Spooky Action at a Distance (Bell's Inequality) - Sixty Symbols

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  • Опубликовано: 3 окт 2022
  • Professor Mike Merrifield discusses Bell's Inequality, and what Einstein dubbed "Spooky Action at a Distance".
    More links and info below ↓ ↓ ↓
    Professor Merrifield is an astronomer at The University of Nottingham: bit.ly/NottsPhysics
    Mike Merrifield Playlist: bit.ly/Merrifield_Playlist
    ON THE EINSTEIN PODOLSKY ROSEN PARADOX: cds.cern.ch/record/111654/fil...
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Комментарии • 1 тыс.

  • @sixtysymbols
    @sixtysymbols  Год назад +383

    This video is being published on the day the Physics Nobel Prize is awarded for research in this area - total coincidence!!! What were the odds? --- www.bradyharanblog.com/blog/spooky-action-at-a-distance

    • @michaelpudina4158
      @michaelpudina4158 Год назад +84

      Spooky

    • @WAMTAT
      @WAMTAT Год назад +7

      The fates align

    • @_ilsegugio_
      @_ilsegugio_ Год назад +5

      λ(x)

    • @ggb3147
      @ggb3147 Год назад +18

      To be honest it looks like i was a spooky action at a distance (in a way) :>

    • @sbelfroid
      @sbelfroid Год назад +6

      That depends on how many videos you had at the ready

  • @Mutual_Information
    @Mutual_Information Год назад +539

    Interesting, Professor Merrifield uses a trick I’ve used to understand a hard to understand paper.. find another paper that references it and read their summary

    • @breadman32398
      @breadman32398 Год назад +58

      And if you can't understand their summary, go find this youtube video that summarizes their summary!

    • @krissp8712
      @krissp8712 Год назад +29

      It's summaries all the way down!

    • @hiddenleif6854
      @hiddenleif6854 Год назад +2

      yep, the classic 😅

    • @lunarconduit
      @lunarconduit Год назад +5

      That's how I've educated myself for free.

    • @lunarconduit
      @lunarconduit Год назад +5

      @@Idontneedahandle333 i call it learning. I'm not sure why this seems like phenomenal similarity to some of you. I didn't go to college. This is just consciousness to me. Getting exterior perspective, beyond the echo chamber of your own take on reality. If there's no door, create one. That's all that sets us apart from a student and a teacher. Door users and door framers.

  • @duroxkilo
    @duroxkilo Год назад +382

    i've observed this spooky action at a distance phenomenon a long time ago: each time i would want to play w/ a particular toy my brother would want the same one and when i'd chose a new toy behind my back, his preference would change instantaneously.
    :)

    • @ebob0531
      @ebob0531 Год назад

      On the other hand, I've experienced spooky dookie at a distance. Anytime a glass of milk is opened, my rectum fills with diarrhea

    • @dlevi67
      @dlevi67 Год назад +29

      And then you'd get in a tangle...

    • @EXPLORER-hq1us
      @EXPLORER-hq1us Год назад

      We need to kidnap u and research on you then 😈, but that's kinda cute 🥺

    • @a.randomjack6661
      @a.randomjack6661 Год назад +11

      Did we have the same brother??? That would be really spooky 🙃

    • @dlevi67
      @dlevi67 Год назад +6

      @@a.randomjack6661 All electrons are equal.

  • @xliquidflames
    @xliquidflames Год назад +321

    I barely graduated high school but I have a desire to understand this kind of stuff. I've had this explained to me a hundred times. This is the first time I felt like it clicked and right as he said, "This is where your head should start to hurt," my head was hurting. I was thinking exactly what he said I should be thinking. And it made sense to me for the first time.

    • @gezus0711
      @gezus0711 Год назад +27

      I went to school for nuclear engineering and I can assure you my experience is the same as yours!

    • @mmartinisgreat
      @mmartinisgreat Год назад +3

      My head wasn't hurting...For sure it wasnt in the right state. :(

    • @smellycat249
      @smellycat249 Год назад +1

      Your fd bud. Join the construction force like the rest of us.

    • @joetaylor486
      @joetaylor486 Год назад +4

      Oh this was a fun one to get the head around. Reality really is weird when you divide it down finely.

    • @thereasonabletroll68
      @thereasonabletroll68 Год назад +13

      I barely graduated high school but got really into sixty symbol videos many years ago. I’ve since graduate with a physics degree, if you want to know go find out

  • @Sam_on_YouTube
    @Sam_on_YouTube Год назад +203

    I met David Mermin once. I studied philosophy of physics at Cornell and I used his paper Relativity Without Light in my thesis. I was happy to discover he was a professor there and I went to his office hours to make sure I was understanding it properly and not misstating his premises and conclusions in my paper.
    Nice guy.

    • @michaelfried3123
      @michaelfried3123 Год назад

      He sounds more like a philosophy prof to me too, this whole video is bad philosophy in my opinion, its certainly not falsifiable science in any meaningful or observable way.

    • @jimpim6454
      @jimpim6454 Год назад +12

      @@michaelfried3123 what do you mean 🤔? People have made countless experiments which all show that the bells inequalities are violated and that the action at a distance really does happen. He even talks at the end about the implications to quantum computing and everything...

  • @tommos1
    @tommos1 Год назад +249

    Always happy to see a long sixty symbols video.

    • @residentfelon
      @residentfelon Год назад +1

      its comical when you realise its all bs

    • @laughy38247357075834
      @laughy38247357075834 Год назад +2

      @@residentfelon im gonna take it from a random youtube commenter

    • @benjaminlehman3221
      @benjaminlehman3221 Год назад +1

      @@residentfelon the Nobel prize foundation begs to differ.

    • @Simp_Zone
      @Simp_Zone 11 месяцев назад +1

      @@residentfelon Wow that's the best scientific paper I've ever read. I hope your genius will be recognised.

  • @georgeeleftheriou5817
    @georgeeleftheriou5817 Год назад +178

    Absolutely the best explanation of Bell's inequality in RUclips! Thank you

    • @KrisVuk
      @KrisVuk Год назад

      Agreed.

