Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Quantum Teleportation Sends Information 143 Kilometers

Posted by timothy on from the like-a-coal-mine-in-the-canaries dept.

SchrodingerZ writes "Scientists from around the world have collaborated to achieve quantum teleportation over 143 kilometers in free space. Quantum information was sent between the Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife. Quantum teleportation is not how it is made out in Star Trek, though. Instead of sending an object (in this case a photon) from one location to another; the information of its quantum state is sent, making a photon on the other end look identical to the original. 'Teleportation across 143 kilometres is a crucial milestone in this research, since that is roughly the minimum distance between the ground and orbiting satellites.' It is the hope of the research team that this experiment will lead to commercial use of quantum teleportation to interact with satellites and ground stations. This will increase the efficiency of satellite communication and help with the expansion of quantum internet usage. The full paper on the experiment can be found [note: abstract only, full article paywalled] in the journal Nature."

9 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. If I recall..... by Sparticus789 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Isn't this how the Ansible from Ender's Game works? Two particles made to be in the exact same state, despite being physically separated? Too bad we couldn't have put this type of technology on Voyager 1 and 2.

    --
    sudo make me a sandwich
    1. Re:If I recall..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the book the The Muppets, they show that frogs can talk and that pigs sometimes become infatuated with them.

    2. Re:If I recall..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      quantum teleportation is a understood and predicted part of physics. Of course our model could be wrong. but if something allowed for FTL information exchange, it wouldn't be quantum teleportation. I guess it would be called something else (and would invalidate most of what we know about physics, but that is another point). Prefixing every comment in a physics article with "If our current understanding of physics is correct" seems pedantic to me, but if it helps you,, maybe you should start doing that.

    3. Re:If I recall..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A lot of very smart people have looked over this proof carefully, since it has such profound consequences. If you have a specific criticism of the proof, present it. Otherwise you should equally well consider the possibility that Venus does not exist, since all the scientists observing it through their telescopes might have collectively made a mistake. Blind skepticism is no better than blind faith.

  2. Put Another Way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, it's not teleportation. Thanks.

  3. Why Satellites? by sergioag · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you are using quantum teleportation, why you even need a satellite???

  4. I don't understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't understand exactly what's going on, so that probably explains why I don't see the advantage of this.
    From reading the abstract I get the impression that they are transmitting the information via lasers to the other location.
    How is this different then using other frequencies in the spectrum? Aren't you still limited to the speed of light? So what is the advantage of this?
    Seems like it adds complication without gaining much, other than being quantum.

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Re:Why the Canaries of all places? by captainpanic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think we should mod this 'hilarious' instead of funny. 10 points, sir A. Coward.