A CLASSICAL ANALOGY OF ENTANGLEMENT

A classical analogy of quantum mechanical entanglement is presented, u sing classical light beams. The analogy can be pushed a long way, only to reach its limits when we try to represent multiparticle, or nonloc al, entanglement. This demonstrates that the latter is of exclusive qu antum nature. Oil the other hand, the entanglement of different degree s of freedom of the same particle might be considered classical. The c lassical analog cannot replace Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen type experiment s, nor can ii be used to build a quantum computer.. Nevertheless, ii d oes provide a reliable guide to the intuition and a tool for visualizi ng abstract concepts in low-dimensional Hilbert spaces.