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Quantum Teleportation Achieved Over 16 km In China

Laxori666 writes "Scientists in China have succeeded in teleporting information between photons farther than ever before. They transported quantum information over a free space distance of 16 km (10 miles), much farther than the few hundred meters previously achieved, which brings us closer to transmitting information over long distances without the need for a traditional signal."

35 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Yea but. by Pharmboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Unfortunately, what they transmitted was an email for Vi4gra, using an open wifi connection at a Starbucks 10 miles down the road.

    --
    Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  2. Lightspeed limited, not an ansible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Before you think this is awesome, this is not an ansible, information is transmitted at lightspeed only.

    1. Re:Lightspeed limited, not an ansible by Quantumstate · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It happens faster than the speed of light, but it isn't any use without extra information which can only be sent at light speed. You could use it to send secret messages since the state is instantly transferred and cannot be intercepted on the way and then the extra information can be used to get the data.

    2. Re:Lightspeed limited, not an ansible by thms · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, information can only be transmitted at light speed. (Except [gravity] information [..])

      No, that would break the universe. Gravity is also limited by by c. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity says: The speed of gravity in general theory of relativity is equal to the speed of light in vacuum, c.

    3. Re:Lightspeed limited, not an ansible by Iron+Condor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, information can only be transmitted at light speed. (Except information pertaining to gravitational fields, which must be transmitted instantly over vast distances in order for planets and moons to stay within stable orbits. Run the numbers for yourself -- see if you can get the planets to stay in orbit when the force points towards where the *current* light-speed gravitational waves say the massive object is.)

      Who modded this "interesting"? It is nonsense. The use of the term "force" in the context of gravity indicates that the poster is is talking about classical, Newtonian gravity. And there is no speed-of-light-limit in Newtonian gravity. Neither is there anywhere else in Newtonian mechanics.

      You want to do gravity relavtivistically (i.e. correctly, in agreement with actual, modern-level observations) you'll have to use general relativity. Which just so happens to work just fine. You'll find that there's no "force" (or other absolute vector) in there at all. The whole thing is essentially geometry-free, only the differential of any vector ever plays a role. As it should be, in a properly relativistic physics.

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    4. Re:Lightspeed limited, not an ansible by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This raises a question that has been on my mind for awhile. I hope I can explain this but I'm not an expert in physics so bear with me.

      Also, please do not just say "Your wrong, GTR says that can't happen", you would be "citing authority" and it really kills the validity of your rebuttal. Sort of like saying "God exists because the Bible says so". Please explain WHY its wrong, as in cite what portion of GTR says it can't happen so I can read it and see where how I went wrong.

      According to General Theory or Relativity, as defined in the link you posted, if a mass were to suddenly appear at a location in space-time, say in the forward Lagrange point of Jupiter's orbit, it would take X amount of time before the gravity from that mass would affect the orbits of the other planets in the Solar system. X being equal to time it would take for light to travel from the location of the mass to the rest of the planets in the Solar system.

      Have I got it right so far?

      But my understanding is that, according to GTR, gravity is caused by the deformation of space-time by a mass. So the mass that suddenly appeared would deform space-time around it, thus imposing a gravitational influence on all objects in range.

      Here is what has me going "wait, what?"

      Also according to GTR space-time can expand/contract at speeds greater than that of c in a vacuum, as described in the "inflation" theory of the early universe and Alcubierre's "warp drive" theory. Since the mass deforms space by "stretching" it wouldn't that mean that the influence of a mass could affect an object at a distance in less time than it would take light to travel that same distance? Since the "fabric" of space-time could alter faster than light can travel across it.

      I'm hoping to get some insight into how I could be wrong, because based on what I know I can't see any reason why it can't happen. It could explain why we haven't detected gravity waves using interferometry, if the gravity wave, a distortion of space-time was moving faster than light it wouldn't be able to affect the phase of the light beams.

      Thank you in advance to those who actually provide some useful info to help me improve my understanding.

