Scientists "Teleport" Quantum Information One Meter

the4thdimension writes "While we may not be beaming up to the Enterprise anytime soon, a team of scientists from the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan have managed to teleport information between two atoms up to a meter apart. Until this point, only very tiny distances were able to be traveled. However, using a complicated system of photons, ions, lasers, and electromagnetics, scientists have managed to 'teleport' information contained on one atom to another atom that is in a separate sealed container. This can lead to a wide range of developments in computing and communications." Update: 01/29 22:29 GMT by T : Sorry, it's a dupe, but today's article in Time is better reading than the abstract anyhow.

Comments

Discussed A Week Ago

[eldavojohn]

I think we discussed this a week ago.

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[Dyinobal]

Yes it teleported 1 week through space and time. Last week you read about the attempt, this week you read about the sucess.

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week was the success. This week is the atempt.

Stay tuned for next week's announcement about a new idea called "Quantum Physics"

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[lamapper]

Obviously you do not watch Lost...

Perhaps this week is last year and last week was next year?

Did you see a blinding, flashing light in the sky?

But seriously, a meter is a bit farther than other reports I have read. Prior to this report I thought the distance was microscopic. Guess I need to go back and read last weeks report again.

One day we (err our kids) may be able to say, "Beam me up Scotty!"

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[Theoboley]

How did you generate the 1.8 Jiggawatts of power to travel through space and time???

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[fireman sam]

1.21 gigawatts

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[Architect_sasyr]

up scotty is the last place I'd want to be beamed.

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[pcolaman]

Warp 10

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[BACPro]

Wouldn't we have read about the success last week and the attempt this week?

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[againjj]

In other words:
Editors "Teleport" Summary Information One Week

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I realized that as SOON as i posted it that it was wrong... I apologize.

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[sillybilly]

They did not actually encode any information. They played a game of roll two dice and if I look at one, if I measure one, I can tell what the other must be. But I can't force the other to be anything I want, because I can't force the one I look at to be what I want, the measurement outcome, the result of "looking" is up to chance, so I can't store and encode arbitrary information as I need to. I can tell what's in the black box, but that's it.

I went and read the article. What they did, or more exactly tried to do, was save a "quantum information", clone an "unmolested qubit." I don't really get quantum information yet. So I went to read some wikipedia pages. Read up on qubit, which is either molested 0 or 1, or unmolested superposition state of 0 and 1. I find out that, with a few exceptions, most quantum computing results are probabilistic, that is, the answer has a high probability of being right, and the probability can be increased by repeating the operations. There is also a no cloning theorem, where an unmolested qubit cannot be cloned into a "separable state." Entangled systems are possible, but "no well-defined state can be attributed to a subsystem of an entangled state". So basically, entangled measurements destroy the superposed unmolested qubit itself that has been "cloned" or "teleported" onto the other atom, because once the superposition collapses here, and you have a definite answer over there, you no longer have an unmolested superposition of states over there either. Once you know this one, the answer on the other one is a definite 0 or 1. It's like when two atoms are quantum entangled, molesting one is automatically molesting the other out of a quantum superposition state into a classical defined state, destroying the information qubit. Quantum qubits cannot be copied or cloned into a separable state. No such thing as a 80 megaqubit quantum harddisk. Where does that leave quantum computing. Somebody enlighten me there, because to me it seems like complete bs.

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[asliarun]

<bofh> up scotty is the last place I'd want to be beamed.

Yeah, you don't want to get kilt.

Re:Discussed A Week Ago

[Dan541]

I just teleported data to slashdot.

Scientists also teleport article into the future!

[mooingyak]

N/T

Insert Quantam Leap joke here -

[concoursrider]

So, let me get this straight - was Iggy responsible for this Quantum Leap?

Re:Insert Quantam Leap joke here -

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Ziggy says there's a 99.9999% chance you got that reference wrong.

Re:Insert Quantam Leap joke here -

[concoursrider]

Except /. missed my correction!

