Well, they dont have to do it instantaneously for that sort of computer to be possible. I'm a *really* poor physics student, but nothing should happen instantaneously... energy has to be transferred, quarks have to jump around, etc. But I've read about quantum computers and changing spin states in place of logic gates, that sounds pretty cool (like DNA computers, but neither will happen for a veeerry long time. The only working next-gen computer is an optical one, and it's not as mind-boggling as we once thought.).
anything worth theorizing about. Any measurement of a photon's spin will require a non-zero amount of time. (Why do people who don't have a chance of getting anywhere always insist on trying?) And I left something out of my last message. Once those two photons somehow get simultaneously emitted by the atom, *after* that, they exist independently. Any process that changes the spin state of one photon will have no effect on the other photon's spin state.
you still don't understand.
THE INSTANTANEOUSNESS I AM TALKING ABOUT is NOT NOT NOT the measurement but WHAT HAPPENS AFTER, which is that the OTHER photon must be THE OPPOSITE spin state of the first, because the assumption is that they BOTH, together, INITIALLY have a 0 spin!......
So I'm not getting through to you.
It's called, it is claimed, the "Einstein Podolsky Rosen Experiment". The effect is "Quantum Entanglment".......
Quote:Actually, i'm reading some psychology reports about a pill that repleneshes correct amounts of chemicals you gain during sleep, such that you'd be able to stay awake 24/7. Kind of like a caffiene pill without the adverse affects (they'd better release this baby non-perscription cheap before i go to college 
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Sounds like one of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories from
Tales From the White Hart... a scientist concocts a chemical to keep this guy from sleeping, but the guy ends up staying up all the time. He cannot stand this after a few weeks of walking around and trying to find things to do when no one's awake at 3 am, so he goes back to the scientist, who gives him the antidote, but he ends up going into a coma-like state and just sleeps all the time.
Doesn't sound too good.
Funny, I was watching Babylon 5 and the chief doctor dude had a stim addiction problem.
Agamemnus, until you stop repeating the same incohorent gibberish. Whatever happens after whatever measurement you're talking about isn't going to happen in zero time. Photons don't just magically change their spin state. They do so because of some momentum-conserving non-instantateous process. What two photon's spins are both zero before *what* measurement? *What* information is generated by *what?
If you read something from Einstein that you think is his hypothesizing some method of transmitting information faster than the speed of light in vacuum, you simply don't understand what you're reading. (*That's* been clear from the start.)
Ah, that's better.
"What two photon's spins are both zero before *what* measurement? *What* information is generated by *what?"
They are both zero before "A" measurement of the spin of ONE of the photons. The information that is TRANSFERRED to the other photon happens instantaneously when the first is measured, since their total spin is zero, but their individual spins are unknown.
The informations transferred is the spin of the other atom.
Go back. Are you arguing over whether these photos go faster than the speed of light, change their spin instantly, or what? I dont understand who's trying to convince who of what.
previous post has teh answers
Measuring or in any way doing anything to affect the spin of one photon will not in any way affect the other photon. And again one more time, you have no factual basis for believing that any such process will be instantaneous. (We've been over all of this, ad nauseum.
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You seem to be reading *way too much* into one statement about the momentum state of two photons as they're emitted by an atom. The processes that determine the net spin state at emission has nothing to do with what happens afterwards. Perhaps you're thinking that, before they're emitted, the two photons are somehow already in existence inside the atom and that you can somehow control those photon's spin states. A photon does not in fact exist before it's emitted. It's created at emission. (The atom itself looses angular momentum and energy.) Since the photon doesn't exist before emission, your apparent assertion that you can somehow adjust its spin state is even more ludicrous than it otherwise would be.
You still have not addressed the question of how the information (whatever it is) is transmitted. That involves an observation process, and that's *another* process, to again repeat myself, that will not occur instantaneously.