Quantum entanglement is an interesting phenomenon. Two or more quantum particles can be linked together in a special way; this makes them behave like one entity. A change in one of the constituent particles can instantly be observed in the other, independent of the distance between the particles. This phenomenon was called “entanglement” by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. The basics of quantum entanglement (1) and quantum computers (2) are discussed in recent articles in The Fountain magazine. Some physicists (3, 4, 5) explain this phenomenon by suggesting that the two entangled particles are actually a single particle that can be observed from two different locations in the universe at the same time point, as if they have been created to appear as a pair. At the quantum level, the definitions of space and time become obscure. An atom can be in two distant locations at the same time, but this may not be the case for a paper clip. What about dozens or thousands of atoms? Where is the line between atoms and a paper clip?

Entanglement has already been experimented on atoms (6) and observed in biological systems at room temperatures. A recent study (7) found the first evidence of biological organisms showing strange quantum behaviors. Researchers from UC Berkeley believe that they have observed quantum entanglement occurring in photosynthesis. The possibility of using these molecules for quantum information processing at room temperature may open the doors for photosynthetic quantum computers. This finding could lead to solar cells that are more efficient than today’s photovoltaic cells.

Quantum entanglement has many areas of application, including secure encryption (8), ultra-fast quantum computers (9), ghost imaging (10), teleportation (11), and perhaps the most interesting one, telepathy (12). Telepathy is described as the transfer of thought or feeling from one person to another without using known channels of communication. Fredric W. H. Myers, founder of the Society for Psychical Research, coined the term, telepathy, in 1882 to replace the earlier expression thought-transference. Telepathy is one of the main branches of parapsychological research, and has been studied to try to detect, understand, and utilize phenomena (13). It is often accepted that there is a connection between telepathy and other paranormal phenomena, such as precognition, clairvoyance and empathy. The existence of telepathy has been confirmed through many scientific experiments (12). However there is no accepted mechanism that explains how telepathy works. It remains controversial and is not widely accepted by scientists.

It is always appealing to perceive a phenomenon as happening from nothing or without a cause, as often happens in movies or dreams. But is this realistic? There are many mechanisms, structures, and reactions we can observe in nature which cannot be understood with our current knowledge. One can quickly make a list of things that cannot be explained by science today. It is believed that there is a cause and effect relation, and a reasonable explanation for everything in this universe. Some will push this further to offer an incredible prize for an opposite claim. The JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) has offered a one-million-dollar prize (14) to the person who can show (under proper experimental conditions) evidence of any paranormal or supernatural event. They will remove telepathy from the list of supernatural events if it can be achieved during a controlled experiment.

Some researchers claim that there is a connection between quantum theory and telepathy. One theory is that the human mind has abilities that influence and receive “quantum fluctuations” from other minds. Another theory explains this instantaneous communication with quantum entanglement. Gao Shen, at the Institute of Quantum Physics in Beijing, China, has conducted experiments (12) to understand this connection by monitoring synchronous EEG patterns between two hypothetically “entangled” minds.

There are many natural events in our daily life that might seem like telepathy. You might hear something from one of your friends or relatives, for example, that they can perceive a phenomenon like an injury or illness to a close person from a distance. Many people claim that they have this kind of experience, especially twins with one another, or mothers and children. Are all these people in close relationships-twins, couples, siblings, parent and child-also sharing quantum entangled particles?

Humans are not the only subjects that show telepathic properties. It has reported (15) that intact double-stranded DNA has an ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands. This recognition occurs between sequences of several hundred nucleotides without physical contact or the presence of proteins. The way they identify one another and combine chemically is not fully understood. This behavior can be observed in water that contains no proteins or other material that could interfere with the reaction. There needs to be some sort of communication, attraction or guidance between individual DNA strands to explain this behavior. Do these DNA strands communicate through entangled particles?

Could this telepathic behavior of DNA be the explanation of the power of extra sensory perception between people close to each other? Are we all entangled with one another with invisible bonds, existing since the time of Adam and Eve? Is it all because of the genetic inheritance in our DNA? Do our actions affect others, even if we have no direct connection or relation to them? Maybe all the living things and our lives in this universe are a part of a single mechanism, guided and connected in a special way we cannot understand with our current scientific knowledge.

