Scientists Find 'Spooky' Quantum Entanglement Within Individual Protons (space.com)
(Wednesday January 08, 2025 @05:00AM (BeauHD)
from the would-you-look-at-that dept.)
- Reference: 0175848633
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/08/0028204/scientists-find-spooky-quantum-entanglement-within-individual-protons
- Source link: https://www.space.com/spooky-action-small-distance-entanglement-quarks-gluons
Scientists have [1]discovered that quarks and gluons inside protons are quantum entangled , challenging traditional views of proton structure and revealing a more complex, dynamic system influenced by strong interactions. Space.com reports:
> Entanglement is the aspect of quantum physics that says two affected particles can instantaneously influence each other's "state" no matter how widely separated they are -- even if they are on opposite sides of the universe. Albert Einstein founded his theories of relativity on the notion that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, however, something that should preclude the instantaneous nature of entanglement.
>
> As a result, Einstein was so troubled by entanglement he famously described it as "spukhafte Fernwirkung" or "spooky action at a distance." Yet, despite Einstein's skepticism about entanglement, this "spooky" phenomenon has been verified over and over again. Many of those verifications have concerned testing increasing distances over which entanglement can be demonstrated. This new test took the opposite approach, investigating entanglement over a distance of just one quadrillionth of a meter, finding it actually occurs within individual protons.
>
> The team found that the sharing of information that defines entanglement occurs across whole groups of fundamental particles called quarks and gluons within a proton. "Before we did this work, no one had looked at entanglement inside of a proton in experimental high-energy collision data," team member and Brookhaven Lab physicist Zhoudunming Tu said in [2]a statement . "For decades, we've had a traditional view of the proton as a collection of quarks and gluons, and we've been focused on understanding so-called single-particle properties, including how quarks and gluons are distributed inside the proton. "Now, with evidence that quarks and gluons are entangled, this picture has changed. We have a much more complicated, dynamic system." The team's research, the culmination of six years of work, refines scientists' understanding of how entanglement influences the structure of protons.
The team's research was [3]published in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics .
[1] https://www.space.com/spooky-action-small-distance-entanglement-quarks-gluons
[2] https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=122215
[3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/ad910b
> Entanglement is the aspect of quantum physics that says two affected particles can instantaneously influence each other's "state" no matter how widely separated they are -- even if they are on opposite sides of the universe. Albert Einstein founded his theories of relativity on the notion that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, however, something that should preclude the instantaneous nature of entanglement.
>
> As a result, Einstein was so troubled by entanglement he famously described it as "spukhafte Fernwirkung" or "spooky action at a distance." Yet, despite Einstein's skepticism about entanglement, this "spooky" phenomenon has been verified over and over again. Many of those verifications have concerned testing increasing distances over which entanglement can be demonstrated. This new test took the opposite approach, investigating entanglement over a distance of just one quadrillionth of a meter, finding it actually occurs within individual protons.
>
> The team found that the sharing of information that defines entanglement occurs across whole groups of fundamental particles called quarks and gluons within a proton. "Before we did this work, no one had looked at entanglement inside of a proton in experimental high-energy collision data," team member and Brookhaven Lab physicist Zhoudunming Tu said in [2]a statement . "For decades, we've had a traditional view of the proton as a collection of quarks and gluons, and we've been focused on understanding so-called single-particle properties, including how quarks and gluons are distributed inside the proton. "Now, with evidence that quarks and gluons are entangled, this picture has changed. We have a much more complicated, dynamic system." The team's research, the culmination of six years of work, refines scientists' understanding of how entanglement influences the structure of protons.
The team's research was [3]published in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics .
[1] https://www.space.com/spooky-action-small-distance-entanglement-quarks-gluons
[2] https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=122215
[3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/ad910b
Spooky (Score:2)
by rossdee ( 243626 )
with freckles a black nose and a little bowler hat
Re: (Score:2)
by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 )
[1]Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little proton like you... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpo9KZYJ4sA#t=35s
Not this shite again... (Score:2)
"Spooky" was the old way to call it before science settled on "quantum entanglement". Actually, it was not just "spooky", but "spooky action at a distance". Update your vocabulary accordingly, "scientific" "journalist" person.
Re: (Score:3)
Einstein called it "spooky" because he didn't accept it.
His theory of relativity says that causality can't move faster than light, yet QE has an instantaneous effect across any distance.
So, who was correct?
Both.
In 1964, [1]Aspect's experiment [wikipedia.org] showed that the effect is instant, but no causal information is transmitted.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect's_experiment
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with everything that you've said but I want to add that not everybody agrees that Aspect's experiments were sufficient to unambiguously prove Bell's inequality. Since then techniques and instruments have improved. I'm not sure how universally accepted the experimental proof of Bell's inequality is now. (Note that there's a difference between accepting that Bell's inequality holds and accepting that the experimental tests of Bell's inequality rule out any possible, however unlikely, alternative scien
Re: (Score:2)
> techniques and instruments have improved.
Yes, they have, and those improved instruments have been used many times to repeat Aspect's experiment. Some of the objections to his methodology have been resolved by later experiments.
> "nothing can travel faster than light"
A shadow can move faster than light. But, like entangled particles, a shadow can't transmit information.
> what he's actually saying is "information has a maximum speed".
Indeed.
Re: (Score:2)
> A shadow can move faster than light.
How do you define momentum of a moving shadow?
Re: (Score:2)
Bell in 1964. Aspect etc. were much later 1980s on
Re: (Score:2)
/me goes reads "quantum entanglement" in Wikipedia ... huh, as far as I can make out - It seems to be the microscopic workings of conservation of energy.
That's a lot more mundane than I was expecting.
Re: (Score:2)
> It seems to be the microscopic workings of conservation of energy.
Not at all. Whether a photon is polarized left or right, the energy is the same.
Re: (Score:1)
Obviously there is more details at the microscopic level. Okay, call it the extension of conservation-of-energy then.
Re: (Score:2)
You can call it anything you want.
But without explaining the nature of your "extension", that doesn't mean anything.
Re: (Score:1)
Very informative of you. Plenty of understanding conveyed there.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't want to pick a fight, but you were the one that invoked "extension of conservation-of-energy", so you are the one that needs to explain what that means. Not sure what other information or understanding is available without that explanation.
Re: (Score:2)
In the case where the spin splits both and and down together that's clearly a conservation. But it's a detail finer than just conserving energy generically.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you may be thinking of particle spin as something spinning, so it would have angular momentum, so from there you assume there is energy and its somehow conserved. But I don't think anything is actually spinning.
Also, think about what would be happening if they were actually spinning, like a wheel. If you have a spinning wheel and magically split it in half perpendicular to the axis of rotation, you have the same energy in the system, the two parts still spin in the same direction, one doesn't sudden
Re: (Score:2)
PS: I'm not trying to make any new definition. I'm just trying to understand what entanglement is. It seems to be an extension of conservation of energy.
Re: (Score:2)
> "Spooky" was the old way to call it before science settled on "quantum entanglement". Actually, it was not just "spooky", but "spooky action at a distance". Update your vocabulary accordingly, "scientific" "journalist" person.
They can’t update too efficiently, because that would be considered “freaky”.
There’s a two-PhD minimum to unlock that. Not everyone is qualified.