Teleportation Gets a Boost

saavyone writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that while teleportation may not quite be a reality yet a team of Danish scientists have raised the bar on this line of research. From the article: "The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further. 'Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago by two teams but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a millimeter,' Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics, explained. 'Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement,' he added."

Comments

Please...

[slimjim8094]

will a physicist explain what this means? I have a reasonable understanding of physics (for somebody who hasn't studied it) and I have no idea what this means. Does it mean that we can apply energy in some way and make it go somewhere else instantaneously (the more traditional definition of teleportation)? Probably not, but then what?

Re:Please...

[MyNymWasTaken]

This process allows you to copy quantum information from one set of atoms to another without measuring it, and thereby destroying it.

It's still isn't anywhere near dematerializing the matter and poof`ing it across the room/planet. However, what is happening is the quantum information (in this case, the spin state) of the matter has been instantly transported. That is a essential step in building a quantum computer or cryptography network.

Re:Please...

[vriemeister]

A technical explanation would take too long and people would just argue with me anyways so heres a summary -This is not 'traditional' teleportation -It works at the speed of light, there's nothing strange going on here, although it is related to what you might have heard referred to as 'spooky action at a distance' With quantum teleportation you aren't teleporting a THING, you're teleporting a property of that thing without actually measuring that property. Sounds crazy but here's an example: suppose you have two helium atoms and using light you are somehow able to give the second atom the momentum and spin of the first atom but in the process you change the momentum/spin of the first atom. You've basically changed the second atom to be exactly like the first but they call that teleportation. And effectively it is. The reason its so nifty is you don't have to measure or know these properties to transfer them. Thats the quantum part of quantum teleportation. Beyond that, I have no clue how they're applying a property of light to an atom.

Re:Please...

[tloh]

That yahoo article isn't really saying much at all. There is almost no real information on how they did it. Scientific American has a much more detailed description. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&arti cleID=000E9691-0261-1524-826183414B7F0000

In taking the next step, Eugene Polzik and his colleagues at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen shined a strong laser beam onto a cloud of room-temperature cesium atoms whose spins were all pointing in the same direction and fluctuating according to their given quantum state. The laser became entangled with the collective spin of the cloud, meaning that the quantum states of laser and gas shared the same amplitude but had opposite phases. The goal was to transfer, or teleport, the quantum state of a second light beam onto the cloud.

To do so, the group mixed a second, weaker laser pulse with the strong laser and split the superimposed beams into two arms. A detector in one arm measured the sum of the beams' amplitudes and a detector in the second arm measured the difference between their phases. Neither measurement disturbed the delicate entangled state between the light and cesium. But the researchers could use the results to apply a precise magnetic field to the cesium vapor that effectively canceled out the ensemble's original spin state and replaced it with one that corresponded to the polarization of the weak pulse, as they report in the 5 October Nature.

Re:Please...

[Spikeles]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation

Put simply you can record the quantum states of an atom/particle(or your entire body) and then send this information using a classical channel like radio. Once this information gets to your destination(eg Mars) the guys at that end can use that information to affect some particles over there, and because of Quantum Entanglement, those particles on Mars will instantly take on the recorded state. The particles at the start will then lose their state due to the no cloning therom(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_cloning_the orem). So you can teleport, but you can't teleport at greater than the speed of light because you still have to send the data to the destination.

Note that it's not technically "Teleportation", you are just changing the states at the quantum level.

Re:Please...

[squiggleslash]

It's really quite simple. The system involves two opaque boxes (A and B), both with closable lids,.

One operator places the item to be teleported in box A and closes the lid. The operator of box B then opens the box and observes the contents. By doing so, the item appears in box B.

This works because of the way particle physics works. Any object may be in multiple places until it is actually observed. By hiding the item from one operator, the location of the item becomes unknown, and therefore the other operator is able to transport it to them merely by observing one of the locations it may have travelled to.

Really, this is elementary physics and it's surprising how rarely we take advantage of it. I actually go to work every morning by going to the bathroom, alone, closing the door, and then phoning a collegue at work, asking him to open the cubicle door at the bathroom there. By keeping my eyes closed at the precise moment he opens the door, I am able to ensure my own location is unobserved, and therefore that my precise whereabouts are unknown until my collegue opens the door and observes me. It's very useful and saves a lot of gas, but has the disadvantage that you have to rely upon there being someone whereever you want to travel to that you can contact who can observe the contents of a previously unobservable man-sized space. Also there's the danger that two people might do the same thing at once, in which case there's the danger of a time/space paradox being created.

Re:Please...

[partenon]

Translating...

Its not a:
$ mv source target

Its a:
$ cp source target

Oh Gosh, now I fully know quantum computing!

Re:Please...