    5. Re:Lightspeed limited, not an ansible by ByteSlicer · · Score: 3, Informative

      Gravitational waves emerge from the Einstein field equations, part of the mathematical formulation of General Relativity. Since we never measured any of them directly, we have no direct evidence of their existence, let alone their speed. But we do have good indirect evidence that they exist. All experiments/measurements we can come up with match GR to a very high degree.

      If gravitational waves could go faster than the speed of light, that would break causality. This means that you could find some reference frame moving at a constant velocity (special relativity) or constant acceleration (general relativity) from/to the source of the gravitational wave, for which you would first detect the gravitational wave, and only later see the event that generated it. Which basically reverses the flow of time. Relativity forbids this (see here for SR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity).

      Stretching of space-time (metric expansion of space) is a non-local phenomenon, meaning it falls outside of the scope of SR, but in the domain of GR. It's a very very small effect, that can only be seen at galactic scales. It means space-time is created in between two connected points of space-time, which is not what is happening in your case. Even in expanding space, no signal goes faster than light, and causality is preserved. The light itself keeps moving at c, it only undergoes a red-shift because the space it travels through stretches.

      So basically we just have a bunch of theories that tell us how the universe works, and those theories seem to hold up during experiments. They don't tell us why there is an upper speed limit, only that because the speed of light is constant and limited, no information can move faster, or causality would break, and the universe would be an even stranger place.

      To really know why this is so, and what exactly causes metric expansion of space, we need to find a working model of quantum gravity. GR doesn't seem to work very well at quantum scales. Several candidates exist, but they don't produce enough predictions to allow for conclusive testing. There are indications that the continuous space-time breaks down into a fractal pattern of small units of space-time (strings, loops, pentachoron depending on the theory) that form ever changing interconnections, a bit like water molecules in a drop moving around without the overall shape changing, but this in 4 or more dimensions. Since this all occurs at the Planck scale (about 10^20 times smaller that the diameter of a proton), and basically is the foundation of all space-time and thus reality, that makes it very hard to perform experiments that tell us anything more about it.

      On the quantum level we have the same problem: we have complicated field theories (quantum chromodynamics) that tell us how particles interact, but they don't tell us why they do so, or why they even exist with the mass/charge/color they have.

      One day we might find some unified theory that will answer all this, and from which everything will emerge naturally, but until then we'll have to do with what seems to work (SR/Newton for normal scales, GR for galactic scales and large masses, QM/QCD for quantum scales).

  3. Re:Progress.. by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And once they get to an economic level that is closer to what the rest of us enjoy in the Western world, they will start caring. When you are hungry, you only want bread. When you are homeless, you only want shelter. When you have plenty to eat and a decent place to live, you want freedom.

    --
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  4. I don't get it by Adrian+Lopez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't it impossible to transmit information via quantum entanglement? Since you cannot determine the state of an entangled particle, you cannot use it to "transmit" information until after you let the other end know, through conventional channels, what each possible state actually stands for. If that's the case, how exactly is this "quantum information transfer" supposed to work.

    --
    "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
    1. Re:I don't get it by pwilli · · Score: 4, Informative

      To further clarify what I meant:

      - Charlie entangles Particles A+B
      - Charlie sends Alice Particle A over fiber
      - Charlie sends Bob Particle B over air
      - Alice measures A and sends Charlie information about measurement (classic part needed for actual information transfer)
      - Charlie sends classic information to Bob
      - Bob measures Particle B, combines result with classic information, and voila, Bob can reconstruct the information "sent" by Alice


      Clearly no way to transfer information securely or fast, but a proof that entanglement in Particle B for Bob can survive long transfer through air.

  5. Re:Obligatory by jo_ham · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dare I say, if you don't find xkcd funny, the material might be somewhat... not aimed at you.

    To be delicate.

    Especially if you don't find *any* of them funny (although not all of them are designed to be humourous).