    • @TheShadowOfMars
      @TheShadowOfMars Год назад +4

      He incorrectly describes a disproof of local hidden variables as a disproof of hidden variables.

    • @edshort1138
      @edshort1138 Год назад

      Agreed, the best explanation of Bell's inequality, and its experimental test, I have ever seen. Other demonstrations explain Analogies only. However, the explanation in this video was carefully paced until the 14' 00" mark, when the pace increased on got a bit sloppy: unfortunately this is when the most important info was finally revealed.

    • @bilbodw
      @bilbodw Год назад +1

      @@edshort1138 I lost him precisely around the 14:00 mark. Are we still assuming that spin can only be measured as either up or down? I don't see how the 2/6 probability comes about.

    • @martixbg
      @martixbg Год назад

      Well... minutephysics has a great explainer too.

  • @Matt_Barnes
    @Matt_Barnes Год назад +10

    The "Alright!" at 0:20 is seriously so funny to me. The cameraman's excitement for a quick physics lesson is so wholesome 🥰🥰

  •  Год назад +60

    Excellent explanation and also very timely, given the Nobel prize announcement this morning.

    • @hakanarnklint1070
      @hakanarnklint1070 Год назад +7

      Exactly! That's remarkable! (Almost somewhat spooky...)

  • @matszz
    @matszz Год назад +13

    Love watching Mike explain stuff, what a rare treat!

  • @MrReierz
    @MrReierz Год назад +21

    Congratulations on creating the best video on Bells Inequality on youtube! I finally understood it. Thankyou!

  • @drbeanut
    @drbeanut Год назад +7

    Wonderful video thus far, almost finished, but I just had to say this is one of the most clear concise explanations of Bell’s Inequality I have seen on the internet.

  • @PronteCo
    @PronteCo Год назад +7

    Thanks a lot for the first explanation I've seen in forever which goes beyond "oooh look one spins one way and the other another! it must be magic!!" (which would be extremely easy to explain with hidden variables) and actually explain why there is a paradox if we use a hidden variable model

  • @Syberdoog
    @Syberdoog Год назад +5

    Physics is so beautiful, thank you for this video!

  • @makoyoverfelt3320
    @makoyoverfelt3320 Год назад +4

    Waking up to a new sixty symbols video is such a rare treat

  • @EarlWallaceNYC
    @EarlWallaceNYC Год назад +7

    A serious but understandable description of the problem. Thanks for taking the time to explain this in detail.

  • @NuclearCraftMod
    @NuclearCraftMod Год назад +33

    Great video! Not sure if I totally agree with the conclusion that "information" really is travelling from one electron to the other instantaneously. First, the measurement on one spin has no effect on the density matrix (which describes the statistics of any possible measurement outcome) of the other. Also, in different reference frames, due to the relativity of simultaneity, different observers will disagree on which electron's spin is measured first. I would say what's really spooky here is the fact that the spins are measured in the way quantum mechanics predicts *in spite of* no information being sent between them!

    • @anywallsocket
      @anywallsocket Год назад +2

      There's no reason you couldn't update the density matrix on particle B if you measure particle A in spin up, and know ahead of time the relative angle between the two detectors. This would give the same result.

    • @AhsimNreiziev
      @AhsimNreiziev Год назад

      _"First, the measurement on one spin has no effect on the density matrix (which describes the statistics of any possible measurement outcome) of the other."_
      How can this be? After all, if one particle is measured spin-UP, then the probability of the other particle being measured spin-DOWN assuming the machines are set to the same of the 3 settings, rises from 50% to 100%. If you could explain how this is negated to result in no effect on the statistics of any possible measurement outcome, I would be much obliged.
      _"Also, in different reference frames, due to the relativity of simultaneity, different observers will disagree on which electron's spin is measured first."_
      This doesn't disprove Spooky Action nor "information", in at least one definition of the term, travelling Faster Than Light from one particle to the other, though. All it would change is the *direction* the observer, .....well, observes..... the "information" travelling in. The "information" travelling Faster Than Light doesn't change with the reference frame.
      What is in fact true, however, is that the "information" being exchanged between particles is only "information" in the most narrow definition possible of the term. No actual communication, of the type that could break Causality under the Theory of Relativity, can be exchanged in this manner. Mostly because it is impossible to predict which state (Spin-UP vs. Spin-DOWN; red light vs. green light) the particles will be in before the first one arrives at its designated machine.

    • @ML-hl1uh
      @ML-hl1uh Год назад

      @@AhsimNreiziev I agree with just about everything you've said. However, I have a question. How does the unpredictability of which spin the particles will be in "before the first one arrives at it's designated machine" rule out the seemingly FTL communication between the particles?

    • @AhsimNreiziev
      @AhsimNreiziev Год назад +1

      @@ML-hl1uh
      There are 2 types of "communication". The very basic kind that determines things like properties of Entangled Particles (such as position, momentum, Spin etc.), and more "advanced" communication that allows for what we call "information" to be transferred. "Information" is anything that conveys a state of the world more advanced than a Quantum State.
      Importantly, the second kind of communication breaks Causality when it happens Faster Than Light, while the first kind doesn't.
      Now, because you can't predict which state each particle will be measured in when it arrives at the machine, you can't use it to *encode* anything that might convey "information". Thus, this Entangled Particle FTL communication doesn't, and can't, break Causality as in the Theory of Relativity.

    • @NuclearCraftMod
      @NuclearCraftMod 9 месяцев назад

      @@AhsimNreiziev I probably should have been more clear/specific in my original comment. If we use QM to describe the state of the two electrons, along with the detectors/observers which measure their spins, then the interaction of one of the detectors with its associated electron will have no effect on the density matrix of the other electron or the other detector. In the case that you _are_ one of the observers, then because you become entangled with the measured electron, there is a correlation between the measurement result and your knowledge of the state of the other electron, and I would probably agree with @anywallsocket, but I still probably wouldn't call that information transfer.

  • @AwakeInAnacortes
    @AwakeInAnacortes Год назад +2

    Best explanation of Bell's inequality I've ever seen. Thank you!

