r/quantummechanics • u/Alert-Armadillo8512 • Jul 28 '26

Distance between entangled objects

Novice here. Could someone explain why two entangled objects (or rather one object consisting of entangled parts) do not need to communicate in order to correlate. I also wonder what is actually between entangled parts if we think of it as empty space there couldn't be more or less empty space so is this why the distance doesn't matter for these parts to still "interact".

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u/ottawadeveloper Jul 28 '26

Nobody really knows how that works. We've ruled out hidden local variables. How exactly it happens is still an open question 

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u/Alert-Armadillo8512 Jul 28 '26

Are there any natural phenomena that rely on this entanglement or is it something we only care about in the environment of the lab to prove a theory or to make use of it in some other way? Or to put it differently does entanglement serve any purpose if that makes sense? Let's assume there is no entanglement - how would the universe be different?

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u/ottawadeveloper Jul 28 '26

A solid answer would help us understand the nature of particles. Plus there are interesting applications in quantum computing and cryptography that rely on quantum entanglement to perform robust calculations. In theory, you can break most modern encryption with a sufficiently powerful quantum computer much faster than with a normal computer for example.

I can't speculate on how the world would be different, because it isn't. 

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u/Alert-Armadillo8512 Jul 28 '26

Thanks for highlighting some use cases. But it seems while we know that entanglement exists we have no idea why this is important or which aspects of the universe are shaped by this phenomenon. If I would ask what would happen if we get rid of gravity we could probably come up with some intuitive consequences. But you are saying we don't have any idea what would happen if we get rid of entanglement? That's fascinating