Friday, January 28, 2011

Particles Can Be Quantum Entangled Through Time As Well As Space


Quantum entanglement says that two particles can become intertwined so that they always share the same properties, even if they're separated in space. Now it seems particles can be entangled in time, too. Who's ready for some serious quantum weirdness?

Of all the ideas in modern physics, quantum entanglement is a serious contender for the absolute strangest. Basically, entangled particles share all their quantum properties, even if they are separated by massive distances in space. The really odd part is that any changes made to the properties of one particle will instantly occur in the other particle. There are some subtle reasons why this doesn't actually violate the speed of light, but here's the short version: this is all very, very bizarre.

But all experiments in quantum entanglement have focused exclusively on spatial entanglement, because seriously...isn't this already weird enough? Apparently not for physicists S. Jay Olson and Timothy C. Ralph of Australia's University of Queensland, who have figured out a series of thought experiments about how to entangle particles across time.


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