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Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? (1997)

math.ucr.edu

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Re: Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? (1997)

#2
One way would be to fire an entangled photon down both ends of fibre optic cable in the middle. On the sending end you could observe/ ignore it, and on reviving end you'd observe it.

We'd have to develop cables capable of preserving the entangled state of light particles, and a beam splitter that's more reliable. You could improve the bandwidth considerably by measuring the polarisation of the particle, even more if you could somehow encapsulate the entangled photon for a given period of time.

Re: Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? (1997)

#3
post #2

One way would be to fire an entangled photon down both ends of fibre optic cable in the middle. On the sending end you could observe/ ignore it, and on reviving end you'd observe it. We'd have to develop cables capable of preserving the entangled state of light particles, and a beam splitter that's more reliable. You could improve the bandwidth considerably by measuring the polarisation of the particle, even more if…

Still wouldn't be much use for communicating. The observer would just see random photons.

Re: Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? (1997)

#6
post #5
post #4

Is even near (but slower than) light travel possible? Doesn't your spaceship get destroyed the first time you hit some interstellar dust?

You want a big block of ice in front of your ship.

Out of interest, why ice and not (say) steel?

Re: Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? (1997)

#7
post #2

One way would be to fire an entangled photon down both ends of fibre optic cable in the middle. On the sending end you could observe/ ignore it, and on reviving end you'd observe it. We'd have to develop cables capable of preserving the entangled state of light particles, and a beam splitter that's more reliable. You could improve the bandwidth considerably by measuring the polarisation of the particle, even more if…

Pretty harsh to downvote this person for writing out an idea - ok, if you know the physics you might dismiss this, but dismiss with words not votes!

Re: Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? (1997)

#8
post #2

One way would be to fire an entangled photon down both ends of fibre optic cable in the middle. On the sending end you could observe/ ignore it, and on reviving end you'd observe it. We'd have to develop cables capable of preserving the entangled state of light particles, and a beam splitter that's more reliable. You could improve the bandwidth considerably by measuring the polarisation of the particle, even more if…

> In 1935 Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen published a thought experiment that seemed to produce a paradox in quantum mechanics, as well as demonstrating that it was incomplete. Their argument used the fact that there can be an apparent instantaneous interaction in the measurement of two separated particles that have been prepared in a certain "entangled" manner. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance". It has been shown by Eberhard that no information can be passed using this effect; so there is no FTL communication, but the paradox is still very controversial. See the FAQ article The EPR Paradox and Bell's Inequality for more details.

Re: Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? (1997)

#9
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want a big block of ice in front of your ship.

Out of interest, why ice and not (say) steel?

Water is really good at blocking proton radiation (those stray hydrogen atoms in the interstellar medium become really dangerous once you go fast enough). Plus you can drink it.

You also don't want to stop particle radiation too quickly, or you get x-ray Bremsstrahlung. So something a little less dense than steel works better in practice.

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