Teleportation Milestone Achieved

LiveScience.com ^ | January 23, 2009 | LiveScience Staff

[Free ThinkerNY]

Scientists have come a bit closer to achieving the "Star Trek" feat of teleportation. No one is galaxy-hopping, or even beaming people around, but for the first time, information has been teleported between two separate atoms across a distance of a meter - about a yard.

This is a significant milestone in a field known as quantum information processing, said Christopher Monroe of the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland, who led the effort.

Teleportation is one of nature's most mysterious forms of transport: Quantum information, such as the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon, is transferred from one place to another, without traveling through any physical medium. It has previously been achieved between photons (a unit, or quantum, of electromagnetic radiation, such as light) over very large distances, between photons and ensembles of atoms, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third.

None of those, however, provides a feasible means of holding and managing quantum information over long distances.

[Adams]

[cripplecreek]

the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon, is transferred from one place to another, without traveling through any physical medium.

If true teleportation of people ever becomes possible it would lead to some interesting moral questions. Since no matter is actually being transferred, you would end up with a copy in a sense. The star trek transporters we think of would basically have to vaporize the original.

At least that's my take on it. More interestin stuff fer ponderin.

[exist]

I volunteer Barack Obama to go first.

[GeronL]

My sisters house has wifi

[GeronL]

They did say replicators and transporters were very closely related

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

What the big goal here is not just secure communications, but doing so over increasing distances.

For instance, at the speed of light, just communicating with someone on Mars would be delayed anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes, unless a quantum communications device was used.

But this raises a question: can such communications defeat causality? So far, the answer seems to be “no”.

[cripplecreek]

They did say replicators and transporters were very closely related

Both simply rearranged existing matter from a pattern.

[KrisKrinkle]

Without going into a lot of detail:

The article seems to discuss this in terms of information transfer. Seems like part of the information transferred would be the kinetic energy level of the original ion.

If the transfer occurs over any substantial distance north and south, seems like the kinetic energy level will be out of sync with the location transferred to unless the information is altered to allow for that. If they can alter the information transferred, that makes for interesting possibilities.

[MississippiMan]

Since no matter is actually being transferred, you would end up with a copy in a sense.

I read a novel a year or two ago with exactly that premise. There was also a Tesla-based movie a couple years ago with the premise. Great stories both.

MM (in TX)

[djf]

Superluminal?

Probably.

Einstein was wrong.

[kalee]

ping

[RobRoy]

What do you call a person who’s atoms are all separated?

Dead.

Even if you put them back together.

[cripplecreek]

I saw a sci fi flick a few years back that went into it. An alien race refused to give us the technology outright because our compassion would prevent us from destroying the original person. Instead they did the teleporting for us to be sure the original was destroyed.

[RobRoy]

Yep. My take as well. You kill the person and create a copy. The problem goes even deeper. Human consciousness is something nobody can explain or grasp. In fact, if you didn’t have one you could not be convinced through any scientific test that it even exists. Where would that consciousness go when you were vaporized?

And if it doesn’t go to the “copy” would the copy be “alive” or just so much meat - a corpse?

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

You read my mind!

[TheZMan]

Yup, and I figure if they ever do manage to “teleport” someone, even if they come out perfectly down to the very atoms, they’ll still be “dead” when they come out the other side.

[OneWingedShark]

>Yup, and I figure if they ever do manage to “teleport” someone, even if they come out perfectly
>down to the very atoms, they’ll still be “dead” when they come out the other side.

Well, there is the other option. Ala Stargate and R. Jordan’s Wheel of Time, using wormholes/tesselects to ‘skip’/’bridge the intervening space.

[cripplecreek]

The transference of consciousness could create even more problems if it became possible. Think of the possibilities of the perfect spy.

Now I’m missing the show Quantum Leap.

[SunkenCiv]

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