Star Trek Shenanigans

[NickyGotz22]

I hope at least one scientist in that lab had the balls to shout "Beam me up Scotty!!!" during the experiment

Re:Star Trek Shenanigans

[RiotingPacifist]

For the last time quantum teleportation isn't star trek style, its far more impressive. It's transferring information you don't even know across space.

Re:Star Trek Shenanigans

[gparent]

Fucking Woosh.

Re:Star Trek Shenanigans

[mrsquid0]

The Fingerprinz song?

Re:Star Trek Shenanigans

[Tubal-Cain]

I'd say it is more like the Ansible from Ender's Game.

Re:Star Trek Shenanigans

[daveime]

Bean, is that you ?

Is this really new?

[Hogwash McFly]

I watched a BBC documentary 'Visions of the Future' online a couple of days ago, and a team in Vienna had already teleported information between photons years ago. See here, about 50 minutes in. (I recommend watching all three programmes, it's an interesting documentary). The professor in the video states that the record stands at 600 metres. I'm no physicist, so could someone explain what is so different about what has been achieved in the article? Is the difference between teleporting information between photons and atoms so distinct?

Re:Is this really new?

[davester666]

Um, this was done in the US. Therefore it is newsworthy. QED

Re:Is this really new?

[Cyberax]

It's easy to teleport photons - it's the basis of quantum cryptography for which we now even have commercial applications. I believe current record is about 1000km.

However, in this experiment scientists have teleported the state of an _atom_ using photons as intermediary quantum information carriers.

Re:Is this really new?

[Chris Burke]

Yeah it's new. It's the first time they've teleported quantum information between entangled atoms over this distance. I guess it's harder than doing it with photons due to... mass? Certainly it's not like you take the exact same setup you use to do photon teleportation, and it just works -- bamf! -- on atoms.

So it's nothing really 'new' in the sense that it's the same ol' teleporting-information-but-no-information-you-can-use trick just with a matter instead of energy. It's definitely something new in the sense that we couldn't do it before.

Incremental progress. I like it; I don't get why it doesn't satisfy some people.

Re:Is this really new?

[lgw]

If you're talking about the existing product, the basis of "quantum" "cryptography" is shining a really dim light (or perhaps selling your product to a really dim bulb). There's more marketing buzzward than truth in both the "quantum" and the "cryptography", and further it doesn't actually solve any problems.

Of course, scifi quantum crypto is very cool, but then so is setting phasers on stun.

Re:Is this really new?

[frieko]

What isn't quantum about exchanging quanta of light, and what isn't cryptography about computing a shared secret?

Re:Is this really new?

[tenco]

It's explained in last weeks story.

Re:Is this really new?

[geminidomino]

Of course, scifi quantum crypto is very cool, but then so is setting phasers on "evaporate the bitch".

Fixed. "Stun" is for pussies.

Re:Is this really new?

[daveime]

What about all the other phaser settings ? "Limp," "Bit of a Cough," "Depression," "Bad Eyesight," "Ice Cream Van Nearby," "Sudden Interest In Botany," "Water In The Ear After Swimming," "Left The Oven On At Home."

Re:Is this really new?

[lgw]

You're missing the point: phasers are for pussies. "Set disruptors on mutilate."

Re:Is this really new?

[lgw]

Well, every fiber network exchanges quanta of light. The thing is, the products sold as "quantum cryptography" don't use anything related to quantum mechanics to exchange data - no entangled particles or anything like that. That's the spin, but not the product. This product is a load of crap.

Engineer: We have eavesdroppers physically tapping our cables, can you help us?

Salesdroid: I have just the thing: Quantum Cryptography make eavesdropping impossible.

E: Do Tell.

S: We encode each bit as a single photon, so no one can snoop without consuming the entire signal.

E: Ahh, so we're totally protected against an attacker who doesn't store and forward?

S: No, that's the clever bit: each bit is encoded either as polarity or frequency, and the attacker won't know which. Due to the magic of Quantum, the attacker can't read both for any bit, so he can't store and forward!