  6. Peer Reviewed by areusche · · Score: 5, Insightful

    http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/04/19/0132246/Chinas-Research-Ambitions-Hurt-By-Faked-Results

    This story alone makes me skeptical about any major scientific breakthroughs until someone can peer review the results.

    Congrats to the hardworking people on the project, however I will be applauding their work with less skepticism when I hear that MIT, Cornell, CMU, etc confirm the results.

    1. Re:Peer Reviewed by Interoperable · · Score: 4, Informative

      The work was done by Jian-Wei Pan, one of the leaders in the field and a very impressive researcher. You can bet that the result is accurate if his name is behind it. Furthermore, it's being published in Nature Photonics. Besides, the result is impressive, but not ground breaking. Extending the distance of the protocol requires some fancy techniques and a good deal of skill and expertise, but the results aren't surprising.

      --
      So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
  7. Re:Progress.. by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you have plenty to eat and a decent place to live, you want freedom.

    Or maybe you are just too scared of losing that prosperity that you decide not to rock the boat.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  8. Re:Philotics by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I never got any of this newfangled philotic physics. Half of it nobody understands anyway.

    No, everyone understands and doesn't understand quantum philotics at the same time, until they are tested. It averages out to half of the population, though.

  9. Re:Philotics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Odd, because I tend to feel as if I understand it and don't understand it at the same time.
    It's only when somebody asks me if I understand it that I come to a conclusion, either way.

  10. Re:This would be interesting for production use... by GoblinSoul · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I believe Quantum entanglement is actually a minimum of 10'000 times the speed of light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement#Experiment_measures_.22speed.22_of_the_quantum_non-local_connection

  11. Re:Wait, does this mean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Information has no mass, so why can't it?

  12. Info can't propagate faster than speed of light. by Cordath · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't feel bad, this is a pretty common mistake. People read about non-locality and how what happens to one half of an entangled pair affects the other half instantly no matter how far away it is. There does remain some philosophical debate over what entanglement and non-locality really are, but one thing has been supported very well by both theory and experiment: You can't transmit information or power faster than c. In the case of entangled pairs, actions on one half can have a non-local effect that propagates faster than c, but it's not possible to transmit information or power using that effect. In order to make sense of the results and actually observe the effects of non-locality, you typically need to send additional information classically.

    So, this will not lead to lag-less communication over vast distances. What it will lead to is quantum crypto networks. Long distance entanglement swapping or quantum teleportation are one of the key ingredients to building a scalable network.

  13. Re:Philotics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's because in China they just make up results like this to please political bosses.

  14. Re:Wait, does this mean... by buanzo · · Score: 5, Informative
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  15. Re:Wait, does this mean... by ClosedSource · · Score: 3, Informative

    Light can travel at the speed of light, things with matter can't.

  16. Re:Philotics by icebike · · Score: 4, Funny

    Odd, because I tend to feel as if I understand it and don't understand it at the same time.
    It's only when somebody asks me if I understand it that I come to a conclusion, either way.

    Me too, but then I get tangled up and with mixed emotions over the recent death of my cat and wish I never tried to understand in the first place.

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  17. Re:Philotics by icebike · · Score: 3, Funny

    Not anymore you don't.

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  18. Re:Progress.. by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Informative

    What a bunch of BS. China has about 300 million "regular" people, that is, decent incomes and they shop for food at grocery stores. China has ONE BILLION desperately poor peasants and workers, whose lives are not getting better at all. "Eating bitterness" is an idiom that they use to describe their lives. They are as docile as cattle. They won't be clamoring for freedom anytime soon.

    Oh, and Newsweek is a discredited, partisan source. Didn't anyone get the memo?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  19. Re:Wait, does this mean... by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

    There is no "quantum shit going on" that breaks special relativity. Attention world: Once and for all, quantum theory does not break relativity.

