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If we have a pair of super-asymmetrical entangled particles, and move them a light year away so that they retain their quantum entanglement, and we set a clockwise spin (or vertical polarization) as 0 and a counter-clockwise spin (or horizontal polarization) as 1. Would it be possible to transmit binary data faster than the speed of light?

If we hold that quantum entanglement has no distance limitations and changes to one happen instantaneously to the other, would that not be a method for transmitting data faster than the speed of light? Even if it is just a binary operation. But what if we had a cluster of these particles? could 100 entangled pairs on each side be used to multithread binary data faster than light speed? or a billion?

space.com (I know it isn't super scientific but I'm trying to keep it simple.)

" Is quantum entanglement faster than light?​ Asking about speed is a very interesting question. You might as a "normal human being" think that if I measure the polarization of one photon, that sets the state of the other photon. That thinking is fine, as long as the other photon measurement happens after the first measurement. But there is already a problem. If that second photon is measured on Pluto, it might take 6 hours for light to get there, so because information cannot travel faster than the speed of light, the second photon wouldn't know what state it should be. But it turns out that that second measurement will always match the first no matter when it was measured. So, it seems like the necessary information must have traveled faster than the speed of light. Big problem, but entanglement's weirdness gets it out of an astronomical speeding ticket. In the case of entanglement, the information that appears at your Pluto measurement station is not useful information (in the ordinary sense). It is random just like the random result that came out of that first measurement (but matching random). So, the key point is that you could not take advantage of news of a crop failure and send a buy or sell order to your stockbroker on Pluto at faster than the speed of light before the Plutonian markets had time to adjust. It is only "randomness" that appears to travel faster than light..."

--- the information wouldn't be useless if we assigned binary states to spin states or polarization states, and could manipulate them.

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It's not that simple. Entanglement is a quantum phenomenon in whcih you have the complete knowledge about the combined system of the particles, but still have no information about its individual parts. That's the nature of entanglement. Take it this way: -

Let's say that Charlie gives Bob and Alice a penny and a dime each. They keep it with them without looking at it. Let's say that Alice went to andromeda galaxy (obviously it doesn't matter, I just wanted to send her somewhere far away) and she takes a look at her coin. She finds that she has a dime and immediately knows what Bob has, a penny. So did Alice witnessed a faster than light travel of information? Obviously no. What would be the violation of this if Bob knew what he had immediately after Alice sees her coin. Which is not possible.

That's what is known as Classical entanglement. Maximal entanglement of spin states in quantum mechanics works the same way. In an entangled state, what we know is the combined state of the spins, there is no way to determine what are the individual sub-states. This idea in words is very abstract, mathematics makes it very clear. But I don't want to get to this because you don't seem to be from a mathematical background.

In short, what will happen is that you have no way to control your observations. You can't "force" the spins to show a certain state, up or down. You will have no control of this and the probability of each state to occur will be $\frac{1}{2}$ for any maximal entangled state.

Its a very common misconception. It is a universal law that information always travel at the speed of light. Entanglement is not an exception, it also follows this law.

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  • $\begingroup$ the point isn't that bob and alice know who has the penny or the dime, the point is that if we have the coins suspended in a rotating state of entanglement, we can say If the coin lands on heads everything is OK (1) if the coin lands on tails it is not (0) the coin would be a bit. rotation would be a neutral or resting state. look for the ways we could control these states in a measurable way . the method doesn't exist until you look for it, like quantum observation $\endgroup$
    – SWIRF
    Commented Jun 5 at 12:18
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    $\begingroup$ @SWIRF You are clearly unaware of the thousands of different experiments already performed looking at exactly this subject from all imaginable angles. BTW there is no such thing as a “rotating state of entanglement”. If there is such a thing as collapse, it has already been measured to exceed 10,000 times c. No hint of any signaling mechanism in there anywhere. Believe me, they looked. :) $\endgroup$
    – DrChinese
    Commented Jun 5 at 14:14

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