting on each other. That's why anything you do to one will instantaneously affect the other: they literally push each other. That means no signal passes through intervening space. It doesn't pass through hyperspace, or subspace, or any other science fiction concept. It doesn't pinch the fabric of space; only the subatomic particle is affected. The electron has one dimension mostly collapsed.
A photon travels at exactly the speed of light. So it has one dimension completely collapsed. It doesn't have randomness because it doesn't have a fractional dimension. That also means there is no maximum distance between particles. With an electron, the farther they are apart, the greater the chance of breaking entanglement. With a photon, distance just doesn't matter. It also means that for a photon, time dilation within the particle is complete. Time inside the particle has completely stopped. This may be why a wave behaves as if it's hard.
As for SETI: the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. If aliens are using quantum entanglement, they would have an internet between stars that operates instantaneously. Or telephones, or TV, etc. There are great advantages to use it. But for us, it's a problem. The signal does not travel through intervening space, moving one particle in an electronic device in one solar system causes the entangled subatomic particle to instantly move in the other solar system. Nothing in between. We would never be able to detect it. The "Great Silence" may mean they're already using this.
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If instantaneous travel were practical, that would make interstellar colonization much, much easier than if limited to the speed of light. A habitable world in the Gleise 620 star system? Instantaneously send colonists; the instantaneous transport eliminating the numerous problems of life support and protection for centuries or millennia, reducing risk, and enormously increasing the payoff of colonization. If the colonists need something, just send it, instantaneously.
Hundreds, thousands, of colonies, bases, observation posts could be planted over hundreds or thousands of light years. The whole galaxy could be colonized, or at least visited, in a few centuries, at most.
If the colony or base doesn't work out, just send everybody back, instantaneously.
Even if it’s only instantaneous communication that’s practical, that would still make colonization easier and with a higher payoff. The civilizations would remain in constant contact, and more integrated than if limited to the speed of light, with conversations taking place contemporaneously rather than over hundreds of years.
Instantaneous travel obviously results in the ability to instantaneously communicate to and observe anywhere.
Instantaneous communication reduces the time for observations to take place by the distance to the observee. Send a probe at 10% of the speed of light to a star system 100 light years away; and in a thousand years observations will be forthcoming, rather than 1100 years. And, more importantly, once there ET will be able to engage in two-way instantaneous communication with the indigenous population.
The Great Silence question isn't “Would we be able to eavesdrop on ET?” But, “How easy would it be for ET to know we are here?” and, “How easy would it be for ET to communicate with us?” and “How likely is it that ET would leave artifacts in our solar system?” or colonies? There is also the issue of ETs increasing effect on its environment; a characteristic that life on Earth has exhibited for four billion years. These increasing effects must eventually become observable even by us, e.g. Dyson spheres, or unpleasantness associated with large scale inter- or intra-species conflict.
Practical instantaneous travel, communication and/or observation would clearly make all of that much more likely, especially if there is more than one species in the universe that has developed this technology.
Most, if not all, ETs are likely to be quite heterogeneous on their home world and in well developed colonies. There will be large numbers of empowered groups within each civilization that will respond to the news about us in many different ways from many different motives: academic, ideological, altruistic, religious, adventuresomeness, psychosis. Multiple responses are even more probable over a period of centuries or millennia; and there is clearly a probability that some groups from one or more civilizations would signal this intelligent life bearing world in multiple possible ways:
radio or optical signals
painting colored images on our moon
producing holographs or sound vibrations in our atmosphere
sending artifacts of one kind or another into our solar system
sending colonists
modifying, as a consequence of peaceful or warlike actions, star systems that are observable by us
or doing something I can’t even imagine.
Instantaneous travel, communication or observation does, I believe, enormously magnify the problem of the Great Silence.
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“Einstein never did get the Nobel Prize for Relativity...Relativity was never accepted sufficiently in his lifetime.”
??
Einstein died in 1955; after the widespread deployment and use of uranium, plutonium and hydrogen bombs. And commercial fusion power was only 20 years in the future. I remember the time fairly well, and it certainly seemed to me that Relativity was very widely accepted.
There was a book written by Einstein, “Relativity, The Special and the General Theory, A Clear Explanation that Anyone Can Understand,” published in 1916; the same year Einstein was appointed president of the German Physical Society. By 1952 the book had been through 5 printings in multiple languages. He received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1925. In 1929 the Max Planck medal.
