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Chinese Physicists Achieve Quantum Teleportation Over 60 Miles

MrSeb writes "Chinese physicists are reporting that they've successfully teleported photonic qubits (quantum bits) over a distance of 97 kilometers (60mi). This means that quantum data has been transmitted from one point to another, without passing through the intervening space. It's important to note that the Chinese researchers haven't actually made a photon disappear and reappear 97 kilometers away; rather, they've used quantum entanglement to recreate the same qubit in a new location, with the same subatomic properties as the original qubit. The previous record for transmitting entangled qubits was 16 kilometers, performed by another Chinese team back in 2010 — and perhaps most excitingly, the researchers seem confident that their system will scale up from 97km to distances capable of reaching orbital satellites, at which point we'll actually be able to build a global quantum network for all of our cryptographic needs."

36 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. That's nothing by crazyjj · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hear the next step is transporting economic superpower status over 7,000 miles.

    --
    What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    1. Re:That's nothing by Immostlyharmless · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Old News, it's already been done :P

    2. Re:That's nothing by cpu6502 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Reminds me of an Outer Limits episode.

      They "transport" people through something similar to quantum entanglement that allows them to pass the data of Person #1 across several lightyears, and use that data to artificially create Person #1 at the new location. Of course that means they have two identical people, so they have to kill the original.

      --
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    3. Re:That's nothing by YodasEvilTwin · · Score: 2

      I hold out hope that this will be possible in the very distant future, but there's a few giant problems to overcome: (1) Syncing trillions of atoms at the same time (2) Having the raw materials and movining them into place (3) Being able to determine the state of trillions of atoms at the same time.

    4. Re:That's nothing by crazyjj · · Score: 3

      "Think Like a Dinosaur", based on the excellent short story by James Patrick Kelly. One of the best episodes of that series.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    5. Re:That's nothing by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 2

      If only we'd finished our ladder to Heaven first.

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
    6. Re:That's nothing by steelfood · · Score: 2

      Why they would want to send it back would be completely baffling.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  2. Lord? by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lord... Whats a qubit?

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
    1. Re:Lord? by Jose · · Score: 4, Funny

      Lord... Whats a qubit?

      it is more of who than a what...Qubit is Q*Bert's Chinese cousin.

      --
      The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
    2. Re:Lord? by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 2

      It's a new method for transmitting spam.

    3. Re:Lord? by osu-neko · · Score: 3, Funny

      Lord... Whats a qubit?

      How long can you tread water? :p

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    4. Re:Lord? by Qubit · · Score: 5, Funny

      Lord... Whats a qubit?

      Here! I'm here... finally. I would have gotten here sooner if the Chinese hadn't been, you know, teleporting me around all morning.

      *stretches*

      Hmm... well that sucks. I think they made a mistake and put one of my quarks in upside down -- I feel strange all over now.

      --

      coding is life /* the rest is */
    5. Re:Lord? by FrootLoops · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here's a summary of the physics, including what a qubit is.

      Quantum states
      Suppose some process produces two electrons. It happens that a particular measurement of a quantum property named spin always comes out as +1/2 or -1/2 for electrons. Now suppose the process that created the electrons must obey a conservation law which forces the sum of the spins of the two electrons to be 0--say the particles that interacted to make the electrons themselves had 0 spin. One electron must then be spin +1/2 and the other must be -1/2. However, until the measurement is performed, you have no idea which is which. More is true: a fundamental part of quantum mechanics is that particle properties can be in multiple states simultaneously right up until a measurement is performed, at which point the property collapses to a single definite value which is randomly chosen based on the relative fractions (actually amplitudes) of the states it used to be in. Thus you can perform a quantum mechanical experiment exactly the same twice without getting the same outcome both times, though you can at least calculate the outcome probabilities. A qubit is simply the state of an electron's spin property before a measurement is made, which in general can be a mix of +1/2 and -1/2. This generalizes to other particles and other two-state properties. (More technically a qubit is an element of a 2-dimensional Hilbert space acting as the state space of some quantum property.)