    How right you are, and I have an elegant theory of quantum gravity that reconciles quantum mechanics with general relativity. Unfortunately, my proof is too large to fit in this forum post.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  20. Re:Wait, does this mean... by lgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Clearly light and time are directly related phenomena. I don't think there's a third phenomenon ("speed of information") capping them both. After all, objects are free to move faster than light in relation to one another. The headlights and tail-lights of your car emit photons at c in opposite directions. The speed difference between them is clearly some approximation of 2c. To suggest otherwise would imply that they are somehow physically linked, which they are not. But your measurements are bounded by time, putting an effective cap on the speed you can observe.

    Thats not how relativity actually works. Two objects cannot, in fact move apart from each other faster than the speed of light.

    A C

    If B sees A and C each moving away from it at nearly the speed of light, that just means that A sees C moving away at even-more-nearly the speed of light. Funky, eh?

    Light moves at a speed limited by the impedance of the material it is travelling through. A vacuum is nearly the lowest impedance possible (but you can go slightly lower), but is nowhere near 0. Why does space have such a high impedance that space travel is impractical? The information speed limit would be my guess.

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    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  21. Bullshit article by copponex · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "The Asian crisis was a turning point in that sense," says Brookings Institution senior fellow Homi Kharas, who studies the new global middle class. "These countries began pursuing liberalization in their own way, at their own pace, and they've done well. Now they see their success as the fruit of their own efforts," even though it was attained under global systems of free trade and finance set up by the West.

    When someone is gently tugging your dick, keep your hand on your wallet. China and India have been successful because they did not adapt Western financial values. Ditto for Brazil and any other country who was large enough to avoid being pressured into the Chicago school of self-destructive economics. Since 1980, the Western world has been destroying markets and free trade by eliminating regulations and fairness - the only things that keep a market competitive, just as a vibrant independent press is that only thing that keeps democracies truly free.

    China will soundly destroy the American economy because 1) it's still developing and four times our population, 2) it's typically not imperialistic outside it's own borders, and 3) it's not being run by a voting bloc which believes literally that the earth is 6,000 years old.

    Our founding fathers decried Europe for being chained by the monarchist traditions and the shackles of dogmatic religious squabbling. Well, guess who the new Europe is. We just traded Monarchy for Corporatism.

  22. Re:This would be interesting for production use... by OrangeCatholic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It works like this. You put a red and a blue shirt in a bag. You and Alice close your eyes. You each take out a shirt and put it in a briefcase. Then you both go on a trip.

    When you get to the hotel, you open the briefcase and you have a red shirt. You know Alice's shirt is blue. The next question is, so what?

    As you can see from the example, you essentially pre-loaded the answer before you went on the trip. It's not real-time communication when you hand somebody a sealed envelope and walk away.

  23. Quantum Gravity Proof? by fishexe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Unfortunately, my proof is too large to fit in this forum post.

    Is it really too large, or are you just afraid that once your theory is observed it will no longer hold?

    --
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  24. Re:Philotics by fishexe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Half of it nobody understands anyway.

    "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." --Richard Feynman

    --
    "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
  25. Re:Wait, does this mean... by FrangoAssado · · Score: 4, Informative

    How did this get moderated up? This poster clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

    The whole point of quantum entanglement is that prior to the measurement, there's no basis in which the state is definite. This means it's not just that "you cannot predict which of the two [states] you will measure"; the whole point is that there is no defined classical state the system is in. There's no classical analog for that, so it's really hard (maybe impossible?) to explain without math.

    If you don't even know the most basic stuff about quantum mechanics (as is clear from the post), please educate yourself before writing about it or even moderating stuff about it.

  26. Re:This would be interesting for production use... by Pfhorrest · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Except it's not quite like that.

    You and Alice put two shirts in a bag, shake it up, close your eyes, and you each pull out a magic mixed-up shirt which cycles through the color spectrum at random varying speeds (but the same speed on each shirt) until you look at it, at which point it stops cycling on one particular color, and the other stops cycling on the complementary color. You put your shirts in your respective briefcases and go on your trips, and when you get there, you open your briefcase and see your shirt has stopped on red. So now you know that if Alice looks in her briefcase, she will see her shirt has stopped on cyan.