In 1933 Einstein took a position with the Institute for Advanced Study at 1 Einstein Drive in Princeton, New Jersey. He was one of the first four selected for the Institute, the others being John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern and Kurt Gödel. In 1936, he received the Franklin Medal. In 1939 he was influential in establishing the Manhattan Project. The Albert Einstein Award was established in 1951. Element 99, einsteinium, was named for him in 1955
Of course, one can say that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was never wholly accepted. And, of course, Darwin also did not get the Nobel Prize.
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I don't see how this could move anything physical, only information. The media keeps talking about quantum entanglement being "teleportation", or a Star Trek transporter. I don't see that. Scientists have managed to entangle one pair of photons, then entangle a third photon. The result is whatever you do to one photon, the second photon does the mirror immage. With a third photon entangled to the second, then it changes it's polarity in mirror response to the one its entangled with. But since the second is a mirror of the first, and the third is a mirror of the second, that means when you change polarity of the first then the third will have exactly the same polarity. But that's just polarity. You can do the same with electrons, changing their spin. However, a human body has vast amounts of matter, all constructed very finely to produce nerve circuits and blood vessels, etc. Changing polarity or spin will not assemble a complex organism. This entaglement does not build atoms out of subatomic particles, much less molecules or complex proteins, or an entire brain with memories. So I don't see any sort of teleporter or Star Trek transporter ever working.
That said, Miguel Alcubierre worked out the basic physics for warp drive. He used General Relativity, so this is based on real physics. Unfortunately it requires negative matter to work. Not antimatter that has the opposite charge; it requires negative matter, which is composed of negative energy. Although theoretical physics allows for negative matter to exist, it's never been proven. This is absolutely required: without negative matter, warp drive is not possible. And an Alcubierre drive requires a lot of matter; basically a naked quantum singularity in front of your spacecraft, and behind an equal size singularity made of negative matter. So warp drive is now impractical rather than impossible. It may be possible to modify the design: to use energy efficiencies to reduce the energy required. Some have already argued various problems, so work has started.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
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Instantaneous communication with another technological species could take place if both have the technology for instantaneous communication, i.e., they’d both have senders and receivers. Doesn't it seem very likely that, if we are anywhere near developing instantaneous communication, it should be a fairly trivial issue for species even a century more advanced than us, let alone several millennia?
And wouldn't it be likely that instantaneous communication with another technological non-instantaneous communicating species could be achieved simply by sending them the instructions for constructing a receiver and later a sender? Although one device should pretty much lead to the other. This would reduce the time for communications and observations to take place for a star system 100 light years away from a thousand plus years to a hundred or so years.
It’s pure speculation what the effects of multiple instantaneously communicating species would be, but doesn't it seem that such conversations would make interstellar space faring, outposts and even colonization more probable? I find it hard to imagine a network of instantaneously communicating civilizations across the galaxy, or further, at least some of whom would not also be interstellar space farers, at least to some degree.
Also, doesn't it seem really likely that somebody would, at least, be interested in a comprehensive survey of the home galaxy, the local group, and probably much more? Wouldn't such surveys most probably, if not primarily, include discovery and description of all instances of life, and especially of technological civilizations? We are constantly doing all kinds of surveys of the skies, of geology on Earth and beyond, and of biota. And after all that cataloging, doesn't it seem likely that eventually somebody would make some practical use of the data?
Wouldn't it be pretty simple for ET more advanced than us to identify robust biology? Just look for the atmospheric effects. Discovering technology would be more challenging, but wouldn't it be well within the capabilities of a species a millennium or more advanced than us?
Are there not hundreds of motives for various ET groups to contact us, or at least making it obvious that they are out there? Isn't the question really, why not? Why the Great Silence even with all that enhanced potential produced by instantaneous communication?
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Marconi sent his first "wireless telegraph" radio transmission 6km across Salisbury Plain in March 1897. He sent a signal across the ocean on 13 May 1897. The first TV signal was experimental, in 1928. The first commercial TV station started broadcasting in Berlin in 1935. The Olympic games in 1936 were broadcast to the public in Berlin and Leipzig. A company in the UK improved the technology, and began broadcasting in November 1936. What I'm saying is it hasn't been long since we sent anything that could get attention.