Einstein pointed (16) out the illusion of separateness: “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as someone separated from the rest’a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

All these intriguing features of the quantum world can promise new ways of communication, including telepathy. Recent developments in quantum physics, observing entanglement in atoms and biological systems, mysterious communication between DNA strands, and telepathic connection between humans are all pieces of an unsolved puzzle. When we think about how we perceive this world with our known physical senses, and how it might be with other unknown perspectives, we can then wonder what percentage of things in our universe we have not been able to see or know. There is a long way to go before understanding the universe with our limited perspectives and physical senses.

Acknowledgment: This article was produced in MERGEOUS (17), an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

References

(1) S. Candaroglu, “Quantum Entanglement: Illusion or Reality?”. Fountain, Issue 61 January – February, 2008.

(2) O. D. Ikramoglu, “Quantum-Inspired World of Computers: Science or Fiction?”. Fountain, Issue 74, March – April, 2010.

(3) M. A. Nielsen and I. L. Chuang, Quantum Information and Quantum Computing (Cambridge U. Press, 2000).

(4) Ryszard Horodecki, Pawe Horodecki, Micha Horodecki, Karol Horodecki, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 865-942 (2009).

(5) M. Genovese, Cosmology and entanglement, Adv. Sci. Lett. 2, 303-309 (2009).

(6) S. Olmschenk, D.N. Matsukevich, P. Maunz, D. Hayes, L. M. Duan, C. Monroe, “Quantum Teleportation Between Distant Matter Qubits”. Science, 323, 5913, 486-489, 2009.

(7) M. Sarovar, A. Ishizaki, G. R. Fleming, K. B. Whaley, “Quantum entanglement in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes”. arXiv:0905.3787v1 (quant-ph), 2009.

(8) H. K. Lo, and N. Lutkenhaus, “Quantum Cryptography: from Theory to Practice”. arXiv:quantph/0702202, 2007.

(9) D. P. DiVincenzo, “Quantum Computation”. Science, 270, 5234, 255-261. doi:10.1126/science.270.5234.255, 1995.

(10) M. D’Angelo, Y.H. Kim, S.P. Kulik, Y. Shih, “Identifying entanglement using quantum ghost interference and imaging”, Physical review letters, 2004.

(11) D. Bouwmeester, J.W. Pan, K. Mattle, M. Eibl, H. Weinfurter, A. Zeilinger, “Experimental Quantum Teleportation”. Nature, 390, 6660, 575-579, 1997.

(12) S. Gao, “A Primary Quantum Model of Telepathy”. 2003. (Preprint)

(13) Wikipedia, Telepathy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy.

(14) James Randi Educational Foundation, “One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge”, Available online http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

(15) G. S. Baldwin, N. J. Brooks, R. E. Robson, A. Wynveen, A. Goldar, S. Leikin, J. M. Seddon, and A. A. Kornyshev, “DNA Double Helices Recognize Mutual Sequence Homology in a Protein Free Environment”. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 112, 4, 1060-1064, 2008.

(16) Elise’s collection of favorite quotes, http://elise.com/quotes/

(17) Mergeous, Online article and project development service, http://www.mergeous.com/

The quantum description of the universe is very different than the classically observed one, or our perceptions in everyday life. This new way of looking at nature has many consequences, both philosophically and practically. The modern technological development of the second half of the last century may be a very good example of the consequences of the discovery of the quantum world. Now we have a bunch of gadgets from cellular phones to long-lasting batteries, from engineered drugs to space missions, from pocket size computers to nanotechnology, a wide range of end-products of the quantum world. Certainly, these will not be the only changes in our life; quantum sciences will eventually affect the way we look at life.

One of the most dramatic potential changes in thought may arise from the discovery of the quantum entanglement of particles. Quantum entanglement can be described as non-classical correlations of different parties. It is very different than the classical description and can be explained by using the following analogy. Imagine an author writes a book of one hundred pages which includes the most precious arts or explains very important facts about the universe depending on one’s point of view. To make it more interesting or more realistic, he distributes each page of the book to one of his servants and asks them to read and understand the rules written in the book. That is, each servant has access only to one page of the book. If we assume the information on the pages is classical, every servant has one hundredth of the total information written in the book and if we let them communicate with each other, they can in principle reconstruct the written information. However, the situation is very strange in the quantum world. If the information in the book is written using entanglement principle of the quantum world, then none of the servants has any definite idea about the partial information on his page. It is as if the pages are empty. All the information about the content of the book is written on correlations of the pages, not physically on each page. So, the servants can have no idea, if they only look at their pages.

