New Type Of Entanglement Allows 'Teleportation in Time,' Say Physicists

Conventional entanglement links particles across space. Now physicists say a similar effect links particles through time.

Entanglement is the strange quantum phenomenon in which two or more particles become so deeply linked that they share the same existence.

That leads to some counterintuitive effects, in particular, when two entangled particles become widely separated. When that happens, a measurement on one immediately influences the other, regardless of the distance between them. This "spooky-action-at-a-distance" has profound implications about the nature of reality but a clear understanding of it still eludes physicists.

Today, they have something else to puzzle over. Jay Olson and Timothy Ralph at the University of Queensland in Australia say they've discovered a new type of entanglement that extends, not through space, but through time.

They begin by thinking about a simplified universe consisting of one dimension of space and one of time.

It's easy to plot this universe on a plane with the x-axis corresponding to a spatial dimension and the y-axis corresponding to time.

If you imagine the present as the origin of this graph, then the future (ie the space you can reach at subluminal speeds) forms a wedge that is symmetric about the y-axis. Your past (ie the space you could have arrived from at subluminal speeds) is a mirror image of this wedge reflected in the x-axis.

When two particles are present, both sitting on the x-axis, their wedges will overlap in the future and in the past. This has a simple meaning: these particles could have interacted in the past and could do so again in the future, but only in the areas of overlap.

Conventional entanglement cuts across this world, quite literally. It acts along the the x-axis, linking particles instantly in time and in defiance of the boundaries to these wedges.

What Olson and Ralph show is that entanglement can just as easily work along the y-axis too. In other words, entanglement is so deeply enmeshed in the universe that a measurement in the past has an automatic influence on the future.

That may sound like a truism. Isn't this is how the universe works, I hear you say. But this isn't ordinary cause and effect; there are some interesting subtleties to this phenomenon.

To see how, imagine an experiment that Ralph and Olson describe in which a qubit is sent into the future. The idea is that a detector acts on a qubit and then generates a classical message describing how this particle can be detected. Then, at some point in the future, another detector at the same position in space, receives this message and carries out the required measurement, thereby reconstructing the qubit.

But there's a twist. Olson and Ralph show that the detection of the qubit in the future must be symmetric in time with its creation in the past. "If the past detector was active at a quarter to 12:00, then the future detector must wait to become active at precisely a quarter past 12:00 in order to achieve entanglement," they say. For that reason, they call this process "teleportation in time".

But how is this different from ordinary existence? After all, we're all time travellers, moving into the future at the same rate. What's special about Olson and Ralph's route?

The answer is that Olson and Ralph's teleportation provides a shortcut into the future. What they're saying is that it's possible to travel into the future without being present during the time in between.

That's a fascinating scenario that immediately raises many questions. One of the first that springs to mind is what advantage might we get from this process. Might it be possible, for example, to make short-lived particles live longer by teleporting them into the future?

That isn't clear. Neither is it clear exactly how such an experiment might be done although. Presumably, it wouldn't be very different to the type of teleportation that is done in labs all over the world today, as a matter of routine (in fact Olson and Ralph say that timelike entangelment is interchangeable with the spacelike version).

That means it's only a matter of time before somebody tries it. We'll be watching!

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1101.2565: Extraction Of Timelike Entanglement From The Quantum Vacuum

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Well, our brains experience a "past, present and future" but how do you know that these perceptions aren't just an artifact or consequence of how our brains work? Heh, I remember watching an episode of Star Trek where the aliens sneer at the humans for being "linear" (ie. experiencing time linearly) Our brains work electrochemically, according to the arrow of entropy, which increases with the progress of these electrochemical reactions. So don't these reactions then create limitations or presumptions upon which our perspectives and reasoning are based?

