Re: Information transfer without energy transfer

Bruce Edmonds (B.Edmonds@MMU.AC.UK)
Mon, 9 Oct 1995 09:31:41 GMT


Francis:
> >>Before getting too involved in this discussion let me elucidate a common
> >>mistake, which seems to come back in Bruce's question. The non-local
> >>correlations of quantum mechanics, as exemplified by the
> >>Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, but which also appear in different
> >>situations like the Aharonov-Bohm effect, and the de Broglie paradox,
> >>CANNOT BE USED TO TRANSFER INFORMATION. (trust me, I made a PhD thesis
> >>about this subject). This is why there is no contradiction between
> >>relativity theory, which says that matter/energy/causality/information
> >>cannot travel faster than light, and quantum mechanics, which says that
> >>non-local correlations are instantaneous.

Yes, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this. This does not
mean that information has to be transmitted by energy or matter
TRANSFER (although no know examples are known).

For example "charge" can move faster than light. You have a very
long plastic wire and a laser light which scans it from end to end so
that the point of illumination on the wire moves faster than light.
This plastic is such that when so illuminated it becomes momentarily
charged there. When you do this the point of charge moves faster
than light. So what - this is purely an illusion isn't it? No this
moving charge actually produces an magnetic field.

This does not, of course show that information can be transferred in
such a manner from A to B. The point is that the laws of physics do
not talk (much) about information, merely energy or matter or fields
etc. It is assumed that these are the only ways information can be
transmitted. This is an assumption.

Another point (related to dons) is that there is no possible
complete containment for energy and matter. Even a black hole gives
off energy and matter due to quantum effects at its event horizen as
Steven Hawkins showed.

----------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Edmonds
Centre for Policy Modelling,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building,
Aytoun Street, Manchester, M1 3GH. UK.
Tel: +44 161 247 6479 Fax: +44 161 247 6802
http://bruce.edmonds.name/bme_home.html