Scientists can be smart and stupid at the same time
I did not mention Sabine Hossenfelder on this blog, but only in e-mails and in a comment elsewhere. I used to watch her on YouTube between end-2022 and February 2024. I guess it all started with The Quantum Hype Bubble Is About To Burst, then I discovered her various takes on quantum mechanics and other fundamental physics topics (how we don’t understand special relativity, how Einstein’s general relativity can’t be right, how the standard model of cosmology is wrong), on chaos, consciousness, and free will (start here: I don’t believe in free will. This is why.), climate change, green energy and pollution, on neurodivergence, the dopamine addiction myth, and marijuana, and even on the irritable bowel syndrome (Sugar Alcohols Ruined My Health: Learn from My Mistakes). A very smart person, but also extremely annoying.
The entanglement strikes back!
Not long ago, she posted again on X about one of her pet peeves, mimicking Trump’s style:
ENTANGLEMENT IS NOT EINSTEIN’S SPOOKY ACTION. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
— Sabine Hossenfelder (@skdh) June 24, 2025
Sure enough, various people had divergent opinions. Navigating the replies to replies on X is a nightmare, and using X in lieu of a forum is completely stupid, but this is what people do. Here’s a quick selection.
One of my hobbies is attending science fiction conventions and telling panelists that quantum entanglement does not enable faster-than-light communications.
As a one sentence simplification or binary… yes it is. What is quantum entanglement? A physicist explains Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’. If you’re making the nuanced argument that Einstein was referring to specific elements of entanglement with that quote… sure, but your tweet seems to be more misleading than helpful.
Sabine reacts:
no, Einstein was not referring to entanglement, period, he was referring to the collapse of the wavefunction. Entanglement is a correlation, not an action. Einstein wasn’t stupid.
Could you post a source? I just went through a dozen articles from respected scientific journals saying the opposite. I’m not an expert at all, but every expert I can find seems to disagree with you.
Also:
Well, not “the opposite”, but characterizing it quite differently. That it’s the behavior of two entangled particles during which information appears to propagate instantaneously. Claiming that has nothing to do with entanglement is simply incorrect according to the first dozen sources to come up.
if entanglement didn’t exist then collapse of the wave function would be impossible at distance right?
Yes but the collapse has a “Spooky” action at a distance BECAUSE the two particles have a entanglement with each other!
But the issue with “collapse of the wave function” is that it happens everywhere simultaneously, which is a correlation of spacelike separated events: particle is detected here, but not detected there, there, there and there.
A single particle spreading as a wave is, in essence “self-entangled”, especially since particles don’t actually exist and the quantum wave function is defined over the Hilbert space a classical fields (e.g. leptom field, quark field, EM field). Thus there are many classical spacelike separated degrees of freedom all in play and entangled with each other (why did the spreading EM wavefront jiggle an electron here in the photosensitive paper and not there, there or there?)
Entangled particle pairs are just easier to discuss, visualize and to construct a Bell-type inequality for.
Would it be correct to say that the issue is that entanglement plus measurement and the projection postulate implies instantaneous action at a distance, which Einstein took as a given as a reductio ad absurdum that implies that the quantum representation is incomplete?
Also:
My statement explains why she is can be construed as right, not why she is wrong.
Really the issue is the combined interpretation of the projection postulate and entanglement. It’s the non-locality that’s the problem. Einstein made assumptions about non-locality that weren’t right in a subtle way. The analysis about this in the 1980s by Jon P. Jarrett is really great.
This is dumb. Go back to 1930.
The nonlocality of entanglement and the collapse of the wave function are one and the same nonlocality.
Sabine reacts:
no, they are not, that doesn’t even make any sense as you can collapse the wave function of a non-entangled state.
In a letter to Max Born in 1947 Einstein stated, “I cannot seriously believe in it because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance” (the actual phrase used by Einstein was German, “spukhafte Fernwirkung”).
