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From: MJackson.Wbst@Xerox.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Faster than light
Message-ID: <318@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 26-Jun-85 07:37:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.318
Posted: Wed Jun 26 07:37:24 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Jul-85 06:54:48 EDT
Lines: 19

I believe that your explanation of why the "superconducting ring"
experiment does not violate the "speed-of-light limit" for information
transfer is wrong.  Information need not be guaranteed error-free to be
information, and (meaningful) messages are sent over non-error-free
(noisy) channels all the time.  All that is required is that the signal
sent and received not be random.

Contrast this with your remarks on the EPR "paradox", where you
correctly state that "no information can actually be transferred in this
manner, since [in] what state the first particle will be found cannot be
determined in advance."  Here one has a 50-50 proposition; the signal
"sent" is random, and the signal "received" is indistinguishable from
random since it is *determined* (in some sense) by a random input.

There is an excellent, and quite accessible, introduction to EPR, Bell's
inequality, and the Aspect experiments in /Physics Today/ of a couple of
months ago.

Mark