Quantum weirdness: entanglement and space-time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 18, 2015, 20:18 (3075 days ago) @ David Turell

It may be that with lots of further work will show that space-time is explained by entanglement. A complex review article:-http://www.nature.com/news/the-quantum-source-of-space-time-1.18797?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20151119&spMailingID=50048505&spUserID=MjA1NjE2NDU5MwS2&spJobID=802503317&spReportId=ODAyNTAzMzE3S0-"A successful unification of quantum mechanics and gravity has eluded physicists for nearly a century. Quantum mechanics governs the world of the small — the weird realm in which an atom or particle can be in many places at the same time, and can simultaneously spin both clockwise and anticlockwise. Gravity governs the Universe at large — from the fall of an apple to the motion of planets, stars and galaxies — and is described by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, announced 100 years ago this month. The theory holds that gravity is geometry: particles are deflected when they pass near a massive object not because they feel a force, said Einstein, but because space and time around the object are curved.-"Both theories have been abundantly verified through experiment, yet the realities they describe seem utterly incompatible. And from the editors' standpoint, Van Raamsdonk's approach to resolving this incompatibility was? strange. All that's needed, he asserted, is ‘entanglement': the phenomenon that many physicists believe to be the ultimate in quantum weirdness. Entanglement lets the measurement of one particle instantaneously determine the state of a partner particle, no matter how far away it may be — even on the other side of the Milky Way.-"Einstein loathed the idea of entanglement, and famously derided it as “spooky action at a distance”. But it is central to quantum theory. And Van Raamsdonk, drawing on work by like-minded physicists going back more than a decade, argued for the ultimate irony — that, despite Einstein's objections, entanglement might be the basis of geometry, and thus of Einstein's geometric theory of gravity. “Space-time,” he says, “is just a geometrical picture of how stuff in the quantum system is entangled.”-"This idea is a long way from being proved, and is hardly a complete theory of quantum gravity. But independent studies have reached much the same conclusion, drawing intense interest from major theorists. A small industry of physicists is now working to expand the geometry-entanglement relationship, using all the modern tools developed for quantum computing and quantum information theory.-***-"Despite the remaining challenges, there is a sense among the practitioners of this field that they have begun to glimpse something real and very important. “I didn't know what space was made of before,” says Swingle. “It wasn't clear that question even had meaning.” But now, he says, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the question does make sense. “And the answer is something that we understand,” says Swingle. “It's made of entanglement.'”-Comment: I've presented some of the simple general explanations of this possible breakthrough. The meat is in the center of the article and involves the structure of space and it does not involve strings. Fascinating. The basis of our reality is quantum mechanics.