Einstein vs. Bohr

To understand this strange feature of quantum entanglement we should review the historical development of the concept. One of the earliest objections came from Einstein, who was one of the developers of quantum theory. Although he explained the photoelectric effect by introducing the concept of quantization of light, he did not believe in some of its consequences. Mainly, he was not sure about the completeness of quantum theory because of its contradictions with common sense and the theory of relativity. The famous 1927 Solvey Con ference was a turning point for debates between Einstein and Niels Bohr, who was also one of the developers of quantum theory and the Copenhagen interpretations of the theory.

Einstein tried to show this incompleteness by proposing different Gedanken (thought) experiments. Each of these questions was answered rigorously by Bohr. However, Einstein was never convinced by Bohr about the completeness of the theory. The last one of these Gedanken experiments was one related to our concept, quantum entanglement. It is called the EPR paradox and takes its name from the authors of the famous paper “Can a quantum mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?” by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935.

Mainly, the paper was about faster-than-light communication between physically separated objects, two particles. If two particles are generated from a source affected by the existence of a conservation law, like the conservation of energy, or linear or angular momentum, the conserved property is carried by the particles independent of their separation. If the conserved quantity is observed by measuring one of the particles, the other particle arranges itself according to the result of this measurement independent of the distance between particles. According to Bohr, this arrangement happens instantaneously at the time of measurement, which conflicts with Einstein’s theory of special relativity that says nothing can travel faster than light. Apparently, the knowledge of the result of the first measurement is carried somehow to the second particle. Bohr’s reply is now called the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. He takes this property as a postulate of quantum mechanics by saying that the state of the particles includes all information about them. After this explanation Einstein never replied again.

If we look more closely at the proposed experiment, we can deduce that in reality information is not transferred faster than light because although the measurement result of the second particle is decided by the first measurement, this information is hidden for the second particle. The result of the second measurement makes sense only if the result of the first measurement reaches the second one. Otherwise, the second measurement can be described as a random outcome of possible results. Now it makes sense if we return to the book description. Here our book has only two pages. Each page is given to one servant. If they only look at their pages there is no information, which means that measurement results are random.

However, if the two servants work together and share their measurement results, then the initial information can be reconstructed.

Coins

Einstein’s point of view can be described in the following example. Imagine we have two coins with the usual heads and tails on different sides. Let us assume that there is a conservation law deduced from everyday experiments stating that if we flip these two coins we always have two opposite results; that is, if we get tails from the one that we measured, the other one is heads for sure and vice versa. In the real world, these coins can be identified as electrons, photons or atoms. Heads/tails corresponds to the spin components for electrons, polarization directions for photons or ground/excited states for atoms. Now, imagine these two coins are separated by a large distance.

Einstein says that as soon as separation occurs the result of flipping is decided but this result is hidden from us. One can measure or learn it by performing a measurement or looking at each coin. Moreover, looking at only one coin is enough to determine the measurement result of the other coin, since the results are correlated. Conjecturing that the side of the coin is determined at the time of measurement is against the causality principle of the theory of relativity which says that cause and effect cannot be simultaneous. However, I am of the opinion that reality is closer to what Bohr described. That is, the result of the measurement is decided at the measurement time not at the separation time. Before the measurement, each coin shows both heads and tails at the same time. The information, deduced at the point of measurement when one of the coins is measured, is transferred faster than light, in other words, at infinite speed.

The nature of each coin is also very strange before the measurement because it includes both sides at the same time with equal probabilities, but a classical coin has only one side at one time, either heads or tails. Here the classical coin means the flipped or measured coin. This property of the quantum world is called parallelism. As in the famous case of Schrödinger’s cat, sometimes two extreme situations can happen at the same time. Schrödinger’s cat is a very special cat which is dead and alive at the same time, like a quantum coin. However, when one measures such a cat, that is, observes the cat, its nature collapses to one of the known situations, either a dead cat or a live cat. This measuring process happens systematically due to interactions with its surroundings and is called decoherence.

Although the quantum world is very strange and different than the classical world, it encapsulates more reality than we experience in our everyday life. In the near future, we can expect that ways of looking at the world will be different than the present mechanical, deterministic, and materialistic view because of the unexpected outcomes of the quantum world. If you know how to look, you can already feel this change.