E: That sounds cool! But wait, how do *we* know whether to read the polarity or frequency of a given bit?

S: Oh, no problem, you send that information ahead of time on another channel!

E: Perhaps you missed the part where I said that we have eavesdroppers physically tapping our cables?

S: So just exchange this key using some different method known to be secure!

E: Great idea! Then we'll just send our data on our current network encrypted with that key! We don't need your product after all

S: Wait! Wait! Ours is Quantum! You can't get Quantum from our competitors!

E: Door's to the left.

Re:Is this really new?

[frieko]

E: That sounds cool! But wait, how do *we* know whether to read the polarity or frequency of a given bit?

S: Oh, no problem, you send that information ahead of time on another channel!

Ah, that's where you're confused. You reveal the basis vectors AFTER, not before. And you reveal them publicly, perhaps via radio broadcast, NOT over a secure line.

You can't store and forward because you don't know which basis to store!

Re:Is this really new?

[lgw]

Wow, I can't even tell whether you're continuing the joke.

How does the reciever work when a photon comes in if it doesn't know what to measure? It stores the data that cannot be stored until later?

Re:Is this really new?

[frieko]

That's really how it works. For each bit you just randomly pick a basis and measure it. Later the sender announces the true basis and if you measured the wrong one then you just throw that bit away.

Remember, this is cryptographic key exchange, not encryption. We already have a perfectly unbreakable cipher, one-time-pad. QC solves the problem of coming up with the pad itself.

I suggest you RTFWA rather than argue further.

Re:Is this really new?

[lgw]

Yeah, if the attacker simply cannot be a man-in-the-middle on the "open" channel, he would gain nothing man-in-the-middle on the "quantum" channel. Better than nothing, I guess, but it would seem hard to arrange that in the real world, since the attacker is already inside your datacenter (or you don't need this in the first place). Hope no one invents a polarization-preserving photomultiplier!

Much like people feel that https is secure, when in the real world it's vulnerable to (demonstrated) attacks on the certification process, attacks on the "open" channel are naturally easier to begin with.

Secure sneakernet is still the most secure method for key transfer, but there's little money to be made there, it seems.

Re:Is this really new?

[frieko]

In any case, I do agree that it's not worth the money. Not because it's snake oil but because non-quantum computing will probably never break RSA. And if it turns out that entangling qubits to each other is exponentially difficult, then RSA should be able to keep well ahead of those as well.

"Only" one meter?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!!

Yeah but....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Teleporting by a week is a fantastic breakthrough! Before now they've only managed a few nanoseconds.

Re:Yeah but....

[Miseph]

I'm glad to hear we've mastered traveling forward through time. This is a major breakthrough.

Re:Yeah but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Teleported back into time; A meter away, a week before.

Two breakthrough, one experiment.

Slashdot teleports information - 5 days forward

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot performs its own spooky quantum miracle, teleporting this information 5 days forward in time. Or was that backward?

not news

[jecowa]

I've been "teleporting" information several yards ever since I got a wireless router.

Re:not news

[drpimp]

I think someone needs to read the definitions of Teleporting and Transmitting a little closer.

Re:not news

[pcolaman]

I've been "teleporting" "information" several yards when my wife wants to spice things up in the bedroom.

Re:not news

[Anonymous Coward]

*woosh*

Re:not news

[Skweetis]

That's funny, I do the same thing when your wife wants to spice things up in the bedroom.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist =P)

Re:not news

[pcolaman]

She said you came up just a little short. (Sorry, I couldn't resist either :p)

First teleported comment

[Timesprout]

I posted it in the origial thread and it appears in the dupe thread.

BTW I am patenting 'Teleposting' as I like to call it.

Only One Problem...

[wa2flq]

The teleported information arrived turned inside out.

It took 8 hours for a Hazmat team to clean up the walls, floor, ceiling and scientists.

What does this tell us?

[Man Eating Duck]

Seriously... from the title of the article: "Teleportation Is Real" (picture from Startrek).

From the article: "For scientists, it's [teleportation] just very, very complex, so much so that at this point, teleportation is not a matter of moving matter but one of transporting information."

