Today folks, we’re going to talk about Quantum Entanglement, or what Einstein referred to as “…spooky action at a distance…”. The phenomenon of quantum entanglement in quantum physics at first glance seems to allow one to transmit information faster than the speed of light; however, one cannot transmit information in this way.  Quantum entanglement is a property of the quantum mechanical state of a system containing two or more objects, where the objects that make up the system are linked in such a way that the quantum state of any of them cannot be adequately described without full mention of the others, even if the individual objects are spatially separated. Quantum entanglement is at the heart of the EPR paradox described by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen in 1935, and was verified experimentally for the first time in 1972 by Stuart Freedman and John Clauser.

When particles decay into other particles, these decays must obey the various conservation laws. As a result, pairs of particles can be generated that are required to be in certain quantum states. For ease of understanding, consider the situation where a pair of these particles are created, having a two-state spin and one must be spin up and the other must be spin down. These two particles can now be called entangled since you cannot fully describe one particle without mentioning the other. This type of entangled pair where the particles always have opposite spin is known as the spin anti-correlated case, and if the probabilities for measuring each spin are equal, you have the singlet state.

Now that entangled particles have been created, imagine that we have two experimenters, Scary and Minx, and each one of them has one of the particles that form the entangled pair. Scary then measures the spin of her particle. For her, the measurement will be unpredictable, with a 50% probability of the spin being up or down. However, if she compares the spin she obtained with the spin Minx measured in his particle, she will see that they are always opposite, hence perfectly anti-correlated.

Note, however, that until now there’s nothing mysterious going on; the correlation seen in this experiment can be simulated classically. To see this, imagine that Scary and Minx have a coin, and they slice it along the circumference into two half-coins, in such a way that each half-coin is either “heads” or “tails”. They then put each half-coin in an envelope, one for Scary and the other for Minx, randomly. Scary then measures her half-coin, by opening her envelope. For her, the measurement will be unpredictable, with a 50% probability of her half-coin being “heads” or “tails”. However, if she compares the side of the coin she obtained with the side of the coin Minx measured in his half-coin, she will see that they are always opposite, hence perfectly anti-correlated.

While this phenomenon does NOT allow faster than light (FTL) communication between two experimenters, there is an argument that the particles themselves are communicating faster than light.  There is a competing theory that the particles are actually connected, along with every other particle in the universe, and the information about when to change spin-state in an entangled pair is transmitted across this fabric at non- or near-FTL speeds, hence appearing to happen faster than light. My question to you is, what do you think? Is the spin-state information between two particles traveling faster than light or being transmitted across a collective whole?

So in an effort to not be the fatty of the band, I started the P90x workout today.  My official weigh in at 6:00 am this morning after a healthy dump was 239 lbs.  The workout part isn’t really a big deal for me, I can push my body a lot farther than it would seem from my outward appearance.  What’s kicking my ass right now is the diet.  I had a bowl of multigrain cheerios this morning with skim milk, and a single grilled chicken breast with a little A-1 on it for lunch.  Probably going to have some tuna fish for dinner and that’s it.  I am a mean mother fucker when I’m hungry. I’m probably going to piss off my bandmates quite a bit in the next few weeks while I’m basically in starvation mode to kick my body into ketosis for the initial burn. I’ve got almost 100 lbs to lose and that’s not going to happen by doing some light jogging and switching to light ranch.  Major changes in my eating habits and the P90x workout program will hopefully get me there.  Thank JEEBUS that cigarettes don’t make you fat!! I’m managing the oral fixation by having a smoke instead of a candy bar.  When I want a soda, I drink an entire 24 oz bottle of water.  Lots of little tricks like that.  I know it’s retarded and I wish I didn’t have to play games with myself like that, but I do.  I have an EXTREMELY addictive personality, and I’ve been addicted to fatty, greasy, bad-for-you food since I was a kid.  It was probably my first and longest-running addiction.  I’ve beaten back almost all of the addictions I’ve acquired since then with the exception of smoking cigarettes by simply QUITTING.  I can’t quit eating though, so major changes are the only way to get it done.  Ok, this is starting to sound like a fucking weight watchers journal and I am starting to sound like a middle aged house frau with an Oprah complex.  I’m a fatty and I don’t want to be a fatty anymore.  I’m putting the cheeseburger down.