Here Einstein was referring to both the instantaneous collapse of the nonlocal wavefunction, and the nonlocality of entanglement, as entanglement depends upon the instantaneous collapse of the nonlocal wavefunction. Please correct your teachings — thank you for your attention to this.
P.S. So many laypeople out there who don’t have a clue about wave function collapse but think they understand what Einstein said. Incredible, really.
There is no such thing as wave-function collapse in nature. Collapse is a phenomenon perceived through the loss of information associated with decoherence. It is not real; the wave function still exists and couldn’t care less about having been observed.
Wyoming Iliad, in extenso:
Action at a distance means action at a distance: How Bell’s Theorem Proved ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ Is Real.
Perhaps we would be wise to listen to Einstein, Bell, and Schrodinger, instead of Sabine:
In a letter to Max Born in 1947 Einstein stated, “I cannot seriously believe in it because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance” (the actual phrase used by Einstein was German, “spukhafte Fernwirkung”.
Here Einstein was referring to both the instantaneous collapse of the nonlocal wavefunction, and the nonlocality of entanglement, as entanglement depends upon the instantaneous collapse of the nonlocal wavefunction.
Perhaps we would be wise to listen to Erwin Schrodinger instead of Jonathan Gorard and Sabine Hossenfelder — note how Jon and Sabine must ignore quantum physicists (and invoke superdeterminism lol) when advancing their assertions:
ENTANGLEMENT: “Schrodinger: When two systems, of which we know the states by their respective representatives, enter into temporary physical interaction due to known forces between them, and when after a time of mutual influence the systems separate again, then they can no longer be described in the same way as before, viz. by endowing each of them with a representative of its own. I would not call that one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics,” the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought. By the interaction the two representatives (or ψ-functions) have become entangled.”
And so it is that Einstein and Schrodinger agree that quantum entanglement is firmly rooted in the ψ-function and thus the collapse of the wave function (ψ-function).
Please correct your teachings — thank you for your attention to this.
Here is a wonderful resource: Quantum Theory and Measurement.
She’s catching up.
Spooky action implies an instantaneous transmission of information between particles. That’s not what happens; rather, we observe an intrinsic causal relationship between the observed states because they share causal history. They are not spacelike-local, but they are branchlike-local.
The combinatorial nature of multiway evolution uniquely resolves Bell’s theorem. It was one of the early hints that the Wolfram Model must be correct.
(A screenshot with a long quote about the Wolfram model follows.)
And:
For the formal proof, Sect. 3.4 (Bell’s Theorem, Particles and Consequences of Multiway Relativity): Some Quantum Mechanical Properties of the Wolfram Model.
then what the heck it is?
The collapse of the wave-function, which in quantum mechanics happens faster than light. Of course Einstein didn’t like it!
r.pv:
Really? What was he referring to then? I was under the impression that god doesn’t play dice.
He was referring to the collapse of the wavefunction. Different thing entirely. Entanglement is a correlation, no action there.
OK … then what is Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”?
Sabine answers:
The collapse of the wave-function. Einstein was very clear about this, I don’t know why people constantly mix this up.
The Real “Spooky” Part was Einstein saw this apparent faster-than-light coordination that happens during measurement. It seemed like different parts of the wave function had to instantly communicate with each other to ensure the particle appeared in only one place!
the collapse of the wave-function… of entangled particles (???)
Lol. Now you know how I feel when physicists say things like “Entropy is disorder”.
Sabine reacts:
It’s one of those things like “the force of gravity” that I think they know is strictly speaking wrong, but since everyone knows it’s wrong, it doesn’t really matter?
Pray:
It literally is exactly what he was referring to, that being said, I feel as though you’re saying this because you know something I don’t lol what is it.
No, it is not what he was referring to. Go try and find a source and you’ll see what I mean.