Substance of article: "It doesn't work reliably, but might be useful for not-yet-existing computers".

While this is interesting, I can't help but thinking that more to-the-point article about the real achievements of this group might be more interesting to the /. crowd. Finding one is left as an exercise for the reader :)

Re:What does this tell us?

[nine-times]

Yeah, it seems like every so often, there's another story in the media that "teleportation has been achieved," or "we can make things invisible," or "scientists have made light go faster than light." They go on to explain all the great things we could do if we could teleport things, go faster than light, and make things invisible.

Then, down near the bottom somewhere, they finally explain that no, we're not talking about real teleportation, but rather quantum entanglement that can't really be used for communication. We're not talking about real faster-than-light travel, but making a light wave that sort of looks like it's going faster than light but isn't. We're talking about something that might be useful for stealth airplanes, making them invisible to radar, and not real invisibility. Stuff like that.

And then they tag some throw-away line at the end like, "But who knows, maybe we'll be able to teleport to the moon next year!"

I hate journalists.

Re:What does this tell us?

[wild_quinine]

It doesn't work reliably, but might be useful for not-yet-existing computers

Kind of blows the whole concept of bandwidth out of the water, doesn't it? When you can instantly duplicate bits of information to a machine at any location...

Re:What does this tell us?

[Man Eating Duck]

I hate journalists.

While I agree with you, it is one way of cathing the public's eye. Journalists want to make headlines, when they can't, they make up headlines remotely tangential to whatever material they've got.

My beef is with the Slashdot editors; when I started reading Slashdot, it was because the editors chose interesting stories. They still do, this is interesting, but they choose to present this particular mainstream article as the only link in their ingress as documentation and background information. I find that sad.

Re:What does this tell us?

[radtea]

Then, down near the bottom somewhere, they finally explain that no, we're not talking about real teleportation

While I agree with the thrust of your complaint and share your hatred of journalists, I'm at least happy to see that both the recent /. stories on this have prominently featured the word "INFORMATION" as the 'thing' teleported. It still isn't quite correct, as 'information' in the ordinary sense of the term carries more ontological weight than 'quantum state' but it is a huge improvement over the usual gibberish about 'teleporting atoms'.

Re:What does this tell us?

[Man Eating Duck]

Kind of blows the whole concept of bandwidth out of the water, doesn't it? When you can instantly duplicate bits of information to a machine at any location...

"Oh my gosh, you solved their problem. They can achieve 90%, you only need to implement an error correcting algorithm capable of handling 10% of error, and you have achieved instant information transmission!".
No, really, I find their results intriguing, but that was not my point at all :)

Re:What does this tell us?

[Jabbrwokk]

Perhaps those of you in this thread who hate journalists so much should make efforts to give scientists some media training so that when they are interviewed, they speak in clear language, not jargon.

Yes, it's the journalist's job to be clear and accurate, but it's pretty damn difficult when the interview subject spews out line after line of technobabble only meaningful to another scientist.

Also, don't blame journalists for trying (sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to spice things up and present scientific stories to a broader audience. Only slashdot readers are going to get excited when they see "We report teleportation of quantum information between atomic quantum memories separated by about 1 meter" and the thrilling "Quantum Teleportation Between Distant Matter Qubits" headline (the word "teleportation" is used in the abstract, so don't blame the journalist.)

At the very least, people interested in the topic can go look up the referenced abstract and read it for themselves. Granted, it requires some critical thinking skills and some initiative to do that, which might be expecting a lot from people. But without the hated journalist's efforts they wouldn't even know about the story.

Re:What does this tell us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you calling Slashdot summary providers "journalists"?

You must be new here.

Re:What does this tell us?

[Wandering Hoosier]

I hate to contradict a good rant, but in actuality, this "teleportation" can be used for communication.

Here's the experiment, without all the theory:

1. Put the atom A into the state you want to teleport to B. Let's call the two states "red" or "blue". Put atom B into a "known" state.

