| The Principle Landmark: |
The Entangled Particle
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In their pristine state, quanta are not just
in one place at one time: each single quantum is
both "here" and "there"--and in a sense it is
everywhere in space and time.
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Until they are observed or measured, quanta
have no definite characteristics but instead
exist simultaneously in several states at the
same time. These states are not "real" but
"potential"--they are the states the quanta can
assume when they are observed or measured. (It
is as if the observer, or the measuring
instrument, fishes the quanta out of a sea of
possibilities. When a quantum is pulled out of
that sea, it becomes real rather than a mere
virtual beast--but one can never know in advance
just which of the various real beasts it
could become it actually will become.
It appears to choose its real states on its
own.)
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Even when the quantum is in a set of real
states, it does not allow us to observe and
measure all of the states at the same time: when
we measure one of its states (for example,
position or energy), another becomes blurred
(such as its speed of motion or the time of its
observation).
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Quanta are highly sociable: once they are in
the same state, they remain linked no matter how
far they travel from each other. When one of the
formerly connected quanta is subjected to an
interaction (that is, when it is observed or
measured), it chooses its own state--and its
twin also chooses its own state, but not freely:
it chooses it according to the choice of the
first twin It always chooses a complementary
state, never the same one.
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Within a complex system (such as the whole
setup of an experiment), quanta exhibit just as
sociable behaviors. If we measure one of the
quanta in the system, the others become "real"
(that is, similar to a comonsense object) as
well. Even more remarkably, if we create an
experimental situation where a given quantum can
be individually measured, all the other quanta
become "real" even if the experiment is not
carried out...
[
Laszlo, pp. 31-32]
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