  • @gregf9160
    @gregf9160 Год назад +2

    Thanks for this, Mike 😀 Downloaded the paper and looking forward to (trying) to read it later 👍

  • @joshuahillerup4290
    @joshuahillerup4290 Год назад +24

    Everett had an explanation even before Bell came up with this, and in fact was one of the inspirations for Bell

    • @viewer3091
      @viewer3091 Год назад

      Kenny Everett was a clever guy (wink )

  • @EmmanuelLapierre
    @EmmanuelLapierre Год назад +6

    Technically there is still a way to save the EPR paper: Super determinism. The bell inequality relies on the measurement being determined after the entanglement and particules separation. But if you have link between measurement and the particule going way back before the experiment then the hidden variables are still a viable solution. But Free will is no longer. as the decision of the measurement could be taken by an operator and then he would be constrained by those hidden variable which means he doesn't have free will to choose the set-up. (I'm pretty sure that would horrify Einstein as much as spooky interaction at a distance).

    • @onesquirrel2713
      @onesquirrel2713 Год назад

      Yes, I would like to see that addressed.

    • @zualapips1638
      @zualapips1638 Год назад +1

      Couldn't there be something wrong with the experiment itself? Nobody addresses how the particles are sent to the machine or how the measurement is made. It's always a mystery box and a mysterious process to entangle the particles. Why can't they explain that?

    • @yommish
      @yommish 7 месяцев назад

      @@zualapips1638 He mentioned the measuring tool at the beginning, with the magnetic field which deflects the particles in different directions. It’s just a simple way of describing the experiments done and what is observed. The physical tools used aren’t important to understanding the concept. You can look up the experiments and how it is done if you want.

  • @AlphaFoxDelta
    @AlphaFoxDelta Год назад +1

    This is one of those episodes you have to watch a dozen times, so fascinating

  • @cudaman-yq7pq
    @cudaman-yq7pq Год назад +1

    I had to watch this multiple times, but this is the clearest explanation I've seen on this subject. Well done!

  • @alistairkentucky-david9344
    @alistairkentucky-david9344 Год назад +3

    Hearing "quite young" and "early 60's" in the same description makes me feel just that little bit better about myself.

  • @stevosteffano5577
    @stevosteffano5577 Год назад +13

    What I love, is that it is not really 'instantaneous' transfer. From some reference frames it happened first at one end, and from other reference frames the other end was first (and from some it really was simultaneous). So which direction does the message go? As there are no observable differences between these two cases then we should try to not regard these as indistinguishable, but instead view them as completely equivalent. If that doesn't make your brain fizzle, then nothing will.

    • @thenefariousnerd7910
      @thenefariousnerd7910 Год назад +1

      Excellent excellent point, I'd never considered this before! Relativity of simultaneity and spooky action at a distance make for a mean one-two punch.

    • @jackm3692
      @jackm3692 Год назад

      Hmm just be careful about simultaneity. If you take two events in any reference frame, and measure the distance between the two events and the time between the two events in that reference frame, then calculate c²t² - x², if c²t² - x² is less than or equal to 0, then there is no reference frame in which the events are simultaneous. That quantity c²t² - x² is called the “spacetime interval”, and it’s the same no matter what reference frame you’re in. It’s worth learning about!

    • @stanleydodds9
      @stanleydodds9 Год назад +1

      This is why we split the separation between events into 3 cases; space-like, time-like, and light-like.
      No matter what Lorentz transformation you do, space-like separations remain space-like, time-like remain time-like (and the direction of causality remains the same), and light-like remain light-like.

    • @estranhokonsta
      @estranhokonsta Год назад

      The brain fizzle is because you are arguing with time while assuming a "relativistic" universe. But that will be the same independently if you talk about entangled particles or anything else. It is just the basic of relativity. And that is also why, in relativity people talk so much about intervals and space-time. And the same thing happens when talking about space by itself.
      Another way to think about it, is to assume that every time you mention time, you will be using an "unreliable" (reliable for you, but others will disagree) measure tape. The "reliable" measure tape would be the interval which is composed of time and space in a certain relation.

    • @thenefariousnerd7910
      @thenefariousnerd7910 Год назад

      @@jackm3692 I think you have the sign backwards -- if two simultaneous (dt=0) events occur with nonzero spatial separation (dx!=0) then the interval (squared) would be negative. It's when c²t² - x² > 0 that the events are never simultaneous and are causally ordered. Metric conventions are a pain the the rear. (And to Stevo's point, the EPR paradox involves just such a spacelike separation of events where c²t² - x² < 0 and the superluminal "signal" can "travel" in either, or neither, direction depending on your reference frame.)

  • @nenharma82
    @nenharma82 Год назад

    Yes! Another awesome interview long enough to get to the juicy parts! Thanks

  • @yx427
    @yx427 Месяц назад

    Such clarity! Easily the best explanation I've seen on YT!

  • @Authen194
    @Authen194 Год назад +6

    Thank you so much ❣️

  • @dhudach
    @dhudach Год назад +4

    I have always taken a layman interest in quantum mechanics, specifically the strangeness of the double slit experiment and Bell's Inequality. The first book I read that really grabbed my attention was Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert. Over the years I have tried to grasp Bell's experiment and consequences - the probabilities of the 'assume the hidden variable' were never really explained clearly. This video really helps that understanding. Here is my question. When the measurement of the particle is made at one of the detectors, does the measurement actually 'flip' the particle's polarity to its up/down measured value or does the measurement just say "here is how the particle is oriented" when we measured it. I'm not sure if this question makes sense, but to me (not knowing the real technical details of how this works), it's an important question. First, it could mean that when the particles are entangled, it was done in a specific way to polarize the particles in a certain direction. In other words, do we know the intended polarization of the particles when they are created? Second, if the detector is 'flipping' the particle polarity, then THAT implies that this is 'causing' the second particle to flip to the polarity described by quantum mechanical theory (math). The reason I ask is that this would REALLY make things strange. I seem to remember reading something like that years ago, that what is really strange about this is that when particle A is 'flipped', it instantaneously 'causes' particle B to flip. Thank you kindly.

