Quantum entanglement is another quantum concept with no physical equivalent. It allows quantum entities to merge into one system where any change instantly affects all of them, at any distance. When particles aggregate into bigger systems, distance matters, but entanglement ignores distance entirely, as photons can be entangled even when they are light years apart.
For example, when a Cesium atom emits two photons in opposite directions, they entangle into one system with a net zero spin. Both photons still spin up or down randomly, but if one is measured to be spin up, the other is instantly adjusted to be spin down. Experiments show it is always so, but if each photon’s spin is random, how does the other instantly know to be the opposite, at any distance?
Einstein called this spooky action at a distance, because it implied a faster-than-light effect, and so suggested an experiment to disprove it (Einstein, Podolsky, & Rosen, 1935). When the test was made, based on Bell’s theorem, it supported quantum entanglement, even for photons too far apart to affect each other at the speed of light (Aspect, Grangier, & Roger, 1982). This was one of the most careful experiments ever done, as befits the ultimate test of quantum theory, and it found that entangled photons do adjust faster than the speed of light, despite Einstein’s objection!
Yet how can an event at one location affect another at any distance? According to particle physics, it can’t, but the evidence is that it does. If two photons heading opposite ways are separate particles that spin randomly, why can’t both spin up, or both spin down? Quantum theory insists that the initial spin is conserved, but gives no clue as to how. Nature could conserve spin by making one photon spin up and the other down from the start, but apparently this is too much trouble. Instead, it lets both photons spin either way, until one is observed, then instantly adjusts the other to be the opposite, no matter where they are in the universe. Entangled states are now common in physics, but they have no physical explanation (Salart, Baas, Branciard, Gisin, & Zbinden, 2008).
Particles can’t entangle as quantum theory describes, but processes can. We see two photon particles leaving the Cesium atom (Figure 3.23a) but what if they are processes? When a Cesium atom restarts two photons at one point in a physical event, their processing merges or entangles. The merged processing of both photons then just spreads, as processing does. Instead of each photon going its own way, both spread both directions. Just as one photon takes every path and lets a later event decide its path, so entangled photons go both ways and let a later physical event decide which went which way.
In network terms, the photon servers simply share the client work, so the wave front going left is run by two servers, as is the one going right (Figure 3.23b). The entangled photons look and act like photons, but each is in effect half spin-up and half spin-down.
Why then is the initial spin conserved? When a physical event restarts one photon, the merger ends, as one server restarting leaves the other to run the other photon with the opposite spin. Which server restarts is random, as it depends on server access, but the result is always two photons with opposite spin. Spin is then always conserved because the processing before and after a restart is always identical (Figure 3.23c).
Entanglement is then non-local for the same reason quantum collapse is, that client-server effects ignore the screen transfer rate we call the speed of light. The maximum speed of a point moving across a screen depends on the screen refresh rate, but a CPU doesn’t have to move to a screen pixel to change it, it just acts directly. Likewise, photon servers ignore how far apart entangled photons are when they act on the screen of our space.
How then do entangled photons adjust spin instantly, faster than the speed of light? If both photon servers share the work of both wave fronts, they are already in place to handle any physical event, so nothing has to go anywhere to maintain the total spin. When either server restarts, the other just carries on running the other wavefront, so entanglement doesn’t contradict the speed of light limit.
Entanglement also underlies super-conductivity, where many electrons entangle, so every electron is run by all their servers. They then move with no resistance because, in effect, nothing is moving in a superconductor metal. Bose-Einstein condensates let any number of quantum entities merge in this way. Chapter 6 explores the implications of this unique quantum feature for consciousness.