      Entanglement
      Right after being produced, the two electrons are each in both the +1/2 and -1/2 states. They are "entagled", because if you measure the spin of one electron, from the conservation law you know what a measurement of the other electron's spin must be. Entanglement is actually a very simple consequence of the fact that quantum properties can be in multiple states simultaneously yet conservation laws still need to hold. It's an interesting exercise to try and get faster-than-light communication from this setup, though you'll be unable to. If you're familiar with the relativity of simultaneity, try to both blow up the earth and not by some set of decisions based on the entangled particles' measurements.

      Quantum teleportation
      Using a setup I will not discuss in detail, person A has a qubit encoded in the spin of an electron, and she wants to send the qubit to person B--that is, she wants person B to have an electron with the same spin property in all its mixed-up multiple-states-at-once glory. The setup requires a classical communication channel and some extra entangled particles. Using it, person A can instruct person B to prepare an electron with the same spin state as person A started with. It happens that person A's qubit is destroyed in the process, so the information "teleports", though note that it jumps from one particle to another. The information is all that's teleported, not the particle, and it's not teleported faster-than-light because of the classical communication needed.

  3. Ender would be thrilled. by rwven · · Score: 2

    So....how long until we have an Ansible?

    1. Re:Ender would be thrilled. by Githaron · · Score: 2

      Just before Jane comes into existence due to the Hive Queen attempt to communicate with the humans.

    2. Re:Ender would be thrilled. by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Informative

      This, and all other quantum "teleportation" and related entanglement phenomenon, do not allow for faster-than-light communication. The important thing to note is that the qubit is "teleported", not the photon itself: the photons are transmitted conventionally via some means (in this case, it looks like they did it through open air). Since the photons are entangled with a photon you retain, measuring one collapses the wave-function of the other and allows both parties to know what the state is simultaneously. The security ramifications are that any eavesdropper will collapse the wave-function before the receiver gets the photon, so he will not receive the photon in the same state as the receiver sent it.

      You cannot, according to what we know of physics, use quantum entanglement to send information faster than light.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    3. Re:Ender would be thrilled. by rwven · · Score: 2

      Grrrr. Foiled again!

  4. Re:Satellites?? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can't transmit meaningful information with quantum teleportation alone, you still need a classical channel that operates by conventional means unless you want to transmit uncontrollable random garbage.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  5. Take THAT, Mr Mpaa Riaa! by h00manist · · Score: 2

    Now we won't transfer our warez over any wires or IP numbers at all, and will just teleport the data all over the place.

    --
    Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
  6. Re:Satellites?? by _0xd0ad · · Score: 4, Informative

    The information contained in the qbit is transported from one entangled photon to another, but you first must get that entangled photon to the destination via more conventional means. They're doing that with a laser.

  7. So it's replication by HalAtWork · · Score: 2

    So it's replication, not teleportation?

    1. Re:So it's replication by tstrunk · · Score: 3, Informative

      So it's replication, not teleportation?

      It's not replication, the quantum state of one photon is transfered from one photon to another.
      Here's an easy explanation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qmSdC7aQpY

      Replication will never be possible as a quantum state cannot be copied: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem

  8. This is not just China's Achievement by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is part of an international research effort, including schools like Carnegie-Mellon in the US. However, due to the lower costs of photonic qubits in China, it only makes sense to have the majority of experiments carried out over there.

  9. Re:Satellites?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    unless you want to transmit uncontrollable random garbage.

    So that means the satellite television providers will be all over this.

  10. (Self-replying, I apologize) by _0xd0ad · · Score: 5, Informative

    Note that it's still limited by the speed of light. The key feature, however, is that it is secure: someone intercepting the photon can't copy or read its qbit state without breaking the quantum entanglement, or preventing it from reaching the destination. In either case, the receiver will immediately know that the channel has been broken. It then stops transmitting a response to the sender, and the sender perceives this as also a break in secure communications and stops transmitting. Both the sender and the receiver would then go into failure mode and send query/response polls periodically. When secure communications are re-established, they can resume transmitting data.

    1. Re:(Self-replying, I apologize) by spazdor · · Score: 4, Informative

      The information contained in those two grammes of entangled matter, isn't information that you've encoded into it. It's information which begins "existing", so to speak, when an observation is made from one end or the other.

