this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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To be fair, the "change one" part is wrong. Two particles that are quantum entangled maintain the same quantum state when separated. But if you change the quantum state of one it doesn't propogate. They are just in sync.
The analogy that makes most sense to me so far, is this:
You rip a photograph in half and put both halves into envelopes. Now you send one of the envelopes to your friend in Australia. You open the other envelope. Boom! Instantaneous knowledge of what's in the envelope in Australia. Faster than light!!!
In quantum terms, you "rip a photograph in half" by somehow producing two quanta, which are known to have correlated properties. For example, you can produce two quanta, where one has a positive spin and the other a negative spin, and you know those to be equally strong. If you now measure the spin of the first quantum, you know that the other has the opposite spin.
The important distinction here (and I get it, analogies are always imperfect) is that the photograph analogy has "hidden variables". That is, each half is fixed at the moment of their separation and you just don't know what's in the envelopes until you open one. That's not how entangled particles work though, and which "half" is which is not determined until the instant of measurement, at which point the state of both are known and fixed.
The photograph example has local hidden variables. The quantum version doesn't, but nothing has ruled out non-local hidden variables. Locality is a nice property we want the universe to have, but the universe doesn't have to obey our desires.