Hey Bang  Gang!  Just got home from the new job (can’t access the blog site from behind the Iron Firewall), and I am freakin exhausted!  Between starting the new job today and ramping things up for Operation: Winnebago, I’m one tired Pie!

Just so you guys can get a glimpse of what I do during the day, here’s a brief explanation of the wave-particle duality.  Hooray!!

In the 1600s, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton proposed competing theories for light’s behavior. Huygens proposed a wave theory of light while Newton’s was a “corpuscular” (particle) theory of light. Huygens’ theory had some issues in matching observation. Newton’s prestige helped lend support to his theory, so for over a century his theory was dominant.

In the early nineteenth century, complications arose for the corpuscular theory of light. Diffraction had been observed, for one thing, which it had trouble adequately explaining. Thomas Young’s double slit experiment resulted in obvious wave behavior and seemed to firmly support the wave theory of light over Newton’s particle theory.

A wave generally has to propagate through a medium of some kind. The medium proposed by Huygens had been luminiferous aether (or in more common modern terminology, ether). When James Clerk Maxwell quantified a set of equations (called Maxwell’s laws or Maxwell’s equations) to explain electromagnetic radiation (including visible light) as the propagation of waves, he assumed just such an ether as the medium of propagation, and his predictions were consistent with experimental results.

The problem with the wave theory was that no such ether had ever been found. Not only that, but astronomical observations in stellar aberration by James Bradley in 1720 had indicated that ether would have to be stationary relative to a moving Earth. Throughout the 1800s, attempts were made to detect the ether or its movement directly, culminating in the famous Michelson-Morley experiment. They all failed to actually detect the ether, resulting in a huge debate as the twentieth century began. Was light a wave or a particle?

In 1905, Albert Einstein published his paper to explain the photoelectric effect, which proposed that light traveled as discrete bundles of energy. The energy contained within a photon was related to the frequency of the light. This theory came to be known as the photon theory of light (although the word photon wasn’t coined until years later).

With photons, the ether was no longer essential as a means of propagation, although it still left the odd paradox of why wave behavior was observed. Even more peculiar were the quantum variations of the double slit experiment and the Compton effect which seemed to confirm the particle interpretation.

As experiments were performed and evidence accumulated, the implications quickly became clear and alarming:

Light functions as both a particle and a wave, depending on how the experiment is conducted and when observations are made.

Hey Bang Gang! Meatpie here.  I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for a while, but I’m back now with a vengeance!  Ok, not really.  Actually, I’m a really horrible blogger and I am constantly scrambling for things to write about that I think y’all may be interested in.  I’m also an extremely private kind of guy, and have a hard time sharing real life experiences with the whole world.  But that’s not going to stop me anymore.  I can’t promise they’ll all be gems, but Meatpie Mondays will be a regular fixture on the Scarycherry.com website from now on.  On to new business!

Last time I wrote anything here, I had just lost my job and was feeling rather despondent.  Well good news, true believers, I’ve found me a job!  A damn good one, at that!  I’ll actually be back with my old company, but in a new department with better job security, and a fancy new budget to boot! Hooray for gainful employment!

Last night, I shot my clips for our new sponsorship packages and had a complete blast!  It was awesome.  Scary, Minx, Tony, and I were all mixing it up, coming up with awesome ideas, filming some HILARIOUS skits, and generally being a band.  It felt really good to get back into the mix and do more than just show up to practice 2-3 days a week and run the set.  I really missed being a part of the creative force of this band, and it was very heartening to not only be back in it, but to have my ideas and performances received so well.

We’ve also got some amazing new songs in the hopper that I can’t WAIT to unveil to the general public.  2011 is going to bring some awesome new content from SCABBs, and I guarantee y’all are going to LOVE IT! New music, new videos, new tours, we’ve got it all for you!

Well, I think that’s about all I can muster on my first foray back into the world of blogs.  Until next time folks, remember, Meatpie loves you to death!