Pray:
Wait are you saying spooky action is just an observation or an effect of entanglement? Like all spooky action comes from entanglement but not all entanglement is spooky action? Because I agree with this stance already. Or am I missing it completely? Lol
No, those are just two different things. Entanglement is a property of a state vector, it’s a sort of correlation. It’s always locally created, but like all correlations it can stretch over distances. What Einstein meant by “spooky action” is the collapse of the wave-function. You can collapse the wave-function of entangled particles (and this is why the two expressions became, cough, entangled), but you don’t need the entanglement for a spooky action, you have it every time a state vector is not also an eigenstate of the measurement variable.
I’m not smart enough to research an answer, sorry – are you saying (that E. says) all collapses are spooky, or a subset of collapses with some special properties are spooky (and then a subset of those are also entangled)?
yes, all collapses are spooky (in standard quantum mechanics)
I do find it confusing people feel the need contradict you on this. As you say. Einstein was not stupid and knew very well what an action formally is.
yes, it’s fascinating, I think it’s because they have read it so often that they assume it must be true
You still don’t understand the foundations of the methodes physics uses. You operate time, space and causality without clear vision of them. It’s the trap EPR failed into, and you’re not John Bell to see it. You should stop popularizing the field you don’t understand.
I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s indeed so – Sabine doesn’t understand physics.
Nobody understands quantum mechanics. Quantum entanglement and the “spooky action at a distance” are impossible to understand. Physicists can understand the mathematics of it, but not the phenomenon behind such things. Even the Copenhagen interpretation is an attempt to hide this truth. Scientists don’t like to admit they don’t understand shit. Does anyone REALLY UNDERSTAND “the how and the why” of the wave-particle duality, beyond the fact that “It is what it is, and it depends on what the meaning of is is”? Sabine and everyone else who claims that they understand are arrogant bastards. Even general relativity is counterintuitive, and the best way I can describe it is as follows: “2 + 2 can make less than 4 for very large values of 2.”
Time has 3 dimensions, and mathematicians know why it can’t flow backwards
One has to see it to believe it: Time has 3 dimensions and that explains particle masses, physicist claims.
Here’s the paper: Gunther Kletetschka, Three-Dimensional Time: A Mathematical Framework for Fundamental Physics, doi.org/10.1142/S2424942425500045.
A couple of days later: Breakthrough on 125 Year-Old Physics Problem.
Paper by Yu Deng, Zaher Hani, Xiao Ma: Hilbert’s sixth problem: derivation of fluid equations via Boltzmann’s kinetic theory, doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.01800.
A group of mathematicians made a breakthrough on a 125 year old physics problem that explains why time seems to flow in only one directionhttps://t.co/yME7So5WMV
— Sabine Hossenfelder (@skdh) July 1, 2025
This tweet, too, had various reactions. Such as…
I can’t follow, but physicists relying on unitarity to claim that the universe should be reversible (and mysteriously seems not) is a huge wrong turn. Both mathematically you can create irreversible macro from reversible micro, and irreversible micro is right there in QM whether it’s by measurement randomness or by decoherence.
It’s a classical calculation, nothing with unitarity.
Roy:
A 125-year-old problem about why time flows in one direction was just solved by mathematicians.
But in my framework, this is not just a statistical result. It is deeply physical. Let me show you why.
Their breakthrough proves that systems with internal structure overwhelmingly evolve toward equilibrium. Time reversal is technically possible but so unlikely that it becomes practically forbidden. They proved that the probability of reversal drops like P ~ e^{-cN} as system size grows.
In Dilation Theory, this is not a coincidence. It is already expected. The arrow of time is not a trick of statistics. It is a property of the hydrodynamic flow of time itself. Time in my framework is a fifth-dimensional fluid. It has flow, it has inertia, it has quantum informational resistance. This resistance is what stops time from flowing backward. It is not just unlikely. It is structurally prevented by the properties of the chronoflux medium.