[Spikeles]

Actually it is a
$ mv source target

Because of the No cloning theorem(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_cloning_th eorem) which "forbids the creation of identical copies of an arbitrary unknown quantum state"

Re:Please...

[kfg]

Oh yeah, yer like being all smug and shit about it now, but just you wait until the day comes when he opens the door and observes you dead.

KFG

Re:Please...

[BeBoxer]

You've basically changed the second atom to be exactly like the first but they call that teleportation. And effectively it is.

I think most people's concept of "teleport" is something else entirely. What the physicists are doing is something more aking to "faxing". Granted, it's really high-quality faxing, but faxing none the less. But "quantum faxing" doesn't have the same ring to it.

Fundamental to the concept of "teleport" as all non-physicists know it is that the matter being teleported moves from one place to another. In this case they "teleported" atoms of Cesium. But they started with Cesium atoms on both sides of the "teleporter" at the beginning and the end. They didn't "teleport" the Cesium any more than a FAX machine "teleports" paper.

Re:Please...

[partenon]

Yeah, I realized that by reading a lot of comments here :-) Its probably more like this:

$ cp source target ; rm -rf source

(actually, I think mv does exactly this, but just to be explicit :-) )

Re:Please...

[DrVomact]

And if two physicists were to accidentally emerge in the same stall, they'd be a pair o' docs?

Re:Please...

[slack-fu]

ACTUALLY it is like this:

# mv source target

everyone knows you have to be root to teleport SHEESH.

Re:Please...

[caitsith01]

Seems to me that you would create an exact duplicate of the original person, who would feel and believe that they were the same person. However, they would not be the same person - the original person would (presumably) be dead as their constituent particles are ripped apart from their spin etc changing.

Re:Please...

[Iron Condor]

$ cp source target ; rm -rf source
(actually, I think mv does exactly this, but just to be explicit :-) )

And nobody has corrected this yet? Is this really Slashdot?

The "cp" operation will temporarily consume twice as much space as the original before the original is removed. Actual data is being replicated. "mv" (at least within the same file system) will leave the data where it is and merely change where the pointer (i.e. directory entry) that points to it is stored. With your version you have two files temporarily and a possible duplication if the operation fails due to a power outage somewhere in the middle. The normal "mv" operation could leave you with NO files (the data is still there but unaccessible) depending on how it's implemented. (No, not on journalling file systems, but thats something else again).

In particular, a "cp ; rm" will delete your original if the cp fails due to, say, a full destination disk. So at least a "cp && rm" is advised. Which can fail, for example, if some of your source data is unreadable. While "mv" will still work, since the source data is never actually touched. Depending on your filesystem, default flags and implementation, "mv" will often also not change the last-access or creation-timestamps, file ownership and/or file permissions which may or may not be changed by cp. Also the permissions needed in the source and destination directories can be different for the two.

Really - what's up with you folks out there? Why aren't there 20 posts pointing this out already?

Re:Please...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

1: The 'life force' as it appears in Star Trek is a purely fictional invention that has nothing to do with reality.

2: Your stuff about the balance of matter and energy is something you made up (unless you can cite me a reference) and has no bearing on reality.

Please don't confuse the contents of your head with either science or reality. It's stupid.

Re:Please...

[WilliamSChips]

Actually, it's sudo make me a sandwich.

Re:Please...

[fmobus]

Unfortunately it must be destroyed, as RIAA prevents us copying (well, backing-up) anything.

There, corrected a typo for you

Very funny Scotty,

[vasanth]

now beam down my clothes!!!!!!!

Anyone have the youtube link?

[mr_stinky_britches]

Anyone have a link to this teleportation video?

Re:Anyone have the youtube link?

[Colin Smith]

Nope, but this is their site.

http://www.nbi.ku.dk/side39251.htm

SciAm article

[MyNymWasTaken]

Here is Scientific American's article on the matter.

First Teleportation Between Light and Matter

Re:SciAm article

[Chemisor]

According to the SciAm article, all they did was measure the quantum state of a cesium atom cloud without disturbing the cloud.

Neither measurement disturbed the delicate entangled state between the light and cesium. But the researchers could use the results to apply a precise magnetic field to the cesium vapor that effectively canceled out the ensemble's original spin state and replaced it with one that corresponded to the polarization of the weak pulse

I don't know why people keep calling it "teleportation" or any other quantum crap. A very simple way of describing what happened is that they figured out a way to beat the uncertainty principle by creating multiple copies of the same information and measuring amplitude and phase of different copies. Because both copies are identical, any information obtained about one copy is valid about the others, so a complete set of parameters can be determined. It should be pointed out that this experiment clearly demonstrates that the uncertainty principle is not some fundamental property of the universe, but rather an artifact of our measurement instruments. This is the very point that Einstein tried so hard to prove back in 1927, and the one so throughly disputed by the evil Niels Bohr. Unfortunately, Bohr won the argument for some reason, perhaps just out of stubbornness, and the present unsightly state of the science of physics resulted. Perhaps now the quantum heretics can be brought back to the one true faith of objective reality!