  • @crzdriver
    @crzdriver Год назад +1

    I read a few articles on the recent Nobel prize, and they didn't make any sense to me. This video does a great job of framing the problem in lay terms, and the problem makes a lot more sense now. Thank you!

  • @spongebobsquarepants7388
    @spongebobsquarepants7388 Год назад +18

    Watching Sixty Symbols videos after I have just graduated from Nottingham, nostalgia/bittersweetness fuel. Thanks to everyone for making my time studying physics as fun as I had hoped it would be when I was a young schoolboy watching these videos in awe, inspired to one day study physics. My childhood dream came true in your department; and who knows, one day, if I'm lucky, I might be back! 🥲

  • @thingthing899
    @thingthing899 Год назад

    the last bit with the questions helped me understand alot. great vid

  • @seosamhrosmuc
    @seosamhrosmuc Год назад +5

    So I’ve heard and read about this many times and this is the first time I actually understand it

  • @MichaelEhling
    @MichaelEhling Год назад +4

    That's the best explanation of Bell's Inequality. Very clear. Well done!

  • @lucianmihail584
    @lucianmihail584 Год назад

    Eye opening, very well explained. Thank you!

  • @evcoproductions
    @evcoproductions Год назад +1

    Yayy more quantum goodness from our guys at Nottingham university.
    I've exhausted all the videos on this channel and I neeeed more

  • @TheWyrdSmythe
    @TheWyrdSmythe Год назад +11

    Strangely enough, I take great comfort from both the randomness of QM and quantum non-locality. It makes the universe a much more interesting place!

  • @piffpuffpeng
    @piffpuffpeng Год назад +10

    'At this point, your head should start to hurt' 😂😂😂 20:01 Great video! Thank you!

  • @indestructiblemadness8531
    @indestructiblemadness8531 9 месяцев назад

    I remember a few years ago I wanted to understand QM better, and while my understanding did improve, I couldnt get my head around bells inequality. I understood the gravity, but not how it actually works. This clip made me understand it even before explaining it fully. Great work.

  • @scrottydyer_6821
    @scrottydyer_6821 Год назад +1

    Great vid as always!

  • @systemG3000
    @systemG3000 Год назад +3

    I think what you were trying to ask at the end, and what I'd like to see answered, is: Are there any examples of entanglement seen or suspected in nature (the universe)? Like perhaps there is something that happens in neutron stars or quasars or whatnot that could be best explained by quantum entanglement?

    • @Mgaak
      @Mgaak 8 месяцев назад

      You can create an entangled state in lab. There is a hypothesis that our brains have tubules that are entangled and probably much more.

  • @jonasjoko294
    @jonasjoko294 Год назад +5

    Great timing, considering who received the 2022 physics Nobel prize just about a hour ago! :)

  • @gabor6259
    @gabor6259 Год назад +1

    This video finally made me understand Bell's inequality. Thank you.

  • @bierrollerful
    @bierrollerful Год назад

    This was really well explained. Fantastic, thanks!

  • @Bodyknock
    @Bodyknock Год назад +7

    A nice follow-up video on this would be to talk about how Many Worlds and Superdeterminism might still allow for hidden variables but with different other counterintuitive tradeoffs.
    Many Worlds would be the hypothesis that when the two boxes make their measurements they actually are splitting into different worlds with different results and it's only when the two boxes' lightcones in particular worlds intersect that they both agree on the results. In that scenario everything is still done locally and can have hidden variables but at the cost of the creation of multiple simultaneously branching worlds from the measurements.
    Superdeterminism deals instead with the notion that the selection of the switches on the boxes might not be independent of the states of the entangled particles. Basically if the settings on the boxes are somehow linked by a prior condition to the states of the particles when the particles initially become entangled then the measurement and then states aren't independent and the stipulations for the inequality aren't valid. The difficulty with this approach is that it's difficult to imagine that the method of random selection of the switches can never be truly independent of the states of the particles. For instance, if you're randomly selecting switches using astronomical measurements of distance quasar fluctuations then for those fluctuations to be tied to the states of the just now created entangled particles on Earth means that information was initially passed down billions of years ago when the stuff in the quasars was physically interacting with the stuff creating the entangled particles. It's not impossible but it's hard to grasp how that would be the case.

  • @jens111
    @jens111 Год назад +3

    Great explanation, Mike!
    At 15:00 I think the row of all three red and all three green is not possible, because the spin has to point somewhere, so it is aligned with at least one Stern-Gerlach experiment. So you would get 1/3 exactly.

    • @mitesh8utube
      @mitesh8utube Год назад +1

      Yup. I've struggled to understand precisely that for some time. I haven't found any satisfactory answer to how three red or green probability is valid.

    • @deinauge7894
      @deinauge7894 Год назад +3

      it is one possibility of pre-determined outcomes. it only seems illogical if you assume that the electron has a definitive spin direction. that is correct for a single-electron-wavefunction, but not necessary for a pair of entangled electrons.

    • @Tevildo
      @Tevildo Год назад +1

      Not really. Let's say the (first) particle is exactly aligned with the detector in Position 1, so it has 100% chance of firing the detector in that position. It therefore has a 25% chance of firing the detector in Position 2, and a 25% chance of firing the detector in Position 3 - there's a non-zero chance of a "three reds" result.
      If one of the detector positions was 180° out from another position, then this would be a valid point. But that's not the case.

  • @samuelec
    @samuelec Год назад

    Great video! as a non physics nor a mathematician this is possibly the first time I believe I have understood the Bell's inequality

  • @markusjacobi-piepenbrink9795
    @markusjacobi-piepenbrink9795 Год назад

    I really enjoy your videos! Clever people describing interesting subjects!