Our galaxy has 800 billion stars. Based on that number it is likely there is life out there somewhere. However, based on that same number, it's highly unlikely that ET has found us. When our radio transmissions reach one of their radio telescopes, expect the news to be broadcast instantaneously within their civilization. Then they have to contact us. It could still be coming.
Then there's the question whether contact would be a good thing. Some people have pointed out exploration of the Americas didn't turn out so well for aboriginal people. If they are multiple millennia more advanced, we may not be even as advanced as aboriginals were when Christopher Columbus arrived. Or more to the point, when Spanish conquistadors arrived to plunder their gold.
Another possibility is we are the first technological civilization in this galaxy. After all, someone has to be the first.
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ET doesn’t need our radio signals to know we are here. ET needs a large telescope; perhaps, a bit larger than we are currently building.
The footprint of robust life on Earth has been broadcast for well over three billion years with an antenna of about 600 million square kilometers.
1. Methane in quantities not possible on a sustained basis from non-biological processes on a planet as hot, as irradiated and (for the last two billion years) with as much oxygen as Earth. With varying strength this signal has been sent out from Earth for well over three billion years.
2. Oxygen and Ozone levels out of thermal equilibrium by one or two orders of magnitude for more than 2-1/2 billion years.
3. Nitrous Oxide produced by bacteria on land and in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years.
4. The relatively low levels of CO2 in our atmosphere may present some interesting evidence
5. ET may also be able to detect chlorophyll, which has been evident in Earth’s spectrum for 450 million years.
ET, centuries, millennia or eons more technologically advanced than us, will know a lot more.
And they will very definitely know that the Earth harbors abundant life.
We’ve been using the same 600 million square kilometer antenna to broadcast the presence of a technological civilization for millennia:
> Signals from agriculture, metal working and coal burning could give ET knowledge of our technology for as much as 10,000 years.
> Industrial gasses such as chloroform, gasoline, kerosene, naphthalene, benzene, DDT, methyl cloride, Freon and their by-products would give ET an interesting set of patterns to follow for about two centuries.
There are lots of other opportunities for advanced ET to form a sophisticated understanding of biological and social evolution enabling extrapolation from limited or non-current data. The patterns of change in the various indicators will be more significant than any one set of observations. In addition, very clever entities may figure out ways to tease out the signals of other effects of intelligence in ways we haven’t even imagined, yet.
Even without instantaneous travel, communication or observation, ET, centuries, millennia or eons more technologically advanced than us and within a few thousand light years, will know that a technological civilization exists on the surface of the Earth.
ET won't stay in the radio bubble strait-jacket any more than we would.
Last edited by bobunf (2013-09-01 16:12:25)
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“I don't see how this could move anything physical, only information.”
But isn’t moving information getting awfully close to moving objects? As in 3D printing and the advanced forms such concepts may take in a few hundred years? “Send the file for a piano” could have a whole different meaning in 3000 AD than in 2000 AD. Maybe even, “Send the file for Brodsky.”
Last edited by bobunf (2013-09-01 16:42:35)
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This quantum physics stuff is way beyond me, I'm an old aero/mechanical engineer.
But here's thought regarding the "great silence" of ET's. If they are capable of rapid interstellar communication and flight, I would guess that capability depends upon physics we don't yet have, and probably not upon anything detectable anywhere in the EM spectrum all the way past gamma ray frequencies. There's no radio or laser to detect, they do it differently.
Here's another thought (not original with me, see the 1951 film "The Day the Earth Stood Still"). We have ventured out into interplanetary space with probes, and may soon find some means to send an interstellar probe. We are also at constant war with ourselves. If ET is out there, why would he reveal himself to us? Not until we-as-a-species outgrow being a threat to all bystanders. Anybody with the capability of interstellar travel and communication could easily stay hidden from us.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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RobertDyck-
It seems to me that what you are proposing violates causality due to its ability to make information travel faster than the speed of light. In combination with the fact that I don't recall having heard any physicist talk about quantum entanglement actually enabling any kind of FTL (Faster Than Light) communication, and my firm belief that you are in fact not a physicist by trade, no matter how much study you have contributed leads me to put more credence in their statements than in yours.
