This question resolves YES for a technology that, before 2030:
is fundamentally based on quantum mechanics/ quantum entanglement
is used for transmission
isn't simply a tech for quantum cryptography or computerization that still has a conventional transmission backbone, like Quantum Key Distribution does
is "in use" in some fashion
can be very limited, private, military, etc., but cannot still be on the research floor
has some implicit practical application
works at distances of at least 10 meters between the transmitter and receiver
but it's perfectly fine for the purposes of this question if the tech would work at such distances but doesn't when lacking line-of-sight or is obstructed in some other manner, just as many conventional communications technologies do
A sci-fi example is "ansible" technology that allows for instant FTL communication over vast distances. However, to qualify for a YES resolution, a primitive real-world quantum communications technology doesn't need to be sci-fi levels of perfect. I will accept significant speed, range, and throughput limitations so long as any real-world technology still fits the basic criteria listed above.
Otherwise, this question resolves NO in 2030.
Many of these criteria were developed in collaboration with traders in the market. I'm more than open to further discussing resolution criteria, if necessary.
As I often do, I put in limit orders to help initial bettors, and might trade more on this market.
Related questions
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@BoltonBailey I would consider light a conventional transmission source, so NO unless I'm misunderstanding something
@Stralor Would application of quantum to win a real-world non-local game count? Would that be a "transmission"?
@BoltonBailey I'm on the fence here. Since this is using quantum state to share information and coordinate behavior, a practical application would hit a lot of the requirements here. But if I'm reading this right, it seems to presuppose a specific "conversation" that is unchangeable and presented to both parties simultaneously, which feels like it flies in the face of communications transmission. I'd have to see that a proven in-use application for this could be used to coordinate real-world stock trading, military strategy, or some such dynamic scenario. I don't see how even a simple "we've agreed to go on a date. when and where?" is solved by this, but that may be because I lack imagination or the tech is underdeveloped
@BoltonBailey from what I've read on Wikipedia about this, super dense coding isn't a transmission tech but rather an encoding system for data density. basically turns 2 computational bits into 1, yes? the article seems to suggest the data could be share over conventional means, so I'm suggesting NO
I have a method to transmit data using quantum entanglement that does not violate the no-communication theorem.
Say Alice wants to transmit N bits of data to Bob.
She observes the polarization of N quantum entangled photons, where Bob has the corresponding pairs. If the polarization of any of them differs from the desired bit of the message she triggers false vacuum decay destroying the universe at the speed of light.
Bob can at any point (even prior to Alice transmitting the message) observe his photons and treat the message as correct.
After a time equal to the distance between Alice and Bob divided by the speed of light all remaining universes will be ones where the message was transmitted successfully.
@CodeandSolder But versions of Bob receiving the wrong message would still briefly exist. This could be problematic.
This kind of pop-sci story is, when taken seriously (which I don't think OP is) based on a misunderstanding of QM, right? Destroying the universe in a 'quantum branch' isn't really different from just destroying the universe with some probability, 'false vacuum decay' is just another valid state. It's the same as 'flip a coin, and if the coin comes up heads kill yourself. It has to come up tails', which mostly just ends with you dying.
@jacksonpolack It is a weird anthropics thing. You will never observe universes where you are dead or the universe is false-vacuum-decayed, so for you they sort of don't happen.
@jacksonpolack I think the coin flipping and Russian roulette are good examples.
It's been a long time since I was on top of this stuff, but an analogy I always found useful, when thinking about quantum entanglement, is "classical entanglement". For example, take a coin, cut it in half such that you separate heads from tails, seal each half in an envelope, "shuffle" the two envelopes until you don't know which is which, and then put them on spaceships going in opposite directions.
If Alice opens one envelope, she immediately knows what Bob will find when he opens his envelope, which is superficially kind of like measuring the quantum state of an entangled photon.
If you think you've come up with a clever quantum entanglement trick, just first check whether it "works" for the classical entanglement case. If it does, you've probably not learned anything particularly useful about QM.
(So yeah, I think @CodeandSolder's proposal would also work with a set of half-coins in envelopes, which is a clue that it might not be telling us much.)
@Fion the quantum implementation has the advantage of guaranteeing a 2^-N probability for each branch, mechanical implementations will have a very uneven distribution meaning a significantly higher chance of Boltzmann Braining upon triggering (assuming the observer in superposition of universes it can exist in interpretation) (epistemic status: probably nonsense highly speculative)
So yeah, with QKD and similar serious approaches excluded I am going very heavily on "no" here. There are fundamental theoretical reasons why you can't use quantum entanglement as a way to "transport" information from A to B without another channel. If some future technique is found that enables "ansible"-like behavior it'll be based on principles that are of a fundamentally different nature than quantum mechanics as we know it so this market should still resolve as "no".
@osmarks My point is that QKD is an example of an entanglement-based "communications technology" as specified in the title. The title should be edited to specify "quantum transmission" to more accurately reflect the resolution criteria.
@brp Good point! I hope the new title covers what you're thinking. Didn't have a ton of space left to rearrange, and I feel like "entanglement" is still a keyword here
@osmarks what's fundamentally possible is that our currently best model of the world is wrong, though.
@osmarks that's my guess as well; i'm just observing that this event happening must be downstream of us discovering that we really misunderstood something about qm
@wadimiusz Yeah but if you use this to signal superluminally, then you end yp running into major causality problems IIRC.
Since they ruled out QKD in a thread below, which actually does use entanglement in communications, this market should be around 0
@QuantumObserver there is nothing wrong in prediction being close to zero.
Markets exist to show probability, which does not have to be >1% for all questions asked.
@QuantumObserver in Wolfram physics project (if that model is closer to reality than the current representation of space) it would not cause causality problems. The changes from both communicating points on the graph would just propagate downstream the multigraph. There is no limitation on how links are created (thus no explicit locality restriction). And the time is absolute and simultaneous in the model for the whole universe. (By universe I mean the model, not the Universe, because the model looks untestable for the closest 100+ years).
Yeah, my comment re: market state was meant simply as an expression of my opinion on the correct probability, not a value judgement on the market itself.
Re: Wolfram Models
We have to contend with the fact that relativity seems to be a decent description of our Universe, so we cannot have absolute and simultaneous time. So whatever new physics we discover needs to respect what we already observe.
@osmarks I'm trying to gauge what the scientific consensus is but the density of strings I'm certain are words decreases rapidly:
https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.041118
@osmarks that's where I started but I couldn't easily ascertain how sure are we that all the necessary preconditions for that are necessarily true