  • @gigaherz_
    @gigaherz_ Год назад +3

    I have never liked this idea that the information is getting from one place to another faster than light.
    Like, there's no question entanglement is real, but in my mind, it makes much more sense to think of entangled particles as sharing something, instead of communicating. Like deep down they are using two sides of the same "thing", instead of having each an individual "thing" independent from the other. And that makes me feel that there is always two sides of that thing, and we just don't get to observe the other side for some reason (the corresponding antiparticle could be on the other side of the universe, or inside a black hole).

    • @Varksterable
      @Varksterable Год назад

      As another commenter has suggested, maybe they _are_ the same thing. With talk of multi-verses and extra dimensions this makes possible sense to me as a 'real' physics explanation.
      Kind of puts me in mind of Pauli's exclusion principle; there the electrons seem to 'communicate' as well, although this may not be an instantaneous change; I don't know enough about that to comment.
      But I do remember a lecture by Prof. Brian Cox which seemed to imply that if an electron changes state in one atom, then all other atoms in the universe also change states (not sure I if just misinterpreted what he was saying, though).
      And I've heard of a (maybe tongue-in-cheek) theory that there actually is only one electron in the universe, but it simultaneously exists in many different places and states.
      For sure, we certainly don't understand everything yet - not even close. And who knows what will be changed in 'common conception' of the universe in another few centuries. (Assuming we survive that long.)

    • @anywallsocket
      @anywallsocket Год назад +1

      Indeed, it is only convention to describe entangled pairs as individual particles rather than collective parts of the singular wavefunction.

  • @wktodd
    @wktodd Год назад +8

    Excellent explanation. To me the answer would require the apparent two particles are actually the same particle in another (fourth or fifth) dimension. Image this particle randomly (or at least unpredictably) orienting its spinning. When measured , its random spinning is fixed and when re measured gives the predicted result.

    • @anywallsocket
      @anywallsocket Год назад +1

      This is basically correct. The contradiction comes from trying to project 4 degrees of freedom down onto 3. The probabilities being a function of cos^2(theta) already ignores imaginary phases.
      Moreover, we're told many hints along this direction, such as the fact that elementary particles cannot epistemologically be distinguished. Also, the spins we measure are always projections onto our 3d measuring devices. Then there's the weakest link in Bell's argument: locality. We would like to believe that things are separated to the extent that there is space between them, but relativity dismantles simultaneity -- therefore when one entangled half is 'measured', the other half is measured in a frame of reference which shrinks the physical gap between them. And yes, you could construct entangled pairs far enough apart that even light itself could not hypothetically 'witness' their simultaneous measurement, but we are also forgetting about our linear notion of time. Entangled pairs are created in total isolation, with the degree of entanglement proportional to how little noise there is, therefore it isn't a stretch to suppose that when we witness the evolution of a system, what we are witnessing is nothing more than the irreversible entropy seeping into the system. This has other thermodynamic backing, but in terms of QM it implies that time evolve for systems that remain entangled, and therefore in 4D, the 'distance' or proper time between the two events is not at all as big as the shadow we measure here in 3D.

    • @InternetStranger476
      @InternetStranger476 Год назад

      interesting, and the up or down is just the different part of the same particle

    • @Varksterable
      @Varksterable Год назад +1

      I like this idea. There is so little we _really_ know about the universe(s?) that this seems as plausible as anything else put forward so far.
      Yes, it's totally unintuitive and a little bonkers; but so are most quantum mechanical explanations and observed behaviours.
      I've even heard a theory that there's only _one_ electron in the universe, and it's just 'very busy'. If this was true for all particle types (or even just a the right set of quarks) this might offer an explanation too.
      Who knows what we'll find out in the future? Maybe yet again making what we know today seem utterly naïve and primitive.

  • @jonwill
    @jonwill Год назад +1

    I thoroughly enjoy hearing professor Mike Merrifield explain and reflect on phenomena even, as in this case and most others, I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. 😊

    • @Hermaniac8
      @Hermaniac8 Год назад

      Have you considered that a person *attempting to teach* might be, in fact, deeply saddened or frustrated by a student's proud admission that, while they enjoyed the lecture, they learned nothing?
      That such a statement is not praise, but rather a blatant insult?

    • @jonwill
      @jonwill Год назад +1

      @@Hermaniac8 Yours is a fair perspective, but it places me in the class room. I am actually quite removed but delighting in the process. I have no doubt that professor Merrifield's student's are exceptionally and richly informed. Additionally, in my viewing experience humor, subtle and not so, is never lost to Mike. In one video a questioner asked him what was the base trigger for lightening in clouds. When Mike responded that we really don't know the questioner was flummoxed, clearly unbalanced to hear that such a common and observable phenomena was not completely understood. Regaining his equilibrium the questioner responded, "That's ridiculous!" Mike's response was a healthy dose of his infectious laughter. So, while finding no fault in your comment as a general perspective I nonetheless believe professor Merrifield would read my comment and smile.

  • @onetarot
    @onetarot Год назад +1

    Best explanation of the experiment and the phenomenon I've seen/read in quite a while.

    • @kwimms
      @kwimms Год назад

      I read a better one once... back in the 90's. It was way better actually.

  • @AlphaPhoenixChannel
    @AlphaPhoenixChannel Год назад +16

    this is the first time this has made sense to me. Thank you! Have hidden variables been disproven in other apparently random conditions like radioactive decay? If so I need to go make a significant amendment to a video I published a few years ago...

    • @michaelfried3123
      @michaelfried3123 Год назад

      the fact he assumes particles to all have consciousness doesn't bother you at all? his explanation was philosophy, not falsifiable science in any meaningful way.

    • @jimpim6454
      @jimpim6454 Год назад +7

      @@michaelfried3123 he doesn't assume the particles have consciousness what are you talking about? What you are talking about is a slight anthropomorphisation of the problem to make it easier to understand. When he says the particles decide amongst themselves what he is actually saying is that there may be some way that the particles are set together in a certain way. It is easy to remove this characterisation do not get distracted by this because it is unimportant to the problem.

    • @michaelfried3123
      @michaelfried3123 Год назад

      @@jimpim6454 you obviously didn't watch the video, or if you did, you didn't pay close attention to the words he used. he certainly does assume particles have consciousness by the grammar and words he uses. philosophical BS at best comes from this so called "expert".

