The way I see it
Quantum entanglement is a fact. Physics has shown it so despite Einstein's objection to it as being "spooky action at a distance."(1) But physicists can offer no explanation of how or why it works as it does. Perhaps they are looking in the wrong directions for explanation. Maybe they are making the whole thing out to be much more complicated than it actually is.
Physicists need look no further than the closest playground for a useful model of how this "spooky action at a distance" might work in principle. The model they seek would likely be found in most children's playgrounds - - - the common see-saw. An equally valid model would be the balance or scale though these are not seen nearly as frequently in our highly technological society as they previously were. All of these objects are based upon the simple principle of the lever, a principle which has been known and used in many different applications of the arts and sciences since ancient times.
What occurs with these mechanisms involves reciprocity of motion in response to slight differences in applied force to the two limbs of the lever balanced on a fulcrum. The two ends of the lever by nature both exist and move in reciprocal relationship to one another. When one limb heads down the second will always head up. It is not actually a matter of transference of information because the whole is all of a piece.(2) Down does not need to tell up which way to head because there is no choice. Down demands up; up demands down. They are necessary reciprocals of one another. Up and down are one and the same in a higher scheme of things than we are used to or comfortable dealing with. Our minds seem to want to see them as separate whereas in reality they are not. Were they actually so then information would necessarily have to pass between the two to keep them coordinated and that information would indeed need to obey the limit in speed of transmission dictated by the finite velocity of light. That is, if any transmission of information were actually involved.
As is the case with entangled particles, the two ends of the see-saw or lever could be at opposite ends of the universe and if proper and adequate forces were applied distance would be no deterrent. Changes would occur instantaneously without any transmission of information. This of course would appear paradoxical and be dismissed as impossible or unexplainable by disbelieving or skeptical eyes viewing the process from their restrictive base in the universe.(3) It seems to me that what physics is overlooking here and what it needs to find is the missing link, the hidden connection that unites what appear to be two distinct entities into one. Find that and quantum entanglement will cease to be a mystery.
Image: Turquoise Eyes by thepeachpeddler CC BY 2.0
(1) The phrase Einstein actually used was "spukhafte Fernwirkung" (in a letter to Max Born 3 March 1947). Like Schrödinger, Einstein was dissatisfied with the concept of entanglement,because it seemed to violate the speed limit on the transmission of information implicit in the theory of relativity. The irony here is that all the bold predictions Einstein made in his own work have proved true thus far, yet he was unable to accept this equally bold assertion of quantum mechanics which demands redefinition of our concept of space in a manner no more radical than Einstein's own Special and General Theories of Relativity had done some years prior.
(2) All of a piece is an idiom and it means that there is an invisible link.
(3) The scale at which we humans exist restricts our view of both the realm of the very large and the realm of the very small.
© 2014 Martin Hauser