A photo from open sources
Physicists say: time is an emerging phenomenon, a side quantum entanglement effect of particles. And now they have the first time in the world experimental results appeared that this confirm.
In 1983, theoretical physicists Don Page and William Wooters proposed an innovative theory based on the phenomenon of quantum tangles. This exotic property allows two quantum particles to have a common existence, even if they are physically are divided.
Quantum entanglement is a deep and powerful bond, and Page and Wuthers demonstrated that it can be used to measure time. Their idea was that the way the couple entangled particles evolve, is some kind of hours that can be used to measure time.
But the results obtained in their concept depended on how observation was carried out. One way is to compare changes in entangled particles using an external clock that completely independent of the universe. This is the equivalent of a godlike an observer beyond our universe measuring evolution particles using an external clock.
In this case, Page and Wuthers showed that the particles would be completely unchanged – time in such a scenario will not be exist.
But there is another way that gives a different result. In him the observer is internal and compares the evolution of particles with using the rest of the universe. In this case, the internal observer will see a change, and this difference in particle evolution in comparison with everything else will be an important measure of time.
This is an elegant and powerful concept. She suggests that time is this is an emerging phenomenon that appears in reality thanks to the nature of quantum entanglement. And it exists only for observers inside our universe. Any godlike observer outside it will see a static unchanging universe, as previously predicted by the earlier quantum equation Wheeler-DeWitt.
Of course, without experimental confirmation of Page’s idea and Wuthers is nothing more than a philosophical curiosity. And since we don’t have no way to get an observer outside of our of the universe – then, apparently, we have no chance and ever confirm this theory.
At least that was until today. A few days back Ekaterina Moreva from Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica in Turin, Italy, and several of her colleagues managed for the first time experimentally verify the ideas of Page and Wuthers. And they demonstrated that time is really emerging a phenomenon for internal observers, but it does not exist for external observers.
This experiment involves creating a toy universe, consisting of a pair of entangled photons and an observer who can measure their condition in one of two ways. In the first observer measures the evolution of the system, confusing itself with it. In the second godlike observer measures evolution versus external watches that are completely independent of the toy universe.
A photo from open sources
The experiment itself is fairly straightforward. Each confused photon has a polarization that can be changed by passage through a birefringent plate. In the first case, the observer measures the polarization of a single photon, thus confusing with him. He then compares the result with the polarization of the second photon. The difference he received will be a measure of time.
In the second case, both photons also pass through birefringent plates that change their polarization. However, in this case, the observer measures only global properties of both photons, comparing them with independent clocks.
In this case, the observer cannot notice any difference. between photons without coming in a state of confusion with one of them. And if there is no difference, the system appears before him as static. In other words, time does not arise in it.
“Although it is incredibly simple, our model combines two contradicting each other, as it seemed before, the properties of the mechanism Page Wuthers, “says Moreva.
This is a very impressive experiment. The appearance of something is a popular concept in science. In particular, recently physicists interested in the idea that gravity is also such an emerging phenomenon. And from here to the idea of a similar mechanism the emergence of time was only one step away.
What is missing in gravity is, of course, an experimental demonstration that would show how it works in practice. That is why Moreva’s work has such a important – for the first time in the world it places an abstract and exotic idea on a sustainable experimental basis.
And perhaps the most important result of this work is that for the first time she was able to demonstrate that quantum mechanics and general relativity is not so incompatible.
The next step will be the further development of the idea, in particular – at the macroscopic level. It’s one thing to show how time arises in photons, and another – to understand how it arises for people.
And it will be a difficult job.
Time Universe Gravity Evolution