    • @Google_Censored_Commenter
      @Google_Censored_Commenter Год назад +6

      @@michaelfried3123 The purpose of using those words is to make it easier to understand ffs. Why are you assuming he's a bad faith actor? Isn't it much easier to just assume he wants the audience to understand the concept?

    • @michaelfried3123
      @michaelfried3123 Год назад

      @@Google_Censored_Commenter if you wanna live a naive life, feel free, I refuse to.

  • @Innocentudeh
    @Innocentudeh Год назад +5

    Really incredible that Nobel Prize for physics was announced today!!

  • @TimLeahy2
    @TimLeahy2 Год назад

    This is a simple explanation of a very complex concept. Thanks sixty symbols for making it so.

  • @rickcygnusx1
    @rickcygnusx1 Год назад

    Best explanation of Bell's inequality I have ever seen (and probably ever will)!!!

  • @astropgn
    @astropgn Год назад +3

    Here on RUclips there is a class on quantum mechanics by MIT and in the bell's inequality lecture the professor said we shouldn't be surprised that electrons don't behave like cheese. We should be surprised that cheese behave like cheese.

  • @FunkyDexter
    @FunkyDexter Год назад +5

    It's a paradox only when we insist on seeing the entangled pairs as two separate point particles. We've known since the 20s that matter is made of waves, this behaviour is entirely consistent with how waves propagate. The real mystery is why the wavefunction collapses to a single point when we do a measurement. I've seen some nice thoughts on the measurement being a sort of Fourier transform, similar to when we focus multiple light rays into a single point through a lens. The nature of the rays never changes, it's just our measurement making it appear different.

  • @DwainDwight
    @DwainDwight Год назад

    still so much we don't know. more questions than answers. thanks for the easy to understand presentation. keep it up. more please.

  • @Pauly421
    @Pauly421 Год назад +1

    I have a deep love for Mike Merrifield that I can't quite explain. He's clearly a genius, I love listening to him. :)

    • @kwimms
      @kwimms Год назад

      Alphabet...

  • @think3237
    @think3237 Год назад +4

    Isn't the problem in the presumption, that the way this hidden variable would be generated is dependent on the experiment set up? Like in reality it would have not only "prepare answers" for these 3 positions of detector, but for all continuum of possible positions. And even more, why should these answers for all possible positions be completely independent from one another? (as I think calculation presented in the video presumes)

    • @covett
      @covett Год назад

      Yes, but they must sell books and goad prospective students into paying for their classes. It’s a scam.

  • @michaelrusinak3194
    @michaelrusinak3194 Год назад +3

    i'm confused here, in the image with the colored circles, each of those is taken as an equal probability. so if we take the 4 rows where red comes out of detector 1 setting the possibilities are it comes red or green on detector 2 and 3 with 50% probability, but earlier in the video it showed that when you have that tilted scenario it comes out as 25/75% probability of matching or not, wouldnt you need to apply those probabilities and then adjust the 2/6 results downward for the fact that its not 50/50 whether they match or dont but 25/75?

    • @longlostwraith5106
      @longlostwraith5106 Год назад

      Yes, you would. But for some reason, nobody thought of that...

    • @ebenolivier2762
      @ebenolivier2762 Год назад +1

      Exactly! I also don't understand why the options in the table are all regarded as equal probability.

    • @101Mant
      @101Mant Год назад +1

      I think you are confusing the probability of the results and the probability of the experiment configuration.
      The 75/25 is the probabilistic results prediction of quantum mechanics, you don't know what an individual particle will do only overal statistical behaviour. If there is a hidden variable then for any given particle pair there is no probability involved. The test has three configurations, the detectors can be in the same alignment, 120 degrees apart or 240 degrees apart so the particles have to have "decided" what to do in each of the three possible configurations. The test is repeated many times so each configuration happens 1/3 of the time. Since the configuring changes after the particles separate so that no light speed communication has time for them to communicate they have ot have "choosen" what they will do for each possible configuration before reaching the detectors.
      There is no probability within one row, its saying e.g. if the detectors are aligned it's red, 120 its red, 240 its green and so on, there is nothing to adjust. Its 1/3 for each experiment configuration because that is how the experiment is designed. The particles can't influence the probability of the experiment configurations, indeed to be sure they did tests where the configuration was determined by light for quasars millions of years old so it could've been influenced by the recently entangled pair.
      There could be different probabilities of which configuration the particles "choose" before they seperate, but since all of them have a probability of 2/3 or higher it doesn't matter and doesn't effect the discrepancy between the prediciton and the result since it happens which ever preset results the particles could have.

  • @Archis_Anupam
    @Archis_Anupam Год назад

    masterful explanation 🔥

  • @LightDiodeNeal
    @LightDiodeNeal Год назад +1

    Great to see you back!!! One question, will any of the SS regulars be working on local Fusion?
    Superb video, but now I want to know what happens if you pass that measured particle through another measurement device?
    Mike is brilliant, nice one

  • @Jodabomb24
    @Jodabomb24 Год назад +3

    6:11 isn't this backwards? If you have a magnetic gradient that causes |+z> to go upward and |-z> to go downward, then flipping the gradient upside down (changing its sign) should cause |+z> to go downward and |-z> to go upward. Now suppose your left-going particle is found in |+z>, i.e. normal SG apparatus causes it to go upward. That would mean its partner must be in |-z>, and so the upside-down SG will cause it to also go upward. And the opposite case would be both of them going downward, even though one of those is with the gradient and the other is against it.

    • @kwimms
      @kwimms Год назад

      Doesn't matter... it's all sci fi anyway...

    • @Jodabomb24
      @Jodabomb24 Год назад

      @@kwimms I mean I have literally done this experiment but go off

  • @WAMTAT
    @WAMTAT Год назад +8

    Very spooky

    • @peterbonnema8913
      @peterbonnema8913 Год назад +1

      And it just happens to coincide with the Halloween month.

