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German Scientists Successfully Teleport Classical Information (upi.com)

An anonymous reader writes from an article on UPI: Using a series of laser beams, a pair of German scientists teleported information without the transfer or matter of energy. "Elementary particles such as electrons and light particles exist per se in a spatially delocalized state," Alexander Szameit, a professor at the University of Jena, explained in a press release. Classical information is coupled using a process called "entanglement." "As can be done with the physical states of elementary particles, the properties of light beams can also be entangled," said research Marco Ornigotti. "You link the information you would like to transmit to a particular property of the light." Researchers used polarization to encode information within a laser beam, enabling the teleportation of information instantly and in its entirety without loss of time. Whereas quantum information and quantum systems describe particle properties that are inferred, classical information describes physical properties directly measured.

107 comments

  1. Let me get this straight by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They just figured out non-local data transmission at FTL speeds.

    They arent transmitting quantum states, they are transmitting polarization data, which can be used to encode classical information, and transmitted such classical information.

    This means that you can transmit from point A to point B, "instantly", as long as you can entangle the two points.

    Does this mean that causality is only a suggestion, or will the physical constraint of having to usefully entangle the two points save the day here?

    1. Re:Let me get this straight by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

      If they have figured out data transmission at FTL speeds (which is hard to tell just from the summary and without the right Ph.D.) then yes, that suggests a violation of causality, or at least a need to redefine it.

      However, it is much more likely (based on... the observed universe up to now...) that either something about the system predetermines the output at both locations, or that the output at one point is known to be distinct or the same as the other but that there is no way to influence what the outcome from point B will be from point A. In other words, they probably hid the causality and maybe they haven't quite figured out where they hid it yet.

      Fortunately, this is slashdot, so hopefully a pseudo-expert will actually follow the links and then translate for the rest of us.

    2. Re:Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      From TFPaper:

      [...] we have shown that teleportation is a general concept, that transcends the distinction between classical or quantum systems, and that non-locality ultimately differentiates between these two realms.

      So no, the classical form is local (not FTL).

    3. Re:Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      they probably hid the causality

      Unless you're being metaphorical, no, a major point of quantum mechanics is precisely that there aren't hidden variables. Honestly, it doesn't surprise me at all that causality isn't universally linked. The whole notion of an information code limiting the speed of information to light speed and any violation of this being a sign of travel backwards in time always seemed rather absurd to me. If time is relative, then it would seem to reason that causality would have to be at best local to one's own time frame. Any sort of paradoxes that would arise would be of the sort already witnessed in time relative circumstances and be rather moot. That is, well, we'd just see what looks like a paradox which wouldn't be any more of a real surprise than quantum mechanics is a paradox. Ie, it's not really. We just understand the universe well enough and there is no God-like frame of reference to judge things so our limited perceptions don't always jive in a consistent way in all cases*.

      *One could argue they actually do, which is sort of the point. We don't intuitively understand a lot of things but given sufficiently experimentation and validation, we can at least on paper derive a way of explaining things that overcome our incorrect intuition.

    4. Re:Let me get this straight by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

      "hid" in the sense of "some information transfer is happening in a way they don't realize" or "they are not actually transmitting information," not in the sense of "information transfer by a hidden variable determining something that appears to be but is not a probability distribution"

    5. Re:Let me get this straight by bytesex · · Score: 1

      So, if I may see if I understand your post well enough:
      - there is causality
      - there is the speed of light
      - but they're not necessarily connected, that is to say:
      - if the sun explodes, we experience most of the effects 8 minutes later (speed of light and causality in one), but:
      - if you transfer information between two points instantly using quantum entanglement, you experience causality, but not the speed of light.

      --
      Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
    6. Re:Let me get this straight by De_Boswachter · · Score: 1

      you experience causality, but not the speed of light.

      That's a contradiction in terminis. The speed of light is a misnomer. The c denoting the speed of light actually stands for causality. c is the speed of causality. There can, however, be a difference in the simultaneity for different observers, making it appear that events appear to happen in moments that are different for others, making it appear as if causality has been broken.

    7. Re:Let me get this straight by gweihir · · Score: 1

      At the moment it means this does not work over large distances. At short enough distances causality begins to become fuzzy, so such a loop-hole might be credible. Alternatively, they measured something else than they think they measured and this is a faulty result. That would of course be exceptionally boring, so I hope the result is valid.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    8. Re:Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The c denoting the speed of light actually stands for causality. c is the speed of causality.

      Where do you guys get this Quatsch? The use of 'c' for velocity was already established when Einstein linked it to causality. Einstein originally used 'V' and (shock, horror) not 'K' for Kausalität.

    9. Re:Let me get this straight by michelcolman · · Score: 3, Informative

      They didn't figure out "non-local data transmission at FTL speeds".

      They figured out local transmission without loss of time, i.e. encoding information into the polarization of a light beam, instantaneously, but without bridging any distance.

      Quote: "With this form of teleportation, we can, however, not bridge any given distance," admits Szameit. "On the contrary, classic teleportation only works locally."

      The rest is just the usual hyperbole and Star Trek comparisons by people who don't know what they're talking about. "Teleportation works instantly across any distance!" – yes, but not that kind of teleportation. The kind that works across distances cannot be used to transmit information.

    10. Re:Let me get this straight by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      Causality really is independent of the observer.

      If two events cannot be causally related in the reference frame of some observer (time difference t, and distance more than t times c), then two different observers may disