OT: Christian relativity - in which I mangle philosophyof science

Jeff Wilson · 27 Apr 2006, 02:59 · from 2006-April.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:59:10 -0500
Subject: (urth) OT: Christian relativity - in which I
 mangle	philosophyof science
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Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

>>The degree to which Bell's inequalities affect relativistic causality is
>>somewhat up in the air, because you can't transmit information
>>faster than light,
> 
> 
> Ummm ... I have this idea that you can, by exploiting exclusion.
> 
> Consider three points, A, B, and C. B is between A and C,
> but one light-microsecond closer to A. B emits photon-pairs
> towards both A and C, at regular intervals.
> 
> At C, you set up a device to detect photons coming from B as
> waves.
> 
> At A, I measure every other (odd-numbered) photon as a particle. If
> I'm understanding exclusion and the inequality correctly, this means
> that you can't measure these photons as waves, so your wave-
> measuring doodad misses every odd-numbered photon, which gives
> us a kind of synchronization. Then I measure the even-numbered
> photons as waves for 1 and as particles for 0. You will only be able
> to detect the ones paired to the ones I measure as waves. So no
> matter how far A and C are from each other, the information I
> encode in this way will reach you in one microsecond.
> 
> True? False? I'm not sure -- I don't have the maths to understand
> why I'm wrong, if I am.

I don't think this will work, as you're essentially doing a 
slightly-rearranged double-slit experiment. Empirically, one slit has to 
be slightly closer to the source on the same scale as your A, B, and C 
above, if for no other reason than measurment error in construction of 
the apparatus. Yet the outcome still depends on the presence of that 
second slit. Likewise,  the ultimate resolution of state will depend on 
what happens at A and C, not solely A as you have it above.


-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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