Quantum Entanglement, Dogs and the Problem of Longitude

Hi Ghazal, my Dear,

Hope you didn" got lost on your Random Walk (swedish "Slump Promenade") through the Olympia shopping mall.

The swedish "Slump" (for Randomness) is really a very, very strange word, isn"t it. And in research, randomness is always what we like to minimize because it tends to obscure our observations, which we would like so much to interprete as a result of shear causality. In the formular for the genetic LOD-score = log10 (Likelihood for Linkage by causative gene)/(Likelihood for Linkage by chance) it is the denominator standing below the fraction line.

Interesting, in the swedish Wikipedia-entry for Slump/Randomness there is a indirect link to a subject I already mentioned recently: Quantum Entanglement or Kvantmekanisk sammanflätning. This subject is still a hot issue between opponents and proponets of the quantum-mechanics. But there is good evidence that it works. The principle is as following: You take two particles that form a pair (having a joint wavefunction) and therefore are dependent from each other in their quantum-mechanical status. When you separate them spatially, their joint wavefunction remains and therefore their correlation is preserved. It is now believed, that by "taking on of these particles with you" wherever you go, and leave the other particle at home, you always can determine the status of the remote particle. A recent study published in NATURE estimated, that the speed by which information can be exchanged this way is about 10 000 times faster than speed of light.
My proposal, you remember, was to use our two twin DKNY watches for a permanent informational link between us, because their status I believe is already "entangled" .

A funny idea emerged in the 18th century, assuming an extra-sensual information transfer could solve the problem in sea navigations of how to keep the precise time from their home country (this was crucial to determine the longitude). There was the hilarious theory that if you take two dogs from the same litter (virtually twins), and you leave one of them at home and take the other one on board a ship that will go around the world, then the two dogs remain linked to each other by a transzendental and telepathic connection. Therefore, whenever the dog at home is hurt (for instance by peeking it with a needle), the other dog on-board the ship instantly feels the pain and howls loudely. So when the dog that is left home is hurt once a day at 12 o"clock midday, the people on board the ship hear the second dog howling and this way they know precisely when it is 12 o"clock at home. Funny idea, isn"t it.
Unfortunately (but maybe furtunately for the dogs) this project never worked ;-}, and finally the english carpenter and self-educated watchmaker John Harrison constructed in the year 1735 the first ship chronometer that run precise enough over many weeks on board the ship and therefore allowed the determination of the geographic longitude.
Although the strange idea to use dogs telepathic abilities for this purpose was born in England in the 18th century, it later appeared so hilarious that nowadays the english Wikipedia refers to it only in an entry on "Powder of Sympathy" rather than in its larger article on "The problem of Longitude". The german, as always very open to strange and esoteric ideas, still reproduces this telepathic dog hypothesis in their Wikipedia.
But who knows, maybe today with the knowledge of quantum-mechanic entanglement we can make it work using our two watches.

Enjoy the time, my dear, don"t condemn me

Michael