It's occurred to me that quantum entanglement's so-called "spooky action at a distance" could be explained if the entangled particles are actually not "at a distance". That is, that there is a "0th dimension" - possibly the size of the whole universe - in which all matter is at a single point.

Has anyone explored this concept?

I was wondering about the plausibility of a "joke theory" I saw in an online web comic (www.qwantz.com not sure where it is anymore though). Essentially it suggested that all electrons are the same electron except it just travels through time - explaining their being identical.

Originally I almost dismissed the idea pretty quickly. However, since reading the most recent New Scientist in which the main article said that quantum particles such as electrons and photons have no place on the arrow of time (or something like that). It seems that this theory is more plausible if not just for me.

At least in the case that the electron has "failed to kill itself" (/will fail to kill itself / is currently failing to kill itself).

Thanks for your views and help in advance!

If you define an arbitrary plane in free space, then the mass, momentum, and energy of virtual particles crossing the surface will balance (statistically over a given time period). If this plane is parallel to and very close to an event horizon, then an imbalance occurs as some of the virtual particles are lost to the event horizon, making re-combination impossible and thus creating a surplus. The net surplus at the other side of the surface in terms of the mass, momentum and energy of the orphaned particles is then balanced by the mass, momentum and energy of the particles that strayed far enough from the original plane to cross the nearby event horizon. This implies that if an event horizon occurs, it will leak energy (mass and momentum from orphaned virtual particles) into the "real particle" universe.

My problem is that this model leaks from the "vacuum energy", and creates Hawking Radiation in equal, statistically interchangeable, forms on both sides of the gap between the arbitrary plane, and the event horizon. Everything you loose on one side, you have therefore gained, as an orphan, on the other. You get opposite charge, but still the same individual mass and overall momentum. So the total vacuum energy erodes (very slowly) but the black hole expands (also very slowly).

Even if you invoke negative energy particles, they are either repelled by the gravitational field (making things much worse) or at best they cancel the in-falling Hawking Radiation, and produce some very strange external emissions, but no net loss of mass from the black hole. I can’t create a bias, as it implies a bias in free space. Besides, I can’t tell in advance which virtual pairs will become separated, or which individuals orphaned, so there is no biasing mechanism available.

If this was the case then black holes would remain stable. Can someone please explain what is missing from this model? How does it differ from the accepted model of Hawking Radiation and the decay of Black Holes?

Specifically would an object with said increased electromagnetic bonds etc. exhibit appearances of being colder than they actually were due to the increased energy required to excite them?

The Schrodingers cat experiment says the cat is still dead and alive at the same time because whether or not the cat is dead or alive has not been measured. I may have misunderstood the experiment- but why doesn't the cat seeing whether or not the vial has broken count as a measurement, even if it is only the cat who knows. The experiment implies a difference between the cat's consciousness and that of the human, which of course there is, but what is this difference and how do we know about the cat's consciousness?

An electron is both a particle and a wave, and we cannot define exactly where a subatomic particle/wave is because it is spread out across time and space - we can only define it through probabilities. Wouldn't there need to be infinite precision and no uncertainty in nature for nature to be deterministic? Considering that infinite precision and certainty don't appear to exist - because experiments show randomness and uncertainty exists at the heart of nature, then would it be correct to assume that both atomic and subatomic particles/waves do not always interact with one another with infinite precision and if so then is it correct to conclude that nature cannot be deterministic - i.e. by having exact knowledge of the starting conditions of the universe and infinite computing power it would still be impossible to calculate exactly how the universe would evolve?

I'm probably way in over my head with this question, but as I understand it a neutrino particle can disappear from point A and appear at, say for arguements sake, point B. Now is there a trackable path or have I got it right that quantum physics can't it en-route between these points. If this is so then does that mean that sub-atomic particles able to do this might be traveling faster than light, because I thought that was the pinnacle of speed in the universe? Young of Japan suggests that (by my understanding) they possibly change form and can't be detected in their new form by the lab's equipment. Does anyone have a theory on any of this?

A proton is ment to have two (2) up quarks and one (1) down quark right? Up quarks spin clockwise so down quarks spin anti-clockwise, so if we flipped the proton around 180 degree's it becomes a neutron. what is a clear definition between a neutron and a proton?

If you continuously move your hand in a clockwise circle (representing a up quark) infront of another person. He/she would say you would be moving your hand in an anti-clockwise direction.  

I was pondering Schrödinger’s Cat while watching “Deal or No Deal”.  Now, it occurs to me at this point that the readers of this journal are more likely to need an explanation of what “Deal or No Deal” is, rather than any enlightenment as to the mysteries of Schrödinger.  Nonetheless, I intend to assume the reader has intrinsic knowledge of both topics – go ‘Google’ if you don’t!

My ponderings lay not with the misguided folk who are convinced they have a plan to ‘beat the banker’ because the box they have bears the same number as their birthday, but rather with the possible complexities of what I will call Schrödinger’s Cash.    

So, let us imagine the way things happen at the moment.  Before the show just one person is responsible for putting the monetary values, from 1p to £250,000 (substitute your own currency depending on where you live) into the boxes numbered 1 to 22.  At this point he is the only person in the universe who knows which value is in which box – and of course during game play selecting the box and accepting the bankers deal is simply statistics.  Box ‘n’ has always, and will always, contain value ‘x’ and every contestant has a 1 in 22 chance of having any particular value in their box.  It doesn’t matter in which order the boxes are opened, these facts will never change and the value ‘y’ in the contestants box will always be the value ‘y’.

Now imagine, if before the show, the 22 boxes do not have a number in their initial state (this may be the case, I don’t know – but I doubt it) so all the boxes are identical, blank and indistinguishable from one another.  The boxes are lined up on a long shelf, in a sealed room where only one person at a time is permitted to enter.  The first person still has the responsibility to put monetary values into the boxes at random and then seal each box.   Once this is done, he leaves the room and a second person enters.  Then, at random, the second person randomly allocates each box a number so the boxes now have numbers from 1 – 22. 

In my view, all these boxes now have Schrödinger’s Cash inside them.  No one in the universe now knows which value (state) any numbered box contains until the box is opened.

However, this now takes my (very) limited understanding of Erwin Schrödinger’s hypothesis beyond breaking point. But that’s just me I hope.  Undoubtedly someone reading this has far superior understanding and can offer further comment on the following points.

Firstly, each box has 22 possible states – and by thought experiment this logic can be extended to an infinite amount of possible states in an infinite amount of boxes were used.  However, once one box is opened and its value (state) ascertained the other states do not change (as with Schrödinger’s Cat) because there are an infinite number of boxes – as infinity minus 1 is still infinity.   Even with a less than infinite number of boxes (lets say 22) once one box is opened the other boxes still have unknown (albeit diminished optional) states.

Now lets consider a variation.  None of the boxes have to be opened in order to change all of their states to a known value.  All that needs to happen is that ‘person one’ talks to ‘person two’ and says “I put the values in the boxes left to right along the shelf in this order…..” whereby  ‘person two’ says “I put the numbers on the boxes left to right in the this order….”.  Now, so long as neither were lying,  person one and person two both know the state of every box but none have been opened.  And to get round the possibility of either person being a scallywag, each person video tapes their time in the sealed room with the boxes so that it clearly shows what they did, but they do not show this recording until they want to collapse the possible states of each box to a known value.

Finally, does this new method of loading the boxes with Schrödinger’s Cash change the statistics of the game?  I doubt it, but does it make me wonder how you would explain to Noel Edmonds (substitute your country’s quizmaster) that the final two boxes both contained (say) 10p and £250,000.