Ramifications

[Dan East]

Apparently these scientists have never watched TRON, or they'd quit why they're ahead. Or, perhaps they know the risks and have brushed up on their 80's era arcade gaming skills.

Dan East

I really need to get one of these...

[__aaclcg7560]

I could use it to teleport all the dust bunnies hiding behind computers to a passing Klingon ship.

Thousands of billions...

[truthsearch]

thousands of billions of atoms

Trillions, even?

Re:Just the information?

[grammar fascist]

But could you imagine if they could utilize a version of this teleportation to transfer the information to multiple places at once? Wow! That'd be a huge boon to subatomic construction technology!

If they're using quantum teleportation, they can't. It's not possible to clone generic quantum states. Specific ones, yes, but that won't cover everything.

The article is wonderfully sparse on actual information. A "macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms" was "involved," but what does that mean, exactly? Probably not that it was transformed to light (or light was transformed to it), nor that it was actually teleported.

My favorite part of quantum teleportation is that, if it ever is used to teleport objects, it'll have to transfer the state from the source atoms into some entangled destination atoms. Then the state will be lost in the source, and you'll be left with a mound of goo. That'd really make people want to try it out.

this just proves my theory...

[hobo sapiens]

...that nerds will stop at NOTHING to prove Star Trek is real. First, transparent aluminum, now this.

No Thanks, I'll walk

[TheWoozle]

I think Douglas Adams said it best:

I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg;
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.

Ok I will do it

[COMON$]

Someone had to ask. How is this technique going to maintain a person? Arent you essentially killing the person and reassembling their likeness in a remote location? How could an outsider tell the difference, the being that is transported would simply cease to exist while a copy lives the rest of their lives.

Re:Ok I will do it

[MoogMan]

In theory, the atoms involved get replicated in a different location. Essentially, yes, the source atom gets destroyed, and the destination atom gets "created". But the destination atom is indistinguishable from the source, so who is to say that they are not the same atom? Technically, the atom does not get destroyed, but it's spin and other state[1] gets set to the state of the original atom.

One question worth asking, is whether the relative position of the atoms are maintained through "teleportation". I would assume not. So at this stage, even if you did succeed in transporting a human, they would end up as a pool of water and carbon atoms I guess.

This is more of a philosophical question, I think. Hypothetically speaking, you could see it as killing the person, and re-assembling their likeness. But "their likeness" would know no different, and he/she would feel and act like the real person. Equally, as you say, an outsider would know no different. Would you be willing to kill yourself, knowing that an exact replica of you is about to be re-created.

It goes further, too. Does the soul exist as something other than the collection of atoms and particles that comprise us? If so, does this get left behind, or somehow carried across?

[1] This is how I understand it, at least. Maybe someone could clarify, and explain if anything other than spin would get replicated.

Re:Ok I will do it

[asuffield]

Someone had to ask. How is this technique going to maintain a person?

It isn't. Despite the regular press idiocy on this subject, quantum teleportation has got absolutely nothing to do with Star Trek-style transporters. This is a form of communication link, teleporting information from one place to another at the speed of light. It cannot operate on people, rocks, or any other tangible object. We may someday invent a matter transporter, but it won't be using this technology and it certainly isn't what they're studying. To quote from the opening paragraph in the Wikipedia article, which is the very least any ignorant reporter should read before posting nonsense on the subject:

Quantum teleportation does not transport energy or matter, nor does it allow communication of information at superluminal speed.

This is about the next generation of technology that may someday replace optic fibre for long-distance communication links (and may also be useful in the construction of quantum computers, should we ever find a use for them). Nothing to do with Star Trek. If you ever catch a reporter confusing the two again, please hurt them. Badly.

Easier method to teleport between solar systems

[WillAffleckUW]

1. Send DNA sequence for human/animal/etc from Star 1 to Star 2.
2. Use DNA sequence to grow said creature.
3. Install memory sequences, also sent as information.
4. Wake person up.
5. Keep original as slave in vast human slave army used to conquer the galaxy.
6. PROFIT!

Re:Scientific... American?

[WilliamSChips]

No, it was created long before Bush was elected.

Please explain

[snowwrestler]

Please describe, in a repeatable, objectively testable way, how to tell the difference between living and dead matter at the quantum level. For that matter please describe how to tell the difference between living and dead matter over very short periods of time. There's a lot about "life" that we don't understand scientifically yet.