The Quantum Link Between Dogs and Humans
In the 2009 film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, a professor of music finds a lost puppy at the train station and takes him home for the night. The puppy remains unclaimed, and the two grow close. One spring morning, the dog who is now called Hachi follows the professor to the station and refuses to go home. When the professor returns from his commute, he discovers that Hachi has been waiting all day. A daily routine develops: They walk to the station together, Hachi goes home, then returns when the train is due, at 5:00 PM. After his master dies of a heart attack, Hachi continues the routine. For ten years, he waits for the professor to return until finally, he dies and is reunited with his master.
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Quantum mechanics is a branch of science that examines the behavior of light and matter — including electrons, protons, neutrons and photons — on the atomic and subatomic levels. At this level of reality, the rules are different from the deterministic laws of nature. It is a world of probabilities instead of certainties.
Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which subatomic particles “entangle” and remain connected so that the actions performed on one of the particles affects the other, no matter how large the distance between the two particles. Whatever happens to one particle affects the other.
Quantum Entanglement Between Humans
Because humans are made up of tiny sub-atomic particles, scientists now theorize that our own particles may get “entangled” with those of another person. This can happen when we fall in love or form a strong bond.
Suppose you have a twin sister who lives in California. You live in New York City. One day you get the sense that something is going on with her, so you call her. She tells you that she just accepted a proposal of marriage. She is not at all surprised that you knew when that happened. Throughout your lives you have been having intuitions about each other, even when you are separated, even by long distances.
When you are in love, you may feel a deep connection with your partner. After spending time together, you feel as if you can read each other’s thoughts and intentions. Your partner may say, “Why don’t we see a movie tonight?” You were having the same thought at that moment. It sometimes feels as though you can read each other’s minds. Why does this occur? Because you are “entangled.”
The real-life story of the “Jim Twins,” is perhaps the most famous example of quantum entanglement between humans. Separated soon after birth in the 1940s, the pair seemed to live parallel lives even though they grew up apart in different families. When they were reunited at the age of 39, they discovered many similarities, including the names of their sons, wives, and childhood pets, as well as their preferences for cars, carpentry, and more.
The Link Between Animals and Humans
Quantum entanglement is also thought to occur between animals and humans. In his book Dogs That Know, Rupert Sheldrake documents how horses have been able to find their way home with an injured rider on their back; how cats have cried at the remote death of a human with whom they have been familiar; how dogs have howled when members of the family with which they live have been killed in action in some distant war; and even how people have been taken sick in sympathy with distant injured pets.
When My Dog Became Entangled
One day when I was teaching physics at Mamaroneck High School, a student walked by holding a puppy in her arms. She stopped at my door my classroom door and asked, “Do You know anyone who wants a dog?” Sensing my interest, she assured me that the dog was calm and affectionate. I told her to come by after school after I conferred with my wife. Our children wanted a dog, and we decided to give this one a chance. My children named her Cory.
When Cory had been with us for a decade, I looked back on this decision as one of the frustrating I had ever made. The dog was smart and stubborn. She spent most of the day trying escape the house and run around the neighborhood. When we walked her, she pulled on the leash and refused to listen to commands. Each week we would have to apologize to a different neighbor for Cory’s overturning their garbage. Since we had given up trying to train her, we hired a professional. Cory fell in love with this trainer and quickly learned to heel and obey simple verbal commands. He taught me how to handle the dog on walks. Our lives at pet owners became easier with our newly obedient dog.
During the months of training, we noticed that Cory seemed to know when the trainer was about to arrive. When she detected his imminent arrival, she would walk to the door, sit down and wait. We speculated on how she became aware that he was about to ring the bell. We guessed that Cory could hear his car’s engine when he entered our block from the Post Road, 500 feet from our house. We could not hear the sound, but after all, dog have much better hearing than humans. Yet hundreds of cars entered our block every day and Cory ignored these. The trainer had the same make and model car that a few neighbors also drove, and there was nothing special about its engine. When our neighbors’ cars turned into our street, Cory didn’t react. We were curious but after a while we stopped thinking about it.
Anecdotal and Scientific Evidence
Many years after these events, I watched a video about a countess in England and her dog’s unusual behavior. The countess frequently travelled to Europe. The moment that she decided to return home, her dog would walk to the gate of the English estate and sit down, waiting for her to return. Sometimes this took a few days, but the dog always remained in place. Members of her staff reported observing this odd behavior over many years.
In 1991 a YouTube documentary described similar behavior from a dog in a suburb of London. A woman who was working as a secretary in Manchester owned a dog named Jaytee. Her parents, who lived with her, noticed that Jaytee would go to the French window in the living room around the time she set off to come home. The dog would wait between 45 and 60 minutes at the window most of the time she was on her way. The time that she started for home was constant during the work week, and the family assumed that Jaytee could sense the time of day.
When scientists learned about this, they designed an experiment to see if the dog’s behavior correlated with the owner’s decision to return home. A researcher would hand the owner a piece of paper noting the time he should start his trip back. Each time, the dog trotted over to the window and sat down exactly when its master started for home. The researchers could not explain this, but their data demonstrated that the dog’s approach to the window coincided with the owner’s decision to start home.
To their credit, the researchers searched for and were able to eliminate alternative explanations for the dog’s behavior. They concluded that the dog was not picking up subliminal cues from people at the house who knew that the subject was about to return home. They tested and eliminated the possibility that the dog went to the window when the subject had not decided to return home, and that the people at home deleted these occurrences from memory, only remembering the times when the dog’s behavior coincided with the imminent return of the owner. The investigators used time-coded videotape wherever possible to avoid human error.
How Entanglement Might Occur
Here is just one theory that might explain the entanglement between you and your dog. When your dog rubs against you or licks your hand, a few of your photons might become “entangled.” You might share these photons with your pet as some of these photons could rebound from your body and enter your dog’s eyes. You might retain the other photons within you as you travel.
Say that your embedded photons trigger subtle biological shifts in your body when you decide to head home. If the you and your dog are entangled, then the shifts in your body could cause similar shifts in your dog’s brain. The dog might become aware over time that the small biological shift means its owner is ready to return home.
And what about Hachi? Did he and his master become entangled? We still can’t say for sure. But what we do know with certainty is that the bond between animals and humans is real. We just don’t know if it occurs because of quantum entanglement, or because of some other phenomenon we still don’t understand.