  • @musicalcacti
    @musicalcacti Год назад +2

    Very much happy to see professor Merrifield back in his office 🥰

    • @kwimms
      @kwimms Год назад

      He should stay there. Close the door and just think about why he lies so much.

  • @Amonimus
    @Amonimus Год назад +1

    I've missed why in the counter-experiment if A1 is red B2 would be green. They're at an angle, so the particles aren't symmetrical and the setup doesn't account for all possible results, as explained earlier in the video. Which would bring the probability closer to the observed while still keeping the model.

  • @light-master
    @light-master Год назад +9

    I still feel like there must be some physics going on that we have yet to understand. Something so far ahead of us that we cannot yet conceive of a way to even prove that we are missing something. Any sufficiently advanced physics is indistinguishable from magic.

  • @billynomates920
    @billynomates920 Год назад +3

    i don't think can blame einstein for not liking that.

  • @ruellerz
    @ruellerz Год назад

    Solid video, i need to watch it again, and again

  • @SorteKanin
    @SorteKanin Год назад +2

    If you consider the many-world perspective, there is no instantaneous information being transmitted, just yourself being entangled with one of the lamps, which means that you are also entangled with the other lamp.

  • @WobblycogsUk
    @WobblycogsUk Год назад +5

    So what you're saying is the particles have a VPN for talking to each other, a virtual particle network.

    • @PublicVoidFoo
      @PublicVoidFoo Год назад

      gives a whole new meaning to ExpressVPN doesn't it?

  • @mrln247
    @mrln247 Год назад +3

    Quantum mechanics is even more confusing when your colour blind.

  • @diGritz1
    @diGritz1 Год назад +1

    I first learned about this decades ago and because of the content and that it was published in the same year I was born I wanted to learn more and understand it better. I thought, as my understanding of physics grew, I would eventually have one of those "epiphany moments" when it finally made sense. The only epiphany I have had is I'm not going to live long enough for that.

    • @geoffreykeane4072
      @geoffreykeane4072 Год назад

      Your entangled double in Andromeda probably gets it. Only one of you can.

  • @JuanVEscobar
    @JuanVEscobar Год назад

    Excellent explanation!

  • @vladomaimun
    @vladomaimun Год назад +3

    Did you make this video for the occasion of the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics being awarded to scientists who worked on this problem or is this a spooky coincidence?

  • @hauslerful
    @hauslerful Год назад +3

    "Is there anything happening in the universe because of entanglement?" - yeah, the freaking spacetime itself is made from an entanglement hirarchy :D

    • @nmarbletoe8210
      @nmarbletoe8210 Год назад

      Susskind: "Entanglement is the hooks that hold space together"

  • @autishd
    @autishd Год назад

    This is a brilliant explanation

  • @micromario
    @micromario Год назад

    This is the best description of Bell's inequality for the layman I've seen.

  • @dougg1075
    @dougg1075 Год назад +3

    Humans are as clever as they are brutal. Trip

  • @michaelfried3123
    @michaelfried3123 Год назад +3

    This breaks down for me (logically) when he's trying to explain by assuming each particle somehow has consciousness. Sounds more like rubbish philosophy to me, quantum mechanics is not falsifiable in any observational way, so to me its philosophy at best, certainly not real science, especially because it possesses maths made up out of whole cloth. I can prove ANYTHING I want by manipulating statistics, just give me the time, clever maths don't PROVE a thing about quantum theories.

  • @peterlawson4978
    @peterlawson4978 Год назад

    Best explanation. Thankyou

  • @drbeanut
    @drbeanut Год назад +2

    Thank you for making this video, I am only part way in, but already want to make a comment. Regarding the discreteness of state discovered via the Stern-Gerlach experiment, I have a proposition solely for the curious of mind. Perhaps the magnetic force acts not just in space, but in time as well. Imagine the field attracts parallel-aligned poles towards the present, and repels for perpendicular poles into the past/future where we never detect them!

  • @Micetticat
    @Micetticat Год назад +1

    One of the best explanations of Bell Inequalities!

  • @charlie_sultan883
    @charlie_sultan883 Год назад +1

    Thank you! After watching like 5 videos, this one finally actually made it 'click'. The way I understood it is that (note: I am a total noob, so please let me know if i got it wrong):
    1. they chose 120degree of eachother because then every switch combination will have 120 degrees of eachother (120/240, 240/360, 360/120), so it simplifies it to different switches or the same
    2. the result we get that, for different switches, the electrons show 25% same spin and 75% different is impossible if the two eletrons had a predefined plan for each switch they conjured together. That's can be seen by looking at all possible plans, there are 8 such possible plans that have the condition that if they get same switch they must be opposite (which is experimentally verified). When we do it we see it's impossible to get such low probability of them being the same for different switches..
    3. This is because, the key thing here is that the electron does not know how it will be measured when its making the plan. The way it is measured determines how the other electron will behave. That's only possible in quantom mechanics is weird. It's as if it has a plan that is "if I get switch A and you get siwtch B, do same spin 25% and opposite 75%", but that's impossible since they don't know how they'll be measured (that's in the future).
    4. Thus somehow something very weird happens. Either the electron like, knows in advance the future - what the switch will be at when it'll be measured. Or it instantly communicates how it was measured to the other. Or something elese (idk). But definetely not a "locally-real" behavior.
    it seems to me bell (and others) looked at the quantom equations and saw this probability is lower than is possible to make with a concrete/"locally-real" plan (AKA 'hidden variable) of the electrons, and thus there must be something very weird going on there and hidden variable doesn't explain it all as einstein argued.

    • @kwimms
      @kwimms Год назад

      Uh yeah, you got it wrong, buddy. Sorry. Go study "math" and get smarter.

  • @frankharr9466
    @frankharr9466 Год назад +1

    What I find interesting is that when the poarticle inters the experiment, it has presumably an infinate reange of orientations. And yet, the experiment forces an expression as if it could only have one of two. You'd think that that might have some bearing on what the entagnled does, but apparently not. And the fact that you can get two reds or two greens by turning one of the aparatuses upside down is just very strange indeed.

  • @richardbloemenkamp8532
    @richardbloemenkamp8532 Год назад

    Excellent explanation.

