[QUOTE=jasong;392120]You're assuming that the state will always be destroyed, but it's totally possible we could figure out how to maintain the connection.
[/QUOTE]

This is the part where you are utterly, totally, "I've never read the science" mistaken. Your speculation of a future "figure out" is on the level of warp drives and antigravity fields. If such communication exists in the future such as you dream, it won't be because of quantum entanglement.

This is not a matter of a lack of imagination, and you should read even a basic wiki explanation of entanglement to get an idea why we're replying the way we are.

[QUOTE=VBCurtis;392239]Your speculation of a future "figure out" is on the level of warp drives and antigravity fields.[/QUOTE]I'm not so sure about warp drives here, but antigrav is definitely something I would put in the same class.

[size=1]So we only need to figure out how to switch off the gravity connection. It is only a change of one variable so therefore totally possible with some funding and a few post-grad students. Imagine the possibilities: flying cars should be here by now, it [i]is[/i] 2015 already.[/size]

[QUOTE=retina;392243]I'm not so sure about warp drives here, but antigrav is definitely something I would put in the same class.

[size=1]So we only need to figure out how to switch off the gravity connection. It is only a change of one variable so therefore totally possible with some funding and a few post-grad students. Imagine the possibilities: flying cars should be here by now, it [i]is[/i] 2015 already.[/size][/QUOTE]Doctor Emmett Brown should have written down the math to both flying cars and hovering skateboards for 2015. 1.21 Gigawatts doesn't just grow on trees.

[QUOTE=retina;392243]I'm not so sure about warp drives here, but antigrav is definitely something I would put in the same class.[/QUOTE]We already know how to build anti-gravity machines. They've already been built.

The problem is that they are very, very, very feeble. However, they are still useful in certain circumstances, reducing the gravitational field where it is already feeble, such as in high orbit.

Think about it: gravity is curved space-time. Figure out a way to reduce the curvature of space-time in a 4-volume and you have designed an anti-gravity machine.

Googling "Robert L Forward" might enlighten those who doubt the material above.

[QUOTE=xilman;392267]
Googling "Robert L Forward" might enlighten those who doubt the material above.[/QUOTE]
[I]Futuremagic[/I] was great. Reading Robert L Forward makes one fall in love with big engineering projects and dream about the true limits of ingenuity.

[QUOTE=xilman;392267]We already know how to build anti-gravity machines. They've already been built.

The problem is that they are very, very, very feeble.[/QUOTE]So let's do as jasong suggests and throw some money at it, add a few researchers and then problem solved. We will finally be able to get our flying cars at 04:29pm Wednesday 21-Oct-2015.

[QUOTE=retina;392275]So let's do as jasong suggests and throw some money at it, add a few researchers and then problem solved. We will finally be able to get our flying cars at 04:29pm Wednesday 21-Oct-2015.[/QUOTE]It's the timescale which is by far the most infeasible.

Making antigravity machines which are merely very very feeble is presently beyond our technology but well within our understanding of physics.

Flattening spacetime which is as bent as that which occurs near the earth's surface is very beyond our technology and our understanding of the physics is such that there would likely be severe collateral damage outside the flattened 4-volume. Nonetheless, we know how to do it once the engineers have caught up with the physicists. Forward designed such a machine and it played an essential role in his novel [i]Dragon's Egg[/i].

Scott Aaronson's "Quantum Computing since Democritus" is a good read. This thread piqued my interest in several places,
science fiction, quantum theory and relativity. Jack Vance wrote a novel (which I learned later) was about an interesting
idea called the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis." Regarding quantum theory, people such as R. von Mises (probability/philosophy)
have provided me with insights on how to ask good questions. Regarding "anti-gravity", I don't understand this term. How
is it expressed mathematically? I'm trying to figure out how to factor integers differently and one aspect of my search
involves coordinate geometry where I can proceed from Bezout's identity and theorem into Chow Rings thence into aspects of
String Theory where I can logically proceed to formalize questions involving inertia and gravitation. As an analogy, re-reading
"The Mathematics of the Casimir Effect" by J.P. Dowling never ceases to become stale for me both in terms of the imagination
required to develop the mathematics used and the imaginative application of the mathematics to an interesting physics question.

