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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."

6 of 333 comments (clear)

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

    So, it's not teleportation. Thanks.

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

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

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

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.