Teleportation breakthrough made

[denoir 0]

Teleportation breakthrough made [bBC]

Quote[/b] ]

Scientists have performed successful teleportation on atoms for the first time, the journal Nature reports.

The feat was achieved by two teams of researchers working independently on the problem in the US and Austria. The ability to transfer key properties of one particle to another without using any physical link has until now only been achieved with laser light.

Experts say the capability to do the same with massive particles like atoms could lead to new superfast computers. This development is a long way from the transporters used by Jean-Luc Picard and Captain Kirk in the famous Star Trek TV series.

When physicists talk about "teleportation", they are describing the transfer of "quantum states" between separate atoms. These would be such things as an atom's energy, motion, magnetic field and other physical properties.

And in the computers of tomorrow, this information would form the qubits (the quantum form of the digital bits 1 and 0) of data processing through the machines.

Atomic dance

What the teams at the University of Innsbruck and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist) did was teleport qubits from one atom to another with the help of a third auxiliary atom. It relies on a strange behaviour that exists at the atomic scale known as "entanglement", whereby two particles can have related properties even when they are far apart. Einstein called it a "spooky action".

The two groups used different techniques for achieving teleportation, but both followed the same basic protocol.

First, a pair of highly entangled, charged atoms (or ions) are created: B and C. Next, the state to be teleported is created in a third ion, A.

Then, one ion from the pair - let's say B - is entangled with A, and the internal state of both is measured.

Finally, the quantum state of ion A is sent to ion C, transforming it. This destroys the original quantum state of A.

The teleportation took place in milliseconds and at the push of a button, the first time such a deterministic mechanism has been developed for the process.

'Great potential'

The landmark experiments are being viewed as a major advance in the quest to achieve ultra-fast computers, inside which teleportation could provide a form of invisible "quantum wiring".

These machines would be able to handle far bigger and more complex loads than today's super-computers, and at many times their speed.

"In a quantum computer it's straightforward enough to move quantum information around by simply moving the qubits, but you might want to do things very quickly, so you could use teleportation instead," said Nist's Dr David Wineland.

Professor Rainer Blatt, of the University of Innsbruck, told BBC News Online: "This is a milestone.

"We are able to teleport in a deliberate way - that is, at the push of a button. This has been done before, but not in such a way that you can keep the information there at the end."

Professor Blatt's team, an Austrian-US group, performed the teleportation on calcium ions. The Nist team in Boulder, Colorado, used ions of the element beryllium.

Despite this and some differences in the experimental methods used by the two groups, both teams reached similar values of fidelity - around 0.75.

Fidelity is a measure of how well the quantum state of the second ion after teleportation resembles the original quantum state.

Commenting in an article published in Nature, physicists H Jeff Kimble and Steven Van Enk said: "These two experiments represent a magnificent confluence of experimental advances, ranging from precision spectroscopy and laser cooling.

"The fact that such diverse procedures performed so superbly in two separate laboratories attests to the flexibility and great potential of ion trapping for processing quantum information."

Quote[/b] ]

Step 1: A pair of entangled ions are created: B and C

Step 2: The state to be teleported is created in ion A

Step 3: One ion from the pair - in this case B - is entangled with A and both are measured

Step 4: The quantum state of A is sent to ion C

Step 5: The state created for A is teleported to C

Holy crap   This is an amazing breaktrhough. So far they've only done it with photons. Atoms are huge in comparison. We're talking about going from a golf ball to a planet (actually even more).  

[drewb99 0]

Meh, tell me when I can buy one.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

I was thinking about posting this. Great news, if only for the practical computing benefits that will come from it; let alone the potential for teleporters :P

[Akira 0]

"Beam me up Scotty"

Had to get it out of the way before some other asshat.

This is great! The possibilities are endless....from computers to medicine!!

If they perfect the camoflage jacket too...

Oh man....are we finally getting to the neo-cyberpunk era that I've been waiting for???

God I hope so! Neuromancer here I come!

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Cool.

[theavonlady 2]

[IceFire 0]

Imagine if they did succeede at developing teleportation at a significant level.

Sorry geeks, but I dont think that the first thing this technology is applied to will be upgrading your precious computers.

It would DEFINITELY be commited to military use.

Imagine the ability to immediately simultaniously teleport hundreds of tanks to positions directly behind large enemy formations, let them all fire for a good 3-5 seconds, then teleporting them out.

Assasinations could occur in the blink of the eye. Teleport a sniper into position, he takes his shot, and then he disappears again.

Any small weak nation(like Belgium for example) with this technology would immediately have an advantage so great as to be able to beat any other nation on the globe decisively.

Just something to think about.

[theavonlady 2]

I imagine Nokia will soo incorporate this into a new phone model.

Then I remember yesterday's report of the first smartphone virus.

The possibilities are endless.