Well I am going out on a limb and suggest partly why the 2012 date and the years around it might prove so interesting. I have read from different sources the idea "they"-whoever they are.... can see into the future, and have been able to for a long time. But when they get to 2012 the signal is out of phase, if they had devices to see into time and they reached a limit to how far they could see....IMO the possibility it's because time travel is achieved would be reasonable

reply to post by Drala


to further that....maybe 2012 is an agreed date from long ago...when they sent somebody ahead? And they sync from that date.....then there is an extra wave created.....and then perhaps its exponential from that point(that unit/time harmonic). Similar to computer processors....once we get the ball rolling we build on it...double every 18-24 month for silicon....and who knows the related time frame for non-silicon/time?...just thinking entanglement of time frequency application...lol...philadelphia experiment maybe....hmmmm lol..

reply to post by TribeOfManyColours


Fascinating Captain!

This research has profound implications for our future (no pun intended).

Imagine this;

We use the LHC to create antimatter..which could be an ideal fuel source, if only we could get it to survive longer than the tiny amounts of time it does so. We'd be able to use tiny amounts to crash into matter to create antimatter explosions to create energy, power star ships, anything really.

If we could create and then instantly transport to the future, say 1 second into the future, then again, then again and so on...we'd have an antimatter sample, that can survive for as long as we want it to. The same goes for radioactive particles. Teleport the particles forwards in time using chronoentanglement, endlessly.

Other areas of interest would be our actual brains and the quantum effects of thought.

What if a particular thought we have at a past point in our lives, has a direct correlation on what happens to our thoughts in the future?

If we use a group of Neurons to form a thought, through Q.C.E. (Quantum Chrono Entanglement) acting on it through time, will the same group of Neurons be activated in the future the same way as in the past?

Our perceptions will have changed in the future, so would we necessarily realise we had the same thought before? In other words, could this be a real world, scientific explanation for what we call Deja Vu? Simply receiving the exact same thoughts as we have had in the past?

I've heard about entanglement a few times.

Could someone shed more light on this, in a "for dummies" format? I've having trouble wrapping my head around the possibility of it. How is this known to exist and not just a theory?

Originally posted by theRhenn
I've heard about entanglement a few times.

Could someone shed more light on this, in a "for dummies" format? I've having trouble wrapping my head around the possibility of it. How is this known to exist and not just a theory?

Don't worry about it, most people, even the one's actively researching this branch of physics don't understand it themselves!

I'm certainly not a font of knowledge about this stuff either, but here's what (i think) i know.

Quantum entanglement means that if you had a pair of particles (doesn't much matter what it is), and separate the two particles (or more) by a great distance such as one particle one side of the planet, the other on the opposite side (or even one planet to another, or galaxy to another, or Universe..to another), and interact with particle 'A', instantly, regardless of the distances separating the two particles, whatever you do to particle A will also happen to particle B, even though it might be one meter away, or a mile, or a light year, or millions of light years!

They are 'entangled'. What happens to one, will also happen to the other, even though the other hasn't been physically touched or measured. The 'Chrono-Entanglement' that is being talked about here, is the same phenomena, only not having particle A&B separated by linear distance, but by time instead.

So, what you do to particle A, will also happen to particle B, but at some point in the future, rather than some point in space/distance.

It's a weird and wacky Multiverse we live in, (whatever 'life' really is) which is why i find it bizarre when physics snobs bemoan impossibility of anything that is not written in the latest physics theory books!

Only the 'really' smart people realise they know virtually nothing about physics and the nature of reality. To gauge what is possible and what isn't possible in physics, based on knowledge that amounts to virtually nothing is to my mind, simple ignorant snobbery.

But that's pretty much what i know of Q.E. (and now Q.C.E.).

Originally posted by spikeyQuantum entanglement means that if you had a pair of particles (doesn't much matter what it is), and separate the two particles (or more) by a great distance such as one particle one side of the planet, the other on the opposite side (or even one planet to another, or galaxy to another, or Universe..to another), and interact with particle 'A', instantly, regardless of the distances separating the two particles, whatever you do to particle A will also happen to particle B, even though it might be one meter away, or a mile, or a light year, or millions of light years!

