Can "cause & effect" travel faster than the speed of light?

[bystander]

I don't think that particles have the three gates needed to send 1's and 0's . That would be the - and, or and nor gates.

Not sure what you mean by a NOR gate, but all logic gates can be built from AND, OR, and an inverter, NOT.

If you mean what I think you mean, (A NOR B) <=> ((NOT A) AND (NOT B)) <=> NOT (A OR B).
So, a NOR gate is an OR gate with an inverter on the output, or an AND gate with inverters on the inputs.

[Beyond]

I don't think that particles have the three gates needed to send 1's and 0's . That would be the - and, or and nor gates.

Not sure what you mean by a NOR gate, but all logic gates can be built from AND, OR, and an inverter, NOT.

If you mean what I think you mean, (A NOR B) <=> ((NOT A) AND (NOT B)) <=> NOT (A OR B).
So, a NOR gate is an OR gate with an inverter on the output, or an AND gate with inverters on the inputs.

Bystander, the teaching of and-or-and nor gates is about 40 years old. The nor gate would not allow any 1's or 0's at all. For all i know now, they probably only use one "smart" gate for everything. But for the purposes of saying that you cannot transmit data via particles(at least in their normal state)it worked for me even though it was 40 years old. Thats also the extent of my knowledge of computer operation, except for the "target" function, that is.

[Henning Makholm]

Ok, what the (expletive) is going on here? A little maze of twisty non-sequiturs.

1. There is nothing special or magical about the symbols 0 and 1 for communications. What you need to communicate is just for one end (the sender) to do something that makes some difference at the other end (receiver). Preferably it would make a difference in a fully reliable way, but as long as it's better than random it's just a matter of well-known communications engineering to do it many times and bundle the results into a useful communications channel. Making a difference just means that at receiver you can tell the difference between something happening and something else happening. Communications engineers will typically choose to call "someting" 0 and "something else" 1 (or vice versa), because that's how their jargon goes, but that is completely irrelevant for how the thing they build actually works.

2. Logic gates are used to design machines that process information. It is not necessary for an information-processing machine to consist of logic gates; it's just how people seem to find it easiest and most convenient to create them. Furthermore, mere transport of information does not require that the information is processed, so even allowing for engineering convenience, there is no intrinsic connection between logic gates and communication. (Practical communication schemes will often process the information that is communicated, as a side effect that needs to be corrected for with a counter-processing at one of the ends -- which may or may not be designed using logic gates).

3. To presume that the fundamental constituents of a communications scheme would need to "have" logic gates is just ... just wrong.

4. There are several primitive sets of gates that can be used to build any logic circuit. One such set is {AND, OR, NOT}, which can even be reduced to {AND,NOT} or {OR,NOT} by De Morgan's laws. Another set consists of just {NOR}; any logic function can be implemented by a circuit of NOR gates.

5. There is completely no way for "The nor gate would not allow any 1's or 0's at all" to be interpreted as a true statement.

6. Nonwithstanding all of the above, entanglement cannot be used as a communication method. When you make a measurement at one end of the system, you get a random result, but which random result you get influences which results you can get if you later measure the other end of the system. This cannot be used to communicate because there is nothing you can do a the first end of the system to influence which random result you get.

[Beyond]

Henning Makholm; you seemed to have asked and answered your own question in 14 words, not counting the (expletive). The and, or and nor gates was part of a military introduction to computers(i was in the signal corp.)so when you mentioned transmitting 1's and 0's, that just naturally popped out. Don't be concerned about it, all old dusty information usually turns into nonsense and just blows away in the wind - never to return.

[swainy (tc)]

No. It has been pretty well shown that you can't use quantum entanglement to actually transmit information. It doesn't matter whether you want to associate binary with spin, or use some other encoding. Trying to send information effectively results in random results.

Sub particle frequency? These guys are communicating Huh? How? What causes the Randomness? What can we not see? Or detect? Some boffin will work this out. I can,t wait. Some very interesting posts guys, Thanks.

tc

[swainy (tc)]

Sub particle frequency? These guys are communicating Huh? How? What causes the Randomness? What can we not see? Or detect? Some boffin will work this out. I can,t wait. Some very interesting posts guys, Thanks.

On That Note, What is the maximum we can accelerate 'A' Quantum Hubble Telescope "2" (To,) using the gravity of the planets? If we could have a quantum Hubble Telescope 2, we would need it, to go faster than light to peer into the unknown. Huh? So if we could solve the quantum tech, What would be the point?

tc

[StarstruckKid]

Well, a thought experiment must be defined within the bounds of existing theory

Then how do we ever move beyond existing theory? If everything has to happen within existing theory, doesn't that preclude being able to move beyond it, by definition? Would you say that relativity is 'within the bounds' of Newtonian mechanics?

Not to say that any and everything is a suitable conjecture. But I'd say that extending the analogy of how c relates to the speed of sound to the possibility of something which is to c as c is to speed-of-sound is within the bounds of existing theory, in so far as the unknown ever can be. Green fairies, on the other hand, is an idea out of left field, not based on what we already know about.

Just wonderin'

[Chris Peterson]

Well, a thought experiment must be defined within the bounds of existing theory

Then how do we ever move beyond existing theory? If everything has to happen within existing theory, doesn't that preclude being able to move beyond it, by definition? Would you say that relativity is 'within the bounds' of Newtonian mechanics?

I don't know of any thought experiments involved in developing GR that inherently violated Newtonian mechanics. If a thought experiment requires that you throw out current theory that is well supported, it probably isn't a good or useful thought experiment. Now the result of a thought experiment may lead to new theory, or show weaknesses in old theory. But that isn't the same thing at all as an experiment that requires current theory to be wrong just to be considered. Then you just get "what if" questions, like "what if something could go faster than c". These are usually not profitable questions.

But I'd say that extending the analogy of how c relates to the speed of sound to the possibility of something which is to c as c is to speed-of-sound is within the bounds of existing theory, in so far as the unknown ever can be.

I'd say the analogy is an extremely poor one. The speed of sound and the speed of light have nothing in common by any physical theory. Zip. You might as well compare the speed of light to the speed of a rumor. To make a useful physical analogy, there needs to be a physical connection.

[Wayne]

Then how do we ever move beyond existing theory? If everything has to happen within existing theory, doesn't that preclude being able to move beyond it, by definition? Would you say that relativity is 'within the bounds' of Newtonian mechanics?

Thing is, everything has to happen within existing theory for as far as that theory applies. 1+1 does not suddenly become equal to 3 because we discovered some new mathematics. Newton's 9.8ms^-2 did not double when we discovered General Relativity. Water didn't begin starting fires (unless you like group I alkali metals) when we discovered Molecular Orbital theory.

New theories are refinements of old ones, not replacements. You can't replace an old theory without incorporating it. You can send a rocket to Mars using Einstein, sure. You can also use Newton because Einstein's theories are a superset of Newton's to correct Newton's old theories where they weren't working well.

You have to do this by finding the area where the old theories aren't working well. Turns out that close to and at the speed of light, Special Relativity indeed does apply and works very well indeed; We see time dilation, we see increased masses. No new theory is going to change what actually happens in reality. Any challenge to Relativity is going to come on the quantum scale, where the two frameworks don't work very well at all, it is not going to come at the "close to c" scale, where they work exceptionally well.