    However, the question is again, "so what?"

    You don't get to decide whether the shirt is red or blue when you look at it (since the speed it cycles at varies randomly, so you can't very well time it or something), so it's not like you can send a "cyan" to Alice for a "0" and a "red" for a "1". Likewise, when Alice opens her briefcase and sees a cyan shirt, she doesn't even know if you have looked at your shirt or not yet; her shirt might have stopped flashing and just landed on "cyan" by chance when she looked at it (making your shirt stop at "red"), or you may have looked at your shirt and seen "red", making her shirt stop right then too on "cyan".

    The only thing that's interesting about these synchronized flashing shirts is the fact that when one stops cycling the other stops at EXACTLY the same time no matter how far away they are. We only know this because when you and Alice do this over and over again and then compare your notes afterward, you always find out that your shirt stopped on one color and hers on the complement. That's interesting because if there was any time delay between one stopping and the other, you would expect the hue-difference between the two shirts to vary with distance: at close distances you'd get close to complimentary colors because they stop at close to the same time, while at larger distances the second shirt would stop slightly later making it slightly off from complementary. And of course if there was no communication between them at all, there would be no correlation between what color you see and what color she sees. But you always see red when Alice sees cyan, and you always see yellow when she sees blue, and you always see green when she sees magenta. Which indicates that anybody looking at either shirt not only stops that shirt but also the other shirt instantaneously.

    Which isn't of any practical utility, however, for the reasons described two paragraphs above. But it sure as hell is weird, isn't it?

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  27. Re:Wait, does this mean... by CrazeeCracker · · Score: 4, Informative

    Okay, I'll bite.

    So just because you measure the speed between them as c doesn't mean they are each moving at half-c. They are still both moving at c, in opposite directions, for an effective 2c with regards to their eventual position.

    No. Your conclusions stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of relativity. It makes no sense to talk about "eventual position" in the way you are, because it requires talking about an absolute time. There is no absolute time. You may have heard this sentence being thrown around before in special relativity, but perhaps you haven't appreciated the full meaning of it.

    Let's talk about "eventual position". What you're saying is, we measure the positions of A and C, then wait some time t, then measure their positions again, and, lo and behold, if we divide the distance travelled by the time taken we are left with the impression that A and C are moving apart at 2c. This is true if you measure t and the distance in B's reference frame, but not from A's or C's reference frames, even though these are equally valid.
    Once again, there is never one way of looking at things that is just a little bit "truer" than the others, even if your intuition may tell you that, since B's reference frame is at rest, it should provide a less distorted and more objective measurement than A's/C's. Truth is, you could look at the same problem in a different way, where A is at rest. Then B is moving away from it at nearly-the-speed-of-light, and C is moving away at even-more-nearly-the-speed-of-light, at a speed defined by the equation on this page.
    We have no definition of which of the above observations is the "correct" way of looking at things, because they are physically indistinguishable from each other. They are, in fact, the same thing; different realities exist for different observers, which is why the name "relativity" is so fitting.

    Here's a better example. The furthest objects in the universe are about 13b light-years away. The light they emitted 13b years ago is getting to us now. Do you think, in the past 13b years, that they haven't moved any further??

    Sure, 13b light-years away must mean that a photon arriving on earth right now must have been emitted 13b years ago, right? From our perspective it does. From the photon's perspective, it made the journey in less than the blink of an eye. Does this mean the photon travelled many multiples of the speed of light to get here? No, it just shows, once again, that different realities exist for different observers.

    --
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  28. Re:This would be interesting for production use... by nine-times · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The only thing that's interesting about these synchronized flashing shirts is the fact that when one stops cycling the other stops at EXACTLY the same time no matter how far away they are.

    In the context of special relativity, what does it mean for two things to happen at EXACTLY the same time?