This, I understand. That's all I understand about it. I translate it like this...

You take a bar of gold, you break it in half... You will have trillions to the n'th degree in particles in each. But they are all made of GOLD atoms, subs, whatever it is that is GOLD.

You take one half and toss it in the fire, and take the other to france and put the most sensitive thermometer on it and you will witness an increase in heat chenneling through from the half that smolders in the fire.

If this is true, then it seems the "star dust" that we're standing on should still be radiating heat on it's own from whatever star makes it originaly. Since there are other stars still, and what they throw off is still a part of everything around you, then it seems we'd all be smoldering as well.

Seems to me, science shares the same aspects as religion in general.

Makes one wonder how many facts compare to the amount of theories we believe are facts, and just how many facts are based from theory. It makes one wonder, how much do we REALLY know...

reply to post by TribeOfManyColours


Couple of things... Quantum Entanglement occurs during the production of BEC's and of course occurs at quantum levels. QE can be physically emulated using magnetic monopoles to increase the size of the entangled structures so that its process is functional within classical reality. This is not new and the papers can be acquired from the NRC under FOIA in Ottawa (adiabatic reactors, electron degeneracy, quantum entanglement, bose einstein condensates) since the research was in part paid for by the Canadian government, but might be considered a national security issue and not be released.

That being said, there are two fundamental problems with QE/QEC across time; the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy. If matter and/or energy can be transmitted/sent from one time to another, one or both of the above laws will be broken. Imagine what would happen if half of the matter/energy of the universe were suddenly transported in time a split second or even 12 months into the future. Our past universe would contain half the mass/energy and the future universe being transported to, would contain 1.5 times the mass/energy if you did mass to time slices (it's an extreme analogy but valid). It would literally destroy the dynamic of the universe. Smaller deficits or surpluses would cause smaller effects, but we have no idea what the cumulative effects would be.

There are additional problems at least with non-temporally related QE which is the ability to create micro-singularities. Let's say you could "entangle" 100 trillion atoms into a single macro-atom through subatomic degeneracy, now you have a single slightly larger atom by "volume" with a mass 100 trillion times the original mass of a single atom. That produces gravity, quite possibly the carnivorous and voracious gravity of a singularity, a black hole. I was involved in a project that was shut down because of this potential outcome. Another problem is the energy required to curve the pathway through non-space between "entangled" particles that have been separated and are at ground state. The amount of energy required is inversely exponential to the separation distance, when the particles come in extremely close contact, less than one angstrom, the energy requirement becomes infinite. What that basically means is it is "cheaper" energy-wise to send a message halfway across the universe than it is to send one next door.

Unless there is a mechanism that can be incorporated that exchanges identical amounts of matter/energy at exactly the same "time", the probability of this kind of exchange working without catastrophic consequences is almost zero. It sounds to me like an interesting "mathematical" anomaly, but altogether separate from reality and I am not saying that it's impossible, just highly improbable.

I've physically and experimentally worked with BEC's and ER/EPR solutions since the 90's and have my own monopoles and adiabatic reactor, so I know a little bit about this subject ;-)

Cheers - Dave

Next time, before posting a new thread, at least look at the most recent posts to see if there's one with the exact same title. It's only been two days since that thread was active.

Did they tried the interresting part of it ?

Sending an information from the future.

Apparently the scientist had not tried yet ... maybe the military complex will try it soon ?

You know entrenglement work also with energy, not just qubit .... there are allways tricks

soon or sooner ?

Scientist are boring , they want allways a clear theory : because they are afraid they don't the reality

in fact : NOBODY know how the quantum reality works

I SAID NOBODY : even the brightest searcher has just a "theory of 'it'" : and let be clear : it is wrong : because it is incomplete, and because you want it to be whole

linear with the same rules everywhere : a beautiful reality