Quantum Leap: Scientists Teleport Bits of Light

Quantum Leap: Scientists Teleport Bits of Light

Our world is getting closer to "Star Trek" every day.

Scientists announced Wednesday they've been able to teleport special bits of light from one place to another -- "Beam me up, Scotty," in other words. The advance doesn't necessarily mean we'll ever be able to teleport people, unfortunately, but it does represent some pretty mind-bending physics.

Teleportation requires taking advantage of a quirk of quantum physics called entanglement. Two particles can be bonded so that even when separated by large distances, they communicate instantly, and what happens to one affects the other. (It's a situation so bizarre Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance.")

To teleport light, researchers led by Noriyuki Lee of the University of Tokyo had to destroy it in one place, and re-create it in another. This mirrors the teleportation process on "Star Trek," where transporters scan a person, atom by atom, and dismantle him, only to rebuild the person by configuring a different set of atoms in exactly the same pattern in another place.

Lee and his team accomplished this by linking a packet of light to one half of a pair of entangled particles. They then destroyed the light and the particle it was linked to, leaving only the lone particle of the entangled pair. The remaining particle retains the link with its entangled partner, though, including information about the light, which enabled the researchers to rebuild the light in the exact configuration at the other location.

This is pretty cool... I wonder how long its going to take before we can work up to the human level. At the very least smaller items, like food, fuel etc could go a long way to reshaping our world. From being able to transport finished goods directly to the destinations, to resupplying the space station...

I know its a ways off, but im optomistic anyways...

Who knows, maybe some intern at 2am will accidentally figure something out.

I found this part intresting

Schrödinger's cat

This actually isn’t the first time physicists have teleported particles or light in this way. What differentiates the new research is that this time they teleported something much more complicated. This teleported light wasn't just any light — it was in a special quantum state called a Schrödinger's-cat state.

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment invented by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to describe a truth about quantum mechanics: that some properties of particles are not decided until an outsider forces them to choose by measuring them.

Schrödinger envisioned a cat inside a box that contained a small amount of a radioactive substance. Within an hour, there would be a 50 percent chance the substance would decay, releasing poison into the box, and a 50 percent chance the substance would not decay and no poison would be released.

According to the rules of quantum mechanics, the cat is neither dead nor alive until the box is opened and an outside observer "measures" the situation. While the box remains closed, the whole system is suspended in a state of uncertainty where the cat is both dead and alive.

Schrödinger intended the story to sound a bit ridiculous — he was using it to highlight how bizarre the ideas of quantum mechanics would be if extended beyond particles to the macro world of everyday objects.

Nonetheless, the strange situation remains a fundamental part of the theory of quantum mechanics, and experiments verify that particles really do seem to exist in these suspended states of multiple possibilities until forced into one situation or another by measurements.

Here's a sorta related thread you may find interesting:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

and another article on this news here:

abcnews article

I am surprised at how quickly real world apps are coming online with these new discoveries. I wonder if this is applicable to SETI with it's instantaneous nature would be useful for communications over light years.

Heck, we will just move the discussion to your thread. Doesnt matter that its older, it is a continuation and you already had a small conversation going.

Mods - Please Lock

Move discussion to here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

As pointed above, there's already a thread about this topic.

Thread closed.