“Spooky action at a distance” is, of course, a quote from Albert Einstein to describe quantum entanglements.

Wait – wait, don’t run!  Come back!

I know “quantum entanglement” sounds like a really difficult concept on which to get a handle.  It is, indeed, very difficult; however, I’ve no doubt it’s a concept you are fully capable of understanding.  Remember, I read your comments and emails.  We’re not getting into the deep water here (and it does get very deep and murky), we’re just going to wade in and splash around a bit.

Albert Einstein, 1905, Swiss Patent Office Image: Historical Museum of Berne by Lucien Chaven (1868-1942) Einstein is 26 years old in this photograph

To start off, look at the word “quantum”.  You may as well, you know… you run across it everywhere.  I sat and quickly counted 38 terms using the word “quantum”… that’s just what hit me off the top of my head, I have no idea how many such terms are in use.  The word springs out at you in some surprising combinations, from the immediately recognizable (quantum physics), to the “not so much” (quantum suicide).  We’ll be dealing with the word only as it applies in physics.  You can read a dictionary as well as I, but in physics “quantum” basically indicates the smallest possible state of being, without alteration, that can be achieved.  This is matter and energy in its most basic form; elementary particles.  An atom would be an example of an elementary particle, although as far as particles go, an atom is pretty bulky.  Knowing that, you can see immediately that the phrase “quantum entanglement” is going to be about the entanglement of objects at their most basic level.  This is not the same thing as the bonds which exist between two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen to make a molecule of water.

With quantum entanglements, two or more objects are linked (joined) at their quantum (smallest possible) level so that you cannot fully describe the one without the other, no matter how far apart they are.  In a water molecule, you can describe the oxygen atom quite nicely without ever describing the hydrogen atoms.  Interested?  Here’s where it gets spooky.

The Scream by Edvard Munch 1893 Image: The National Gallery, Oslo, Norway

If you separate the objects which are entangled, even by as far as a million light years, they still act as one object.  No matter how far apart they are.  If you have one of the objects on the Earth and the other object on Pluto, and you move the Earth object two feet, then the object on Pluto will move two feet… at exactly the same time, in exactly the same manner, in exactly the same direction.  Anything that happens to the first object will happen to the second, immediately.  Anything.  The Sun and the Earth are about 93 million miles apart, and it takes light a little over 8 minutes to travel that distance through space.  Two objects which are entangled but separated by the same distance, 93 million miles, will still react identically and immediately.  Notice that I’m not saying “about”, “nearly”, “approximately”, or “quickly”.  I’m saying “exactly”, “identically”, and “immediately”.  That is so cool.

Quantum entanglement is not science fiction or science theory; this is science fact.  It’s also our future.  Just imagine if you had a “quantum entanglement communicator” and wanted to talk with someone living on a planet 10 billion light years away.  Communication would be instant, it would NOT take billions of years.  You could sit in your living room and safely drive a vehicle located on Mars.  Or Neptune.  Can you imagine the speed of a quantum entanglement computer?  No matter how many million terabytes you’re processing, it processes instantly.  Not within seconds or nanoseconds… instantly.  And get this; not only are scientists looking at quantum entanglement for instant information transfer, they’re also looking at it for instant matter transfer.

Several people have told me through the years that the sciences are boring, and I needed to be doing something interesting and exciting with my life.

Right.