[Schoeler 0]

I read that even if teleportation of large objects becomes possible, living beings could never be teleported.  Why?  Because disassembling and reassembling a living creature atomically would kill them.  You would arrive at your destination, but you would pop out a corpse.  Whoops!  Kinda ruins that whole trip to Tahiti thing doesn't it!  

[denoir 0]

It would DEFINITELY be commited to military use.

Imagine the ability to immediately simultaniously teleport hundreds of tanks to positions directly behind large enemy formations, let them all fire for a good 3-5 seconds, then teleporting them out.

Ehum, I've always known that calling it quantum "teleportation" was a big mistake on the part of the scientists. Quantum "teleportation" (QT) has nothing to do with Star Trek type teleportation (grown men in silly jump suits and ray-guns materializing in thin air).

What QT does it that it copies all the quantum states of one particle onto another. Quantum mechanic states that two particles with the exactly same quantum states are indistinguishable. In the "teleportation" procedures you destroy the first particle's states so the copy is the only one equal to the original.

Now, to make a QT, you need to first take two particles (in this case atoms) and entangle them (make a connection between them, so to speak). You then take one of the atoms and take them to where you want the recieving end to be (for instance if you wanted to teleport an atom from Europe to America, you'd entangle them in Europe and put the other one on a plane to America - you have to get the recieving end the atom by conventional means).

When one of the atoms is changed the other one changes automatically.

So what you are doing is remotely copying the features of one atom (spin, energy, motion...) to another at a distance.

Another big limitation is that you can't use it directly for information transfer. As quantum mechanics dictates, the moment you try to read those features, you distort them. So it will only have any pracitcal use once we get quantum computers that use actual particles for making calculations rater than using the particles as an information medium.

[Bordoy 0]

I read that even if teleportation of large objects becomes possible, living beings could never be teleported.  Why?  Because disassembling and reassembling a living creature atomically would kill them.  You would arrive at your destination, but you would pop out a corpse.  Whoops!  Kinda ruins that whole trip to Tahiti thing doesn't it!  

Yep which is why getting hundreds of tanks to fire for 3-5 seconds behind enemy line then teleport back is impossible.

[denoir 0]

Because disassembling and reassembling a living creature atomically would kill them.  

What makes you believe that? If you assemble it back into the exact same form and shape down to the sub-atomic level, then you'd preserve everything. Whether or not it would still be "you" is more of a philosophical questions. As quantum mechanic states that two particles with the same properites are by definition indistinguishable and hence the same, the QM answer to that is a clear "yes".

Not that it is at all realistic. Let's do a quick calculation. A human body is made of 80% water, so it gives us a good starting point.

Let's make the following assumptions:

1. We're made entirely of water (we're interested in molecular weight, so for that it's a fair approximation)

2. An average human being weighs 70 kg.

--

Water: H20 -> Atomic weight: 16u + 2*1.008u = 18.016 u

1 mole H20 = 18 grams H20

1 kg H20 = 55.5 moles H20

70 kg H20 =~ 3900 moles H20

1 mole of H2O = 6.023 * 10^23 molecules of H20

->

70 kg H20 = 2.3 * 10^27 molecules of H20

--

The volume of earth is about 10^24 m^3.

One grain of salt has a volume of about 10^-12 m^3

----

10^24/ ( 10^-12 * 10^27) = 10^24/10^15 = 10^9

-->

If a molecule of water was the size of a grain of salt, the molecules in the human body would take up a volume equivalent of over 2 billion Earth-sized planets!

And to make a correct 'teleportation' you would need to know the exact states of each and every molecule. In short: any form of teleportation of real world objects is a fantasy fo the forseeable future.

[InqWiper 0]

Quote[/b] ]Quote (Schoeler @ June 17 2004,06:39)

I read that even if teleportation of large objects becomes possible, living beings could never be teleported.  Why?  Because disassembling and reassembling a living creature atomically would kill them.  You would arrive at your destination, but you would pop out a corpse.  Whoops!  Kinda ruins that whole trip to Tahiti thing doesn't it!    

Yep which is why getting hundreds of tanks to fire for 3-5 seconds behind enemy line then teleport back is impossible.

The tanks dont have to have human crew. And why teleport tanks when you can just teleport a whole warehouse full of bombs over theire heads?

Please note, text above is not serious.

Anyway I think this will be very nice for future computers but I think if it is even possible to teleport a human I think we are atleast a few hundred years away from doing it.

If you could teleport a stone around the world I dont see why it would be impossible to teleport a human. Why would a human be dead after being teleported? If the whole human is teleported and an exact copy with brain impulses and everything is created then it should still be alive shouldnt it? Then there is the question, do we have souls? where does the soul go when the body is teleported?

Right now we really dont have to think about those kinds of things, just wait excitedly for our new computers for OFP4    

Edit

So denoir beat me to asking why it would be impossible to teleport a living being but I will keep my post the way it is

[cozza 24]

Because disassembling and reassembling a living creature atomically would kill them.  

