We have all felt the influence of another person even when separated from them. A kind of transcendental cosmic union: a secret mechanism behind the synchrony of our dreams, or of the thoughts on the fly that later turn out to have been identical to those of the distant being (like a kind of telepathy).
Quantum physics explains these links with quantum entanglement or «entanglement», which in turn comes from a principle discovered more than 4 decades ago: quantum non-locality. It is about the connection between subatomic particles that do not share the same space, but that have been in contact at some point. It is what Einstein contemptuously called spooky action at a distance.
This basically breaks the rules of classical physics; that is why Einstein did not agree very much with the theory of quantum «entanglement» and non-locality. But, doesn’t that strange connection with the other also break the rules of what is established? How come we feel so close, being so far away? That can perhaps be explained by non-locality and the possibility that it offers us to think of an interconnected world beyond space-time.
In this vein, non-locality could even explain links with people we do not physically know.
Falling in love with someone we don’t know and who is far away?
In a recent study, published in Science Daily, it was found that there was another form of non-locality besides those already known.
The new theory posited the connection between particles that have never interacted with each other and may not even know each other, but share a kind of fundamental connection that researchers have explained through the metaphor of emotions and bonds in love.
It is about something like the connection that we could feel as children with an imaginary friend, the platonic love of youth for a rockstar or that crush on someone we do not know physically, but perhaps we know through letters or Facebook.
As in love or friendship, in quantum physics subatomic particles are capable of establishing a bond beyond a shared space, and even beyond whether or not they have interacted.
Of course, this is something that cannot be verified empirically, nor can it be seen; just like our bonds with others, whose strength often transcends all distance and, although inexplicable and invisible, are completely real.
So far it seems obvious why the physicist Niels Bohr compared the language of atoms to poetry, saying:
When it comes to atoms, language can only be used as poetry. The poet is not so concerned with describing the facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.
However, there is something else. This subatomic connectivity can only be explained by reinventing time itself.
Subatomic love beyond time
The link between subatomic particles can be timeless. This explains the connection between what we could call the «lover-particles» in the theory of non-locality.
According to the researchers of the aforementioned study, carried out at Chapman University, there is some «indeterminacy» created by time in the quantum world. The present is not only affected by the past, but also by the future. Particles in the quantum world link the future with the past in subtle and meaningful ways, transcending them in ways that make us think of the possibility of space travel or quantum teleportation.
Thus, these particles can be linked and influenced beyond time, no matter what the future holds for them. The same as Louise, the brilliant linguist in the film Arrival (2017), who decides to love in the present despite knowing the tragic consequences of said act in the future.
Would we, like the particles or like Louise, dare to do what we do for love if we knew what awaited us? Would we love, even if a universe stood between us and the other? Maybe yes. After all, love and the mechanics of subatomic particles seem to be the forces that shape the entire cosmos. Both are inexplicable and random, but inalienable
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