this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
51 points (96.4% liked)

Ask Science

16490 readers
23 users here now

Ask a science question, get a science answer.


Community Rules


Rule 1: Be respectful and inclusive.Treat others with respect, and maintain a positive atmosphere.


Rule 2: No harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or trolling.Avoid any form of harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or offensive behavior.


Rule 3: Engage in constructive discussions.Contribute to meaningful and constructive discussions that enhance scientific understanding.


Rule 4: No AI-generated answers.Strictly prohibit the use of AI-generated answers. Providing answers generated by AI systems is not allowed and may result in a ban.


Rule 5: Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.Adhere to community guidelines and comply with instructions given by moderators.


Rule 6: Use appropriate language and tone.Communicate using suitable language and maintain a professional and respectful tone.


Rule 7: Report violations.Report any violations of the community rules to the moderators for appropriate action.


Rule 8: Foster a continuous learning environment.Encourage a continuous learning environment where members can share knowledge and engage in scientific discussions.


Rule 9: Source required for answers.Provide credible sources for answers. Failure to include a source may result in the removal of the answer to ensure information reliability.


By adhering to these rules, we create a welcoming and informative environment where science-related questions receive accurate and credible answers. Thank you for your cooperation in making the Ask Science community a valuable resource for scientific knowledge.

We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm asking this because there is a scifi book I'm reading, and in the book there's a scene where someone is communicating with a person in a spacecraft moving at lightspeed. I know their ability to communicate would probably not be possible, but let's just put that aside for a second. Hypothetically, if you could communicate with someone moving lightspeed, would the time dilation make it so that they would appear to be moving and speaking very slowly relative to you?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

Though I know in real life that wouldn’t be possible because entanglement still can’t be used to transmit information faster than light.

The entire point of it, is that it can...

I want to push back on this - quantum entanglement cannot be used to transmit information faster than the speed of light. The entanglement effect does allow for instantaneous correlations, but you can’t use those correlations to transmit information on their own.

For example, imagine Alice and Bob have a pair of entangled particles. The spins are anti-correlated, so if one is spin up the other is spin down. Alice measures the spin of her particle and sees its spin up. She now knows that Bob’s is spin down. She can learn this even if he is many light years away, without needing to communicate with him.

But what information was sent? If Alice or Bob wanted to communicate a simple “yes or no” to each other, how does knowing the spin of each others particles help?

What could happen is Alice and Bob could agree that spin up is yes, down is no. And Alice could measure her particles spin, then call Bob and say “my answer is the spin of your particle” to communicate “no”. This would be physically secure encryption of her answer which is a big advantage, but it is still communicated at classical speeds.

Actually methods of quantum cryptography are more complicated and involve measuring many entangled particles to prove that no one is intercepting the information.