Camille | Part Two: Quantum Entanglement Theory

Spooky not at all at a distance. But spooky side-by-side to one another.

In the realm of particle physics there is a theory known as Quantum Entanglement. This phenomenon is complex enough that it prompted Einstein to describe it in 1935 simply as ‘spooky action at a distance’. Like other aspects of quantum science, Quantum Entanglement reveals itself at the tiny, and often unexplainable, level of the subatomic. 

In layman terms, it is an invisible link between distant quantum objects that allows one to instantly affect the other. 

Think for example that you have two separate boxes, one with a rose in it and the other with a tulip. You do not know which box has which flower in it, you only know that either has one and the other has the other. Now take these two boxes and imagine them in two different rooms, or even in two different parts of the world altogether. They are all but unrelated except for the fact that you know that one has a tulip and the other has a rose. 

Except they’re not. They’re entangled. 

Not at an obviously quantum level, for the sake of simplicity, but within this example the two are still certainly entangled. Einstein would say that they relate in a way that is ‘spooky’ and ‘at a distance’ because if we are to open one box, on one side of the world and see a tulip, then we know, without having to see it or interact with it, that the other box on the other side of the world has a rose in it. 

At a more scientific, and a far less layman-level, the theory explores how -for reasons still largely unknown- that two subatomic particles, one travelling positively and the other negatively are entangled to the extent that they are in both states, irrespective of their distance from one another. The two particles are in a state superposition because of their quantum entanglement. They are both positive and negative.

It's only normal that the mind will gravitate towards topics like quantum entanglement, and other even less explainable things like emotions and relationships, when at a music festival taking mind-altering drugs for days at a time. 

So, unlike Einstein, I found nothing spooky about the association. 

What is also normal, when find yourself along the expanse of the beautiful mediterranean coastline for days at a time, is that the mind will be inclined to wander. Temporarily nested between the contrast of crystal blue water of the Adriatic Sea, it's waves endlessly crashing against pebbled cove inlets, and the feet of the towering mountains of the Dinaric Alps, you are encouraged -if not forced- to imagine a reality other than the one that you usually inhabit. 

As it happened, Camille and I spent much of our time at the festival together. We would dance together, take drugs together, talk endlessly with one another, and ultimately deepen whatever sort of emotional entanglement we found ourselves building. We watched as days blended into nights, and nights into days, with the same gradual change of the sky’s soft colour palette.

All the while, we didn’t speak about what our own growing emotional entanglement was becoming. 

For my part, because it proceeded unspoken I was not sure if it was real or just a figment of my imagination. But in reality, I did not dare speak about it with her because I knew how little it takes, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything that was real becomes no longer. A loose word, a muted sentence, and the very state of our emotional entanglement could cease to be one thing, real or imagined, and definitively become the other. Instead we shared moments and stole glances. Not daring to do anything more.

But internally one is safe to think without risk of repercussions.

Does she feel the same way as I do?

Is she thinking about this now, like I am? 

Is what I think I feel even real or just the drugs?

It is to ask these questions, to try to measure, test, and probe them, that we would have the unintentional effect of disentangling the truth from the possibilities. 

Rather to not open the box and have both the rose and the tulip, then to open it and realise that you only had one.

Too afraid that to speak would threaten bringing about its end, real or imagined, we chose to live in a state of emotional superposition. Where both states were true: where she had feelings for me and where she did not. 

We were our own quantum entangled particles. 

Superimposed between the range of possible states of emotions. 

Feelings for one another and without feelings for one another. 

Spooky not at all at a distance. 

But spooky side-by-side to one another.

This was our entanglement.