Although it has been developed for more than 100 years, quantum mechanics is still a cutting-edge theory in physics, the main reason is that human beings have not understood the essence and underlying logic of quantum mechanics at all.
To put it bluntly, scientists know that strange phenomena in the quantum world do exist, but they don't know why these strange phenomena exist, and the most fundamental thing is that these strange phenomena seem to violate our macroscopic physical laws.
For example, the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, scientists have found that the speed of quantum entanglement is extremely fast, and it can even be said to be instantaneous, with a speed of more than 10,000 times the speed of light.
But in our macrocosm, there is a speed limit, that is, the speed of light, and it is impossible for any object or information to be transmitted faster than the speed of light, which has long been mentioned in Einstein's special theory of relativity. So why is quantum entanglement so fast that it can be transmitted "faster than light"? Does it violate Einstein's theory of relativity?
First, let's take a look at what quantum entanglement is.
Physics defines it as follows, when two or more particles interact, the properties of a single particle are synthesized into a whole, and then the properties of a single particle cannot be described alone, but only the properties of the whole system, and this phenomenon is called quantum entanglement.
The concept of quantum entanglement was proposed based on the questioning and criticism of the uncertainty principle by Einstein and others, who were very dissatisfied with the uncertainty principle proposed by the Copenhagen School. So in 1935, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen jointly published "On the Incompleteness of Quantum Mechanical Descriptions", which mentioned quantum entanglement.
In the microscopic world, entanglement occurs when certain particles interact with each other. For example, when an object decays and releases electrons and positrons, the original system separates into two separate systems, the electrons and positrons, which are in opposite directions, with zero net force and opposite spins.
Before the observation, we did not know the spin direction of the electron and positron, only that the spin direction of the two is opposite.
According to the interpretation of the Copenhagen School, the spin direction of the electron and positron is actually uncertain before our observation, note that the uncertainty here does not mean "not knowing", but completely uncertain, to put it bluntly, it is in a "superposition state", and the spin direction is facing up and down at the same time.
When we want to see what this "superposition" of electrons is, the moment we observe it, the electrons will collapse from a spin state of "both up and down" to a single spin state of "either up or down". At the same time, the spin direction of the positron is also determined instantaneously and is opposite to the spin direction of the electron.
This is what we usually call "observing behavior that causes the wave function to collapse". It is necessary to emphasize here that the collapse of the wave function is actually a hypothesis and can also be considered an axiom. To put it bluntly, scientists simply extrapolate the previous process based on the observations and define the final result with a hypothesis, which is the wave function collapse.
As for why the observation behavior causes the "wave function collapse", sorry, scientists don't know this question, just like the level of understanding of quantum mechanics, scientists only know that the observation does cause the wave function to collapse, because that's the result, but they don't know why.
However, Einstein and other staunch supporters of classical physics resolutely opposed the interpretation of the Copenhagen School, believing that the world should not be uncertain, and that the world is describable and descriptive.
Einstein explained quantum entanglement in terms of the relationship between two gloves. Suppose there is a pair of gloves, each in two sealed boxes. No matter how far apart the two boxes were, when we opened one of the boxes and saw that it was the left glove, we immediately knew that the other box contained the right glove.
These two gloves are equivalent to a kind of "entangled state", according to Einstein's explanation, the state of the glove is certain, but we don't know it, whether we open the box to observe, whether the box should be the left glove or the left glove, and it has nothing to do with our observation.
According to the interpretation of the Copenhagen School, whether the box is the left glove or the right hand cover is uncertain, not only uncertain, but also in a state of "superposition". In other words, the gloves in the box are always in a superposition of "both the left glove and the right glove", and the moment we open the box to observe, the glove collapses from the superposition state to the only definite state: either the left glove or the right glove.
It's as if the two gloves are colluding, and they can instantly tell each other: I am now collapsing into the left glove, and you feel like the glove is collapsing into the right glove!
This is so contrary to our daily life experience.
If nothing else, the way and process of "collusion" between the two gloves alone is enough to surprise us. And this "mysterious" collusion, which Einstein called "ghostly teleportation", theoretically completely exceeds the speed of light. But under Einstein's system of relativity, the speed of light is the speed limit of all objects. This is also the main reason why Einstein firmly scoped the Copenhagen School of uncertainty and superposition.
Schrödinger also strongly supported Einstein's view that uncertainty and superposition states were absurd, and even proposed a famous thought experiment to question and satirize the Copenhagen School, this thought experiment is "Schrödinger's cat", which has been described in detail before, and will be mentioned here.
The big question here is, why is quantum entanglement so fast? Is it a violation of the theory of relativity?
First of all, we need to be sure that the phenomenon of quantum entanglement does exist, and it has long been applied to human society. It's just that the Copenhagen School, led by Einstein and Bohr, has a different interpretation of quantum entanglement.
In fact, strictly speaking, quantum entanglement cannot talk about speed, because the whole process is completed instantaneously. Going deeper, two or more particles in quantum entanglement are actually equivalent to one "particle". Or it can also be understood in this way, when two or more particles are entangled, they are not the original particles, but merge into one "large particle", at this time, of course, the relationship between the two particles can not be described, only the overall properties. And this is also clearly stated in the definition of quantum entanglement.
Taking a step back, quantum entanglement does go much faster than the speed of light, but it doesn't violate Einstein's theory of relativity, because the whole process doesn't transmit any information.
The quantum communication we usually hear about is, of course, not to transmit information faster than light through quantum entanglement, but more to encrypt information and make it more secure, which is theoretically impossible to crack.
We all know that in reality, any password we apply to file information is actually made up manually, and it seems to be chaotic and irregular, but in fact it is still regular. Theoretically, as long as we use a computer to brute-force the crack, no matter how strong the cryptographic system is, it can eventually be cracked.
And using the phenomenon of quantum entanglement to encrypt information is impossible to crack. Because the password itself is completely randomly generated, and you don't even know what the password is before the observation, how can it be cracked?
Although it is not known what the password is, the person sending the message can send a string of keys to the recipient and then transmit the encrypted message to the recipient. In fact, this is called "quantum key distribution", which is not to transmit information faster than the speed of light, but to encrypt it.
And because of the quantum entanglement process, any observed behavior will cause the "wave function collapse", which will stop the entanglement process. Therefore, if anyone tries to steal information, they must make observations, and of course observation does not just mean seeing with the eyes. Observations lead to the suspension of quantum entanglement, which is bound to attract the attention of the sender of the message: someone is trying to steal the information!
In short, quantum entanglement is indeed far faster than the speed of light, but it does not transmit any information, and it is impossible for humans to achieve "teleportation".
Of course, to some extent, we can indeed use the quantum entanglement phenomenon to achieve "teleportation", I am not inconsistent in saying this, but we need to first transmit all the information of the human body to a certain planet that we want to teleport, this process is still traditional information transmission, or the speed of light. Then, using the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, microscopic particles on that planet that form an entangled state with the human body are created, and then recombined, and "teleportation" can be realized!
Finish! **10,000 Fans Incentive Plan