I choose not to argue based on the behavior of aliens that may or may not exist, because that seems to be an exercise in fallacy. We know nothing at all about extraterrestrial life. Nothing. What we (as a species) do know is the laws of physics, at least a lot of them. Einsteinian Relativity in addition to a large body of mathematics and thought experiments is pretty clear about this: Of Causality, Relativity, FTL: Choose two. Dr. Steven Hawking has suggested that FTL (and therefore time travel) would generate a closed timelike curve which is unstable and will self destruct; It's relatively clear which two we ought to choose.
Regarding the topic at hand, such platforms would violate the Outer Space Treaty, and would (as have been mentioned) serve little purpose, or none at all given the world in which we live.
-Josh
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Josh, why do you do this? I just cited the doctoral thesis by Dr. Alain Aspect. Dated from 1983. And the principle I'm talking about is part of quantum mechanics. It isn't new. There has been a lot more experimental work since. It's been confirmed time and again. And as I said, it isn't faster than light, because there is no speed involved. None. Quantum mechanics is necessary for every computer in the world, including the one we are communicating with right now. Trying to dispute quantum mechanics is silly.
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It seems that most quantum physicists don't agree with Dr. Aspect. They keep claiming FTL (classical) communication through quantum entanglement doesn't occur. Communication, yes, but nothing that humans can actually affect - we can't determine how the polarisation of the photon turns out when it's measured, and there's no way of telling that a measurement has taken place except by measuring it...
I've got my own ideas on how it might (but is very unlikely to) be possible to send classical information FTL using it, but I'm waiting until I go to university (soon...) so I can speak to someone who knows what they're talking about. In case, y' know, it turns out to actually work, and thus allows time travel...
Regarding time travel, all we have are conjectures that it won't be possible, based on wanting to avoid FTL. Novikov allows all three. But all that's irrelevant, because we only have evidence for relativity.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Allow me to interject some humor. Have y'all heard the one about the flying saucer landing on the White House lawn? Little green man gets out and asks to be taken to our leader.
In the course of interviewing our visitor he says he's from Alpha Centauri, and that it took about 15 minutes to get here. The humans say "Our theories say that's impossible." The little green man smiles and says "Maybe we use a different theory."
My point: a theory, no matter how elegant, no matter how all-encompassing, is only useful insofar as it helps us deal with what we are doing, or (more importantly, what we want to do and haven't done yet. No theory is ever "real", only descriptive.
I think there's an awful lot going on in this universe that we are not perceiving, just because we don't have theories to describe it, and it is perceptible only by means outside our senses. There's a long history of this.
Relativity & quantum theory, useful as they are, have not yet been rendered compatible, and will not be the last, in a long line of theories about how the world works, stretching back over 2 millennia (that we know of).
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Josh, why do you do this? I just cited the doctoral thesis by Dr. Alain Aspect. Dated from 1983. And the principle I'm talking about is part of quantum mechanics. It isn't new. There has been a lot more experimental work since. It's been confirmed time and again. And as I said, it isn't faster than light, because there is no speed involved. None. Quantum mechanics is necessary for every computer in the world, including the one we are communicating with right now. Trying to dispute quantum mechanics is silly.
This is simply false. One doctoral dissertation does not equal scientific consensus, as Terraformer has said. And
GW- I don't deny per se that it's impossible for FTL to happen. What I do deny is that quantum entanglement can be used for that. The phenomena described by quantum entanglement are entirely within the current theories and therefore it's common sense to use current theories to describe it, because they've predicted it to a T thus far. These theories say it doesn't transfer information; That seems to be the end of that.
-Josh
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Josh, recently you appear to argue against everything I say. I don't know why. We're all members of the Mars Society. But specifically with quantum entanglement, current theories say it does transfer information. Besides, theory doesn't matter when even one person has already done it. Dr. Aspect did it in 1983. That experiment has been repeated by others since. And that is the end of that.
But development will continue. Expect wireless phones that don't require any cell tower; direct communication between your smart phone and the phone company's switching equipment. Without cell towers, it can't be called "cellular". Or a wireless network adapter that comes in a pair: one plugs into your laptop or tablet, the other into your router at home. Take your computer anywhere. And phone/internet companies could use this to communicate between cities without long distance cables, fibre optics, microwave towers, satellites, or any other expensive infrastructure. Just one box in each city. This technology has great commercial potential, so expect someone will develop it.
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