2. "Stimulate" both atoms so they will fire off a photon. The photon from each will either be a "red" type or "blue" type, but we won't know which (that's important).

3. Both photons "meet" in a beam splitter, then go to separate detectors.

4. If one detector detects a "red" and the other a "blue", then continue, Otherwise go back to step 1. Key here is that this step "confirms" the atoms are now entangled. At this point, if we measured A, the result would determine the B measurement. But we're not going to do that yet.

5. Instead, apply an operation to atom A, so that subsequently measuring it doesn't lock B into a "single" state. It instead puts it into one of two states, still dependent on the initial state of A.

6. Measure A. The measurement will either be "red" or "blue".

7. Use the measurement of A to choose the final operation to apply to B. B will, due to the magic of Quantum Mechanical entanglement, now be in A's initial state, whatever that was.

If A was initially in a "red" state, then measuring B will get you "red". If it was original in the "blue" state, measuring B will get you "blue".

While this does require that you repeat until you get a "red/blue" detection and you need the final A measurement to know what operatation to apply to B, the final A measurement doesn't contain the information about its original state. You could do the final operations on B only when you received the "red/blue" at the detectors and "red" measurements of A. B will still end up in whatever state A started out in.

So, to summarize one last time:

Apply operations to ions A and B. They fire off photons simultaneously into a beam splitter and detector. If the photon detectors detects a particular condition, then operate on A and measure it. Depending on the A measurement, apply one of two operations on B. B will now be in A's original state. If A started in a "singlet" state, then in the end B will be in that "singlet" state, and measuring it will indicate what that state was.

That seems like communication from A to B to me.

Re:What does this tell us?

[nine-times]

...operate on A and measure it. Depending on the A measurement, apply one of two operations on B.

Doesn't that require a separate channel of communication, or am I misunderstanding? What I mean is, if you have to know A's state before you know what to do with B, then won't whoever measures A to then signal someone at B as to what operation to perform?

Not that I really understand your post, but it was my understanding that quantum entanglement couldn't be used for "communication" in the sense that people usually hope (faster than light communication).

Re:What does this tell us?

[Wandering Hoosier]

No, it wouldn't be good for faster than light communication. But it could be used for secure communication, or implementing a "shift" register in a quantum computer. The separate line of communication doesn't pass information about the initial state of A, just its final measurement, which actually says nothing about it's initial state to anyone or anything except ion B. And, because we're talking about quantum mechanics, A's initial quantum state could be a superposition of states, not just "0" or "1".

Let's see if I can shorten my explanation to this: All the second line of communication says: "Entanglement between A and B was successful. Please use method 1 (or 2) to set B to A's initial state."

Re:What does this tell us?

[radtea]

Also, don't blame journalists

In the past I've actually been far harder on scientists than journalists with regard to the use of "teleportation" as a term of art, which I consider to be misleading to the point of dishonesty.

But I have also seen too many cases where scientists have done their best to describe their work in fair terms only to see journalists (or their editors) mangle the resulting story almost beyond recognition. A colleague once came into work and said, "There were five stories in the science section of the L.A. Times this weekend. Four of them were on work I am personally familiar with. Three of those were unrecognizable--I only knew it was the work of X, Y or Z because their names were mentioned. The fourth was recognizable but distorted to the point of being meaningless." This is NOT SCIENTIST'S FAULT. Journalists, by trying to "spice things up" are in fact distorting the truth, which can be presented in a competent and interesting way without making a mess of it.

Re:What does this tell us?

[nine-times]

I see.

When I said, "can't really be used for communication," I was trying to refer to faster-than-light communication. It seems to me when most people talk about "teleportation," the first hope is to actually deconstruct a physical object in one place while instantaneously reconstructing it in another. Then when it's explained that "no, we're talking about quantum entanglement and teleporting information," the hope usually turns into the idea that you would alter the state of one entangled particle in a way that the change could instantly be read at a distant location in so as to send information faster than light.