      Hire a guy to randomly generate 65,536 sequential binary bits, written on paper, duplicated once, and then sealed in 2 envelopes. Shoot him in the face when you're done with him, to rule out information leaks. Now mail one envelope across the world to China, bearing a "don't open until x-mas" label.

      Now wait until christmas eve, then go into your 4chan folder and find your favourite 8 kB jpeg of some anonymous boobs. Open up your envelope, take that image file and, bit by bit, XOR it with the bitstream on your sheaf of paper. The resulting ciphertext is indistinguishable from random data - that is, its Shannon entropy is approximately equal to its length. Now you can call up your new Chinese penpal on the phone, read them your ciphertext, and show them some boobs which only they can decode.

      It's foolproof, except for the fact that it's pretty easy to open a postal envelope, read its contents, and re-seal it.

      Essentially what's happened here is researchers have figured out how to use particles as envelopes, which have much better sealing properties.

      --
      DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
  11. Trillions? by colinrichardday · · Score: 4, Informative

    If we have a 72-kg (158 lb.) person made mostly out of water, that's about 4,000 moles, or 2.4x10^27 molecules, which is about 7.2x10^27 atoms. The actual number might be different, but it's way more than a trillion.

  12. Re:Ansible? by spiffmastercow · · Score: 2

    Sigh. What happened to the days when nerds would read science fiction without believing that someday it would all be real?

    When was that? My dad still complains about not having a flying car or being able to take a flight to the moon.

  13. Who is this 'we' you refer to? by PPH · · Score: 2

    at which point we'll actually be able to build a global quantum network for all of our cryptographic needs.

    Are you a member of the Chinese Army?

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  14. Re:Security though overlooking the obvious - by Darth+Snowshoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, but the abstract of the paper itself says "Over a 35-53 dB high-loss quantum channel, an average fidelity of 80.4(9) % is achieved for six distinct initial states." That sounds like a lossy channel to me. Plus, I simply don't believe it's possible to send a laser beam over X kilometers, including an atmosphere, and have them ALL reach their destination - it's a limitation of the medium.

    Also, the Physics ArXiv blog post for this paper includes this;
    "Inevitably photons get lost and entanglement is destroyed in such a process. Imperfections in the optics and air turbulence account for some of these losses but the biggest problem is beam widening (they did the experiment at an altitude of about 4000 metres). Since the beam spreads out as it travels, many of the photons simply miss the target altogether. "

    and

    "That's interesting because it's the same channel attenuation that you'd have to cope with when beaming photons to a satellite with, say, 20 centimetre optics orbiting at about 500 kilometres. "The successful quantum teleportation over such channel losses in combination with our high-frequency and high-accuracy [aiming] technique show the feasibility of satellite-based ultra-long-distance quantum teleportation," say Juan and co."

    So it looks to me as though even the paper's author is admitting some "channel losses". The question I still have is, how is it possible to distinguish channel losses from adversarial interception of photons?

  15. Re:Can Someone Explain At 5th Grade Level? by Eponymous+Hero · · Score: 2

    unfortunately this is beyond most 5th graders. any analogy for laymen will always fall short. analogies for those familiar with QM are tough enough as it is. but here's a classic bob and alice example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation#Motivation

    --
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  16. Don't add significant figures by nedlohs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It shows a complete lack of understanding of science.

    And of course the actual distance will have been 100km which someone who does understand significant figures converted to 60 miles for Americans. Followed by a moron deciding to convert it to 97 km because they are scientifically illiterate.

    1. Re:Don't add significant figures by DerCed · · Score: 2

      No, not at all. It was 97 km. The article is titled "Teleporting independent qubits through a 97 km free-space channel".

  17. Re:We've known the Pledge and Turn for awhile... by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 2

    Hey, Friday is my day to post.

    --

    ---
    ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
  18. Re:Metric or Imperial Trillions? by Khyber · · Score: 2

    He used the SI mole, which neither Americans or Europeans apparently understand.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  19. Re:Turn in your nerd badges by Zaphod+The+42nd · · Score: 2

    Its sad, how even among /. you find so many people clearly believing lots of blatant misconceptions about quantum physics. :/
    I mean, shit is definitely complicated, took me awhile to wrap my head around. But don't make assumptions or draw conclusions until you understand something, is that so hard?

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