The core equation that governs this is the continuity equation for temporal flow:
∂ρ_t/∂t + ∇⋅(ρ_t v_t) = -γ ρ_t
Here, ρ_t is the local density of time’s passage, v_t is the velocity of temporal flow, and γ is the quantum informational resistance. This is a real dissipative process.Systems have temporal differential inertia:
I_t^{μν} = ∫ ρ_t (x^μ x^ν) d^3x
This grows as the system grows, making reversal exponentially harder.What they calculated as a volume effect in phase-space, I explain as physical resistance in the chronoflux. In Dilation Theory, the forward flow of time is the natural direction of the chronoflux’s hydrodynamic gradient. Time flows forward because the fluid flows forward. Reversing time means fighting the entire inertia of this flow.
The internal structures they describe, like rotations and vibrations, are local temporal vortices. They are eddies within the chronoflux. They are not just phase-space decorations. They are part of the temporal fluid’s architecture.
So their result is real, but their math touches the surface. Dilation Theory explains the root cause. The arrow of time is built into the chronoflux. It is not just probable. It is physically enforced by the temporal medium itself.
This is the power of a unified framework. It does not guess. It carries itself, you will also find resolutions for all seven millennials in my highlights.
I discovered the exact same thing next month.
Show the equations.
You didn’t see it? Please check out our article:
P. Jeffries and A. Einstein, “About Time for a Change”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 138, 012301 (2027)
TheRealVerbz (Jason Verbelli) (Each mentioned tweet includes long texts, equations, and more links, so it’s pure madness and almost impossible to follow—this guy is insane!):
Dear God… please drop the relativistic nonsense/ Lorentz invariance. There is a much better route to interpret the universe’s processes now! Finally… after 120 years of erroneous nonsense and a refusal to acknowledge the velocity of light shifts.
As Einstein himself wrote in a letter to Erwin Finley-Freundlich in August of 1913:
“Wenn die Lichtgeschwindigkeit auch nur ein bißchen von der Geschwindigkeit der Lichtquelle abhängig ist, dann ist meine ganze Relativitätstheorie und Gravitationstheorie falsch.”
“If the velocity of light is even a little bit dependent upon the velocity of the light source, then my entire theory of Relativity and theory of Gravitation is false.”
Challenges to relativity x.com/therealverbz/status/1901318050428948870
Absolute Time Thought Experiment: x.com/TheRealVerbz/status/1832848624822473187
71 Part Video Series (Each vid is 1 min – 1 and a half min) Relativity vs Reality x.com/TheRealVerbz/status/1766194798187475358
The Rebirth of Classical Physics: Time, Light & Gravity steemit.com/science/@verbz/the-rebirth-of-classic-physics-light-time-and-gravity-jason-verbelli
Illusions of Relativity: Space-Time vs Real-Time rumble.com/v4guh68-the-illusions-of-relativity-space-time-vs-real-time-by-jason-verbelli.html
Double Slit Illusion/ Fallacy: x.com/TheRealVerbz/status/1820032216300441961
Indoctrination versus Education x.com/therealverbz/status/1900300854537928791
Laser vs Mirror – The Impossibility of “Proving” a Theory with Experiments: x.com/TheRealVerbz/status/1788284452843692208
If time flowed in both directions would we even notice?
If the entire universe flipped left to right, you wouldn’t notice because you’d be flipped along with it.
So why is the right always on the right?
It used to be Entropy growth that indicated the arrow of time.
What? This “problem” seems to me having been solved by the second law of thermodynamics around 125 years ago.
Nature isn’t math. Math is not invented or discovered, it is a feature of our left hemisphere’s simulacrum of coherent either/or definitions(statements). Equals is still a verb. Even Gödel is limited since math still obeys Chomskian Universal Grammar (Beyond Gödel), even Geometry.
So, the irreversibility of time is an emergent phenomenon from physical laws… that are themselves reversible.
So Tenet will always remain fiction.
