Pulling Entangled Photons Out of a Hat

… or perhaps not.

Entanglement Is Not That Magic

That said, though, it’s fairly common to hear claims of the form “when two particles are entangled, anything you do to one of them changes the state of the other.” This is not strictly true, though, and it’s worth going through in detail, if only so I have something to point to the next time somebody starts using that line. This will necessarily involve some math, but I’ll try to keep it as simple as I can.

2 thoughts on “Pulling Entangled Photons Out of a Hat

  1. I really like that description. It’s satisfying to see that “spooky action at a distance” isn’t really occurring, yet still communicates what’s mysterious about the concept. I haven’t seen an explanation before that does both of those things, which is probably why it’s so confusing to people.

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