What makes you believe that? If you assemble it back into the exact same form and shape down to the sub-atomic level, then you'd preserve everything. Whether or not it would still be "you" is more of a philosophical questions. As quantum mechanic states that two particles with the same properites are by definition indistinguishable and hence the same, the QM answer to that is a clear "yes".

Not that it is at all realistic. Let's do a quick calculation. A human body is made of 80% water, so it gives us a good starting point.

Let's make the following assumptions:

1. We're made entirely of water (we're interested in molecular weight, so for that it's a fair approximation)

2. An average human being weighs 70 kg.

--

Water: H20 -> Atomic weight: 16u + 2*1.008u = 18.016 u

1 mole H20 = 18 grams H20

1 kg H20 = 55.5 moles H20

70 kg H20 =~ 3900 moles H20

1 mole of H2O = 6.023 * 10^23 molecules of H20

->

70 kg H20 = 2.3 * 10^27 molecules of H20

--

The volume of earth is about 10^24 m^3.

One grain of salt has a volume of about 10^-12 m^3

----

10^24/ ( 10^-12 * 10^27) = 10^24/10^15 = 10^9

-->

If a molecule of water was the size of a grain of salt, the molecules in the human body would take up a volume equivalent of over 2 billion Earth-sized planets!

And to make a correct 'teleportation' you would need to know the exact states of each and every molecule. In short: any form of teleportation of real world objects is a fantasy fo the forseeable future.

You just happen to know that on top of your head

Thats more confusing than..........................A bad flashpoint mission that dosnt end

[denoir 0]

You just happen to know that on top of your head

Are you insane? I have google. I looked up all the atomic weights volumes etc.. All I did was set up two equations and populated them with numbers that I googeled:

number of molecules in a human body = mass * (molar weight)

and

number of earths= volume of earth/ ( volume of a grain of salt * (number of molecules in a human body ) )

It's elementary school level math.

[cozza 24]

Basic math. Thats why i didnt under stand it. I didnt learn my 2 time tables till year 8. Shoes how smart I am

[denoir 0]

You shouldn't get intimidated by the numbers. All the numbers involved you look up in a table.

The basic idea is quite simple. The question I asked was:

How many earths would the molecules in a human body fill if a molecule was the size of a grain of salt?

To solve it, you have to ask three sub-questions:

What is the volume of earth? (google) = VE

What is the volume of a salt grain (google or own guess) =VS

How many molecules are there in the human body? (weight of an average human being times a google value) = N

And the basic equation is smply VE/(N*VS) -> the volume of earth divided by the volume of a grain of salt times the number of molecules.

Nothing to it really. It may look confusing when you see all the numbers with all the decimals etc, but those are just numbers. The basic idea and hence equation is quite simple.

Quote[/b] ]I didnt learn my 2 time tables till year 8

Well, if it makes you feel better, I have an degree in engineering and I still don't know my 2 time tables

Don't confuse calculations with math. Calculations are shite. You have software and calculators to do that. Unfortunately in elementary and high school the focus is mostly on calculations rather than math. Math is about expressing an idea in such a form that somebody else can make the calculations.

[Colossus 2]

Beem me up, Scott!

Can't wait to get Bush teleported on to the moon

[ran 0]

"Beam me up Scotty"

Had to get it out of the way before some other asshat.

[Colossus 2]

---nevermind---

[bonko the sane 2]

eh, i wonder how much power its needed for this nice feat to happen?

And on a more metaphisical level: WTF happens to whatever is being "teleported" while transformed?

Can u imagine the quantum matrix?

But then again...this is exactly what Gibson wrote about

I hope i see this in my lifetime.

[hellfish6 7]

If a person were to be teleported, how could they arrive on the other end the same person? Do thoughts, memories and emotions have the capability to be transferred? Yeah, I know they're just chemical reactions in and of themselves, but still...

This kind of seems to me like cloning - you're creating a carbon copy, but what makes a person a person won't be there anymore.

Denoir, enlighten me.

[joltan 0]

As this is more a copy thingy than a real way of transportation an ethical question arises: once you have the copy of yourself in the other place - what do you do with the original? Kill it???

[Frisbee 0]

Sorry geeks, but I dont think that the first thing this technology is applied to will be upgrading your precious computers.

Geeks, he posts on his computer, on an internet forum, filled with people he doesn't know, about a computer game he likes...

Hypocrit!

Quote[/b] ]It would DEFINITELY be commited to military use.

Played command and conquer lots geek boy?

(chronoshift, allied superweapon, teleport device )

Quote[/b] ]Any small weak nation(like Belgium for example) with this technology would immediately have an advantage so great as to be able to beat any other nation on the globe decisively.

That was just uncalled for...

True teleportation would indeed tip the scales much like nuclear weapons did.

If I understand this correctly after 24 sleepless hours, it's 'simply' the copying of the state of one atom to another atom.

Big feat, especially if you know about the complexity of an atom, a far cry from the worms teleporter though.

[theavonlady 2]

I decided not to test this out after running one of my children's toys through it.