Aihuxv.108 net.misc utzoo!decvax!harpo!mhtsa!ihnss!ihuxv!lew Mon May 3 20:54:53 1982 Of quantum, uncertainty, and confusion That clarifying article of Don Chan's is in grave error. The whole point of the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky paradox is that only one of A and B can observe the electron, even though this fact would SEEM to imply information (in the form of the collapsing wave function) travelling faster than light. A little thought ( a lot, actually ) shows that no information is being sent from A to B by this process. The cited SciAm article dwells on a subtler ramification of the paradox in the case of oppositely emitted, anticorrelated spins. In this case the metaphysician is not even allowed the luxury of imaging that the particles *really were* in some state or other the whole time. This is a consequence of Bell's Theorem, which is explained in the article. Read it again, Don! L H Mammel Jr ihuxv ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.