When it turns out to be neither of those things, my natural response is, "Oh, so you're not talking about teleportation. You're talking about using quantum entanglement for some particular purpose, probably encryption. That's interesting and all, but could you stop using the word 'teleportation' until you actually... you know... teleport something?"

The funny thing

[Anonymous Coward]

...is for the whole week in between the experiment simultaneously existed as both a success and a failure.

Re:The funny thing

[Nasajin]

...is for the whole week in between the experiment simultaneously existed as both a success and a failure.

i.e. no different from most stories on slashdot.

Re:The funny thing

[Chris Burke]

i.e. no different from most stories on slashdot.

Most stories on slashdot are simultaneously a failure and a gigantic failure. :P

Re:The funny thing

[pcolaman]

i.e. no different from most stories on slashdot.

Most replies on slashdot are simultaneously a failure and a gigantic failure. :P

Fixed it for you.

Re:The funny thing

[tenco]

...is for the whole week in between the experiment simultaneously existed as both a success and a failure.

Until some slashdotter finally observed TFA.

Re:The funny thing

[aqk]

is for the whole week in between the experiment simultaneously existed as both a success and a failure.
Yeah, but during that week they waited, the by-now starving cat ate it.
So to see the results, they had to dissect the poor cat.
.

Re:The funny thing

[daveime]

Schrodingers Webpage ?

The experiment was both a success and a failure until the article was read, thus collapsing the waveform into one state or the other.

Re:The funny thing

[SBacks]

Until some slashdotter finally observed TFA.

So, you're saying it hasn't happened yet?

a dupe you say...

[stinky wizzleteats]

Sorry, it's a dupe...

Ironic?

Re:a dupe you say...

[RiotingPacifist]

Ironic?

Indead it is ironic as quantum teleportation destroys the original, if only that happened here

OMG ! They did it !

[ivan_w]

Didn't they read the c'eth commandment ?

Thou shalt not teleport information from 1 atom to another atom at a speed greater than thy Lord hath deemed forbidden[1] lest thou wishes to kill thy grandfather before thou art born - and create earth engulfing black holes in the process[2].

Fools ! we are doomed !

--Ivan

[1] Ok.. I didn't read TA.. so what ?
[2] That's last sentence is not in the original text - consider this creative license.

try

[NonUniqueNickname]

past tense for old (repeated) news. Scientists "Teleported" Quantum Information One Meter.

The average Slashdotter...

[Rude Turnip]

...can teleport his entire genetic code several inches. Oh look, there goes an acrobat!

Extra! Extra! Error in article summary!

[charlesbakerharris]

I'm sorry, but I'm fairly certain that the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan are just a little more than one meter apart. I call shenanigans.

Conjecture...

[aztektum]

If I post a comment on last weeks article, will it also show up on this weeks article?

Re:Conjecture...

[ivan_w]

If that particular post was posted on last week's article, then you may claim success !

--Ivan

Re:Conjecture...

[Samah]

If I post a comment on last weeks article, will it also show up on this weeks article?

More to the point, if you post a comment on this week's article, will it travel back in time to last week's article?

Re:Conjecture...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been waiting a week to respond to this: yes.

Re:Conjecture...

[antikaos]

And what if I post the same post that I posted last week? Could I then travel back in time? or from the past to the present?

No Communication Theorem

[LordBoreal51]

I'm wondering, if this process uses entanglement how does that work with the No Communication Theorem? I thought that entanglement could not actually transfer useful information.

Re:Extra! Extra! Error in article summary!

[Chris Burke]

Only in the common three spatial dimensions. They're pretty much right on top of each other in the 5th and 6th dimensions, which results in all kinds of practical jokes going on between their physics departments.

More Slashdot headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

Researchers Split the Atom!

Man Walks on Moon!

Russian First Man in Orbit!

Darwin Announces a Theory Called Evolution!

and....

Newton Identifies a New Force, Gravity!

Back to the cutting edge news....

Wonderful...

[Chris Mattern]

but today's article in Time is better reading than the abstract anyhow.