  • @davidjpfau
    @davidjpfau Год назад

    Great video. My favorite moment is at 20:01 where the true nature of quantum physics shows itself for a moment by inducing a confusion migraine.
    I was like…. Yup!

  • @guyguy1811
    @guyguy1811 9 месяцев назад +1

    That’s just an interesting point that I’ve always pondered.
    If information can’t travel faster than light then how can we have this instantaneous transfer of information. But I suppose he’s completely right that actually your not really transmitting any information as the initial state is itself random. Still feels a bit wishy-washy but that makes a lot more intuitive sense to me.

  • @heroesofwar
    @heroesofwar Год назад

    great video! I wish this channel the best of luck! Nice content

  • @terryrogers6232
    @terryrogers6232 Год назад

    I have undergraduate physics degree (1970) but went off with engineering schooling thereafter and before I knew anything of entanglement. I did not read the Bell paper so I had confusion about how the experiment could be proving anything ... until now! Thank you very much, professor. I wonder that Einstein argued against loss of the 'locality' principle if his own theory, GR, could also be used to imply connection of widely separated parts of space.

    • @iwatchwithnoads7480
      @iwatchwithnoads7480 Год назад +1

      I still don't understand. Why are we saying polarity changes if we rotate the machine? If an election spin is up, it will go up with reference to the machine, why does machine's orientation with reference to earth matter?

  • @philjamieson5572
    @philjamieson5572 Год назад

    I think this is so well explained. Thanks.

    • @kwimms
      @kwimms Год назад

      Yes, it is an excellent explanation of how to make tuna salad. Very useful. Thank you!

  • @drbeanut
    @drbeanut Год назад

    Great job to both of you for this video. I do want to add some remarks. One can still save the deterministic universe while obeying Bell’s Inequality. One of these ways is via Superdeterminism (I recommend PBS SpaceTime video on that) and another is by rejecting laws of causality. By allowing retro-causality, entangled particles can gain information about their future state. This changes the whole setup of the problem. Instead of looking at the possible measurement orientations independent from one-another, one may consider that the particles agree on states given each pair of orientations. Side note, this is practically equivalent to the particles communicating instantaneously upon measurement, but theoretically quite different. The implications of this are extreme, to say the least. However, I find it extremely tempting to play around with the physics of information that travels backwards in time.

    • @Ripen3
      @Ripen3 Год назад

      From my understanding; according to Einstein, photons don't experience time(?). Have you thought of the implications of this? The photon leaves it's source and arrives at the destination at the same time. There is no distance in between from the photon's perspective. The photon knows what obstacles are ahead *while* being emitted.

    • @drbeanut
      @drbeanut Год назад

      This is an interesting argument. I’ll have to think about this for a bit. From the photon’s reference frame, it’s journey appears instantaneous. However, this is not necessarily because time does not pass for the photon, but rather because the photon’s only way of measuring passage of time is within it’s own reference frame. Any slower frame fundamentally measures time via relation to light speed. As one approaches light-speed, time may seem to tick slower only because we infer it from apparent relative light-speed.

    • @JeffJeffington66
      @JeffJeffington66 Год назад

      ​@@Ripen3 But what about massive particles, e.g. the silver atoms used in the original Stern-Gerlach experiment?

  • @CACBCCCU
    @CACBCCCU Год назад

    His explanation goes off into the rough around 10:13 or so. You have to divide the setup possibilities into two groups, one group with aligned and anti-aligned detections and a second group with arbitrary partial angle settings which add additional uncertainty to the result in comparison to the first group. People use mismatched colored unobserved socks to explain why spins are immediately determined when the particles are generated, predictably in opposition one way or the other when measured by equal aligned settings, so time difference (detector distance difference) matters not; however unobserved mismatched socks and probabilistic sock-color-switchers are needed to explain it better when the setup goes merely probabilistic, namely when settings are 90 or 120 degrees misaligned. I have Mermin's book "Boojums all the way through" with a chapter that doesn't explain this very well other than with some limited test run stats, bought it about thirty years ago and this triple setting arrangement is a trip down memory lane for me, but I can't recommend it. Never had to figure the triple setting situation out on my complete career track although entanglements surviving quantum dipole-dipole pairing separation seem pretty trivial.

  • @Chicken_Little_Syndrome
    @Chicken_Little_Syndrome Год назад

    At around 10:15:
    Particle spin is defined when the particles are emitted from the white circle. There is no "spooky-action-at-a-distance".

  • @Pengochan
    @Pengochan Год назад

    In the many worlds interpretation experimenters that measure results get entangled themseves by the measurement, So e.g. if both measure up on entangled particles (with the apparatus set to the same direction) they end up in different worlds and can never compare notes.
    There's no spooky action necessary, but you end up with the universe branching infinitely often in every moment.

  • @spazneria
    @spazneria Год назад +1

    Wow. I'm 27 years old now, but I found this channel (along with numberphile and computerphile) when I was a teenager. I haven't had the opportunity to check in in almost a decade now, and it is great to see these guys. Thank you gentlemen.

  • @phazephusion
    @phazephusion Год назад

    Questions for Professor Merrifield:
    Please explain gravitational red-shift and its apparent effect on red-shift calculations of distant objects. i.e.: When astronomers say a galaxy is 10 billion ly away measured by its red-shift. How big a difference does gravitational red-shift make on that scale, especially when a fairly deep gravity well like with an Einstein arc is used to view the distant galaxy.
    I'm just wondering if astronomers take all possible effects into consideration when they measure distance with red-shift. I've learned that there's a lot of stuff that can affect light and at the distance of 1 ly apparently weak things like gravity, refraction, temperature, pressure can have a minute influence on quanta of light. Multiplied by billions of light years these effects add up... I'm just wondering by how much

  • @TGC40401
    @TGC40401 Год назад

    There still is more physics to be done in this area. One can ask: By what mechanism do the particles communicate?
    I hypothesize our 4D spacetime is embedded in a higher dimensional manifold allowing for a conduit of instantaneous information transfer.