[QUOTE=xilman;392282]
Flattening spacetime which is as bent as that which occurs near the earth's surface is very beyond our technology and our understanding of the physics is such that there would likely be severe collateral damage outside the flattened 4-volume. [/QUOTE]
Addendum: for a significantly large spatial extent, that is. Forward's design, implemented with attainably dense materials such as uranium, will flatten spacetime by a factor of ten or so over a volume of up to some cubic centimetres.

Yesterday, I downloaded and read "Dragon's Egg" (Del Rey) which took a few hours and was an enjoyable read..I guess I'm obligated to read "Starquake" now (and looking forward to it). Taking nothing away from good science fiction, speculation and conjecture cannot match prototyping a theoretical design that is based on reasoned logic. Velikovsky "Worlds in Collision" and von Daniken "Chariots of the Gods" both had working professionals publish responses as novels in the popular press debunking claims made by those authors. Both V. and VD's books should have been categorized as SciFi. H. Koch's "Diluvian Impact" does a better job of presenting a valid argument. Facts must be substantiated through context and evidence - Popper's and Sherlock's criteria of plausibility and/or impossibility. Proof of magic, seeing Penn and Teller at the Rio for instance does not make their show any less entertaining nor does looking at the night sky through the eyes of General Relativity make it any less mysterious.

As one of the mathematically unsophisticated members of this forum I've been deservedly chewed out for making egregious statements and I've (tried to) learn from these mistakes. Rather than `draw and quarter` some of the logical shortfall I've noted I'll instead suggest reading Chandrasekhar's "..Stellar Structure" and Hawking and Ellis's "..Structure of Space-Time" as one starting point. Regarding Forward's design, I'm the type who would examine the rationale and justification for every rivet. Feynman's report on the Challenger disaster would pale in comparison if Forward's design was implemented "for real" and went haywire.

Certain mathematical formulae may seem magical (choose your own example) because they describe realities that we may (or may not) interact with that we can or cannot prove (yet),ie. special relativity and Riemann's Hypothesis. Great SciFi is riveting psychologically, on-point factually and effortlessly takes the reader those extra steps beyond state-of-the-art. There exist papers in arXiv which are pure dreck and there are patents that have been granted (yep) involving telekinesis and ESP. Obtaining credible information from sources like those is like watching "Galaxy Quest" and believing it's true.

[QUOTE=jwaltos;392445]Yesterday, I downloaded and read "Dragon's Egg" (Del Rey) which took a few hours and was an enjoyable read..I guess I'm obligated to read "Starquake" now (and looking forward to it). Taking nothing away from good science fiction, speculation and conjecture cannot match prototyping a theoretical design that is based on reasoned logic.
[...]
As one of the mathematically unsophisticated members of this forum I've been deservedly chewed out for making egregious statements and I've (tried to) learn from these mistakes. Rather than `draw and quarter` some of the logical shortfall I've noted I'll instead suggest reading Chandrasekhar's "..Stellar Structure" and Hawking and Ellis's "..Structure of Space-Time" as one starting point. Regarding Forward's design, I'm the type who would examine the rationale and justification for every rivet. Feynman's report on the Challenger disaster would pale in comparison if Forward's design was implemented "for real" and went haywire.

Certain mathematical formulae may seem magical (choose your own example) because they describe realities that we may (or may not) interact with that we can or cannot prove (yet),ie. special relativity and Riemann's Hypothesis. Great SciFi is riveting psychologically, on-point factually and effortlessly takes the reader those extra steps beyond state-of-the-art. There exist papers in arXiv which are pure dreck and there are patents that have been granted (yep) involving telekinesis and ESP. Obtaining credible information from sources like those is like watching "Galaxy Quest" and believing it's true.[/QUOTE]Feynman was quite the showman in the glass of ice water way that he demonstrated to congress that o-ring material does not spring back quickly when cold so that designing for a seal under compression alone is a flawed specification of requirements.

I think that you will find Forward's technical chops quite sophisticated and more rigorous than typical.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Forward[/url]