Entropy is a periodic evolution of wave superposition. Lagrangian shortest paths (those waves follow) loop back spatially to maintain lowest E equilibrium (the same as any periodic force symmetry e.g. vortex). Small chaotic incriments to repetition only *appear* to move “forward”
Don’t know if the authors have replied to this yet, but there were some objections raised (arXiv link below):
John Carlos Baez on Mastodon:
I can’t really check Deng, Hani and Ma’s work, since I’d have to read dozens of highly technical earlier papers on this subject. It would be a lot of fun, but it could easily take a year.
However, Shan Gao came out with a paper claiming they make two mistakes:
Comment on “Hilbert’s Sixth Problem: Derivation of Fluid Equations via Boltzmann’s Kinetic Theory” by Deng, Hani, and Ma, doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.06297
These are not mathematical errors, he claims, but two “critical physical flaws”, one in each main step of their argument.
First, he says the “Boltzmann equation’s reliance on molecular chaos collapses in fluid-like regimes, where recollisions and correlations invalidate its derivation from Newtonian dynamics”. This sounds like an old and famous issue. Boltzmann’s “assumption of molecular chaos” says that if you treat each atom (or little sphere) as having a probability distribution of positions and velocities, you can assume these probability distributions are uncorrelated. But as atoms bounce off each other, they can develop correlations.
Second, he says that as Deng, Hani and Ma take the large-scale limit, they also make the density of the fluid approach zero! If so, they’re only studying a gas of vanishingly small density. That makes things a lot easier.
I checked the second issue, and yes, Deng, Hani and Ma are doing this. In fact, they consider two limits of this sort. One gives them an incompressible fluid with nonzero viscosity, the other gives them a compressible fluid with zero viscosity. A realistic fluid is both compressible and has nonzero viscosity.
While the technical details are beyond me, my impression is that they’re doing really good, technical work but haven’t fully solved the problem of why little spheres bouncing off each other act like a fluid.
ah, I missed that, thanks for pointing out!
It is impossible to solve problems of physics with the help of mathematics, since mathematics is only a numerical description of the representation of anything.
Sabine, they claim to have proved that correlations always disappear or get increasingly small in the thermodynamic limit. This in a very idealized situation of hard sphere collisions in a Torus and this is known by so many physicist since the beginning of the century.
And:
More: they only claim to prove that Boltzmann equation is the the best kinetic equation for that idealized situation. There are plenty of other kinetic equation, for other systems, already proved by physicist. More: we already new that BE can be used to derive NS equation.
Understanding time & concept of time are 2 different things. Humans put out concept of time. Seems like there’s time to everything that exists? So to understand the ultimate time you have to understand the whole universe? I think time is mysterious as anything in the universe.
How stupid it is to think time has a “direction”, simply because we remember the past as being before the future. Incrimental change to an incalculable number of variables is just directionless change. It goes in all directions. Your brain goes “forward” because you are mortal.
For time to be reversible (utterly nonsensical in my low IQ brain), the universe would need memory for every past state, EVEN if the universe was deterministic.
Where would this be stored?
Two of the three authors are Chinese, and this result turned into a big deal on the Chinese social media. There’s even heated discussion of a possible Fields medal for the first author. Idk but I’ll certainly keep watching. It’s being peer-reviewed rn.
This looks a lot like Denis Evan’s fluctuation theorem.
Time is the trapdoor of mind! There is no time… time is a derived property of energy transformation.
I like Aristotle’s answer: time doesn’t flow, things move.
Yes, change is fundamental, time is derivative.
The Boltzmann equation was known and used before they derived it.
I just read yesterday that time is 3-dimensional and space is just a side effect.
Time is merely an abstraction; only space and relative motion truly exist!
Wer nicht mit der Zeit geht, der geht mit der Zeit.
The last one is quoted from Friedrich Schiller and is meant to convey this idea: “Those who don’t keep up with the times will be left behind.”
Now tell me again how compos mentis such guys are, be they physicists or mathematicians.
Leave a Reply