In this article, CNN reports that the Aussies have achieved teleportation. OK, so for now it’s only light, but light can carry information. This implications to my semi-aware mind are boggling, but my training in this area is limited. The things that come to the front immediately are:
Secure communications: As in… No one even knows communication happened, much less had a chance to intercept it. Imagine what this could do to diplomacy, or military comand and control. Think what this could do to secure commercial transactions! Think how hard it would be to wire-tap someone! I imagine that investigatory agencies would hate this. Hell, the NSA would hate this! Could this be a levelling influence against major intelligence agencies, when things like ECHELON no longer work reliably…? Hell, think what this could do to space exploration! FTL Comms…? Is it actually FTL…? Is this Science fiction come to life…?
Mega-ultra-super-fast optical computing: Lasers, beamsplitters, lenses and such on a silicon wafer. Stunning increases in bandwidth and speed…?
Eventually, the ability to transmit actual matter, perhaps. People are right out for the forseeable future, being way the hell too complex, but maybe advances in computing wrought from this very advance could help overcome the ‘beam me up, Scotty’ problems…?
What are the challenges? What are the implications? How high are the hurdles? What other applications may come to the surface in the near mid-term (say, next 15-20 years)?
Let’s hear what those high-powered imaginations and finely-tuned minds have to say!
Well, think about this… How big is a meter in terms of a computer chip…?
This is just the first step. Avaition went from 120 feet to non-stop trans-Atlantic flight in under 16 years. So, another question: How long before teleportation (in any form) reaches thousands of miles? Predictions…?
Well, think about this… How big is a meter in terms of a computer chip…?
This is just the first step. Avaition went from 120 feet to non-stop trans-Atlantic flight in under 16 years. So, another question: How long before teleportation (in any form) reaches thousands of miles? Predictions…?
IIRC, IBM (someone correct me if I’m wrong on the company/organization) did a very minor form of teleportation several years back. I am pretty sure it was summed up as:
A particle (to be teleported) was destroyed in one location
A particle, which as far as any analysis showed, that perfectly resembled the first particle appeared in a different location.
The distance traveled was pretty trivial too, but… if anyone else remembers this, can they back me so I know I’m not going completely nuts?
The thing about Quantum entanglement though is that it is completely independant of distance, you could be on the other side of the universe and it would still be instantaneous.
However, it MIGHT be the case that transporting multiple atoms is an NP complete problem, meaning that once you get up to a couple of hundred atoms, it would take longer than the age of the universe to be able to transport them.
The CNN article is thin on details. I thought quantum teleportation is old news. Is something new going on here?
The challenges I’m sure are enormous if you’re talking about ultimately teleporting anything of size like a matchbox car. Moving an entire living creature AND have it survive will take a helluva long time and is probably impossible (although I hope otherwise).
The implications start getting really weird if it is FTL communication although I see nothing here to indicate it is FTL. The article says the teleportation is almost instantaneous but light moving one meter is damn near instantaneous to us. Can we even measure a timeslice that small with today’s technology?
Additionally strange are what it means if the teleportation is accomplished by destroying the particle at the start and making an identical particle at the other side. What would this mean if you could do it to humans? Everyone else might see the Tranquilis they know and love materialize beofre them but would you truly be the same person (read the same consciousness)? Would you line up to use this machine if this were the case? Aside from all that I’d be interested on religion’s take of what that means for our souls since, to my mind, it would put a pretty big crimp in that notion.
Even if they could transport matter; it seems to me that it would be an awefully painful exeriece to have every atom in your body dispursed of whatever then put back together again. Hell I cringe just from walking across a shag carpet and touching a doornob and getting that static discharge.
Even a machine to move information FTL would be a heavy blow to causality. FTL means TimeTravel (in some reference frame), so it could be used to get tomorrows stock quotes today, which would no doubt be interresting, to say the least!
someone please explane to me how FTL travel via transporter would get you tomorrows stock quote today. And don’t use the ‘if you live one light day away’ excues.
I can understand wormholes beign out of time sych by one end traveling near the SOL but I think this is a little different.
I have just written a lenghty description for how that would work, but then realised that I couldn’t understand my prose myself.
But if you don’t believe me when I say that FTL == TT, then please read up on the theory of relativity (special is engough), or search the archives. Chronos has written very well on the subject, particularly here.
Indeed. How will you know that the re-materialized ‘me’ is actually ‘me’? This should tie the philosophers in knots for centuries, to say the least. Of course, based on what little reading I’ve done, it seems that practical teleportation of people is not a problem I’ll have to worry about in my lifetime.
OTOH, practical teleportation of information seems reasonably achievable. That should keep people busy for a bit…
I don’t get it, the way they explain it, they’re destroying something, then putting it back together from the same materials somewhere else. So that means that somehow, information about that thing is transmitted to the place where it’s put back together.
How is that transfer of information established? The CNN article didn’t explain it.
How could this make secure communication? If information about the information is being transmitted, couldn’t someone intercept that information and create the same information.
Does this mean I could teleport a chocolate cake by completely obliterating it, then going to my neighbor’s house and baking a new cake?
I guess I’m not understanding it, because people a lot smarter than me are all excited.
Others can probably explain it better, but I think the gist of it is this.
Due to some wonky quantum mechanics law, certain subatomic particles always have to maintain a specific relationship. Something like, if one ‘spins’ counter clockwise, the other has to ‘spin’ clockwise. If something reverses the spin of one particle, the other one instantaneously reverses its spin…regardless of how far apart they are. By modifying and destroying the subatomic particles in the light/information they want to ‘teleport’, they can cause a change in the light/information at the receiving end. So the information isn’t really transferred in any traditional and detectable sense.
I’m sure I glossed over a whole lot of stuff there. And I might be entirely off base. In which case, please correct me. I’m quite interested in this too and how I explained above is how I understand it.