Indeed. Why read the article written by the guy who understands it when you can read the article written in someone's spare time when he's not covering Britney?

Quotes around teleport

[iconic999]

Why the quotes around "teleport"? Either they can do it or they can't. If they can, then remove the quotes. If they can't, use a different word.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Oblig.

http://xkcd.com/465/

physics and delay time

[mcfatboy93]

i see one problem with this 1 lightyear = 9.4605284 Ã-- 1015 meters and the technology used to tell scientists have if this was "teloported" have to take a measure of a unit of time that is so small my calculator (the one that comes with windows) and my TI-84-SE can't calculate how small it is. how can we say it has "teloported" if we can't measure the time it takes to get from point A to point B if the smallest measure of time we have is greater then the time it takes get from point A to point B

Re:physics and delay time

[Seth024]

Teleportation at the speed of light would take 3.3 ns (3.3e-9 seconds) to cover a distance of 1m. This is certainly measurable. However no time difference has been measured in this experiment because the teleportation is instantaneous.

Re:physics and delay time

[david_thornley]

I can recognize your words individually, but they appear to me to make no sense whatsoever.

Specifically, what is this "instantaneous" of which you speak? You seem to be saying that two events happen at the same time but in different places.

Unless you want to throw out the entire theory of relativity, you mean one of two things. Either you mean that they happen at the same time in some certain reference frame, or you mean the events have spacelike separation and nothing more.

Will somebody please tell me whether this is instantaneous in the lab reference frame, or instantaneous in some other reference frame, or physicists have decided to ditch this whole relativity nonsense when I wasn't looking?

Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:
Each qubit added to a quantum computer doubles the size of the system, so if you want to know the capacity of a computer that contains 300 qubits, take the number 2 and multiply it by itself 300 times. "That's more than the number of particles in the universe," Monroe says.

Perhaps Time is no longer the great source of information it once was...or they may be referring to fundamental particles, in which case the same point stands...

Is it TRULY teleportation?

[digitally404]

Teleportation requires dematerializing one object, and rematerializing it at another location.

Here we have two atoms, which totally inherit each others information at the speed of light.

Am I the only one who thought teleportation is instantaneous and requires only a single entity?

I can teleport already

[Anonymous Coward]

I can teleport already. All I have to do is go out and drink enough alcohol, and sure enough, I'll wake up at home somehow - not knowing how I got there.

Re:Fuck you shit eater

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be shy... tell us how you really feel.

Gordon? Is that you?

[wallsg]

Hopefully there's no Dr. Gordon Freeman or Eli Vance associated with this research...

time

[Anonymous Coward]

As reported by the reputable science journal, "Time Magazine."

Why can't we just do it the normal way?

[jonaskoelker]

Why can't we just do plain old regular teleportation?

http://xkcd.com/465/

Quantum Information & SETI

[gpronger]

One of the thoughts that's crossed my mind as we further explore and understand utilization of quantum information is that if there is sentient beings "Out There" with some level of capability for space exploration is that it would seem that this would be a very likely way for them to maintain communication. Efforts such as SETI would then be attempting to discover background noise (I use the term "noise" here more as commentary on what most of what we communicate tends to be)of civilizations no more advanced than ourselves attempting only very nearby levels of communication.

Civilizations capable of greater levels of exploration would likely have developed means of utilizing communication along the lines of quantum information than our radio waves.

Ain't this like 4 years old news?

[alphatel]

http://www.quantum.at/research/quantum-cryptography/quantum-secured-bank-transfer.html

was over 1KM in distance of encrypted protocol over spooky action at a distance, hence instantaneous. Why are we writing about 1 atom over 1 meter?

Is there any way to stop propagating garbage news?

spooky motion

[avicho]

"Spooky motion at a distance" has been a quantum physics tenent for over a decade

Re:spooky motion

[LionMage]

Except that it's called "spooky action at a distance," and the other word you're looking for is tenet.

Also, the phenomenon has been known for way more than a decade -- Einstein is the person who coined the term "spooky action at a distance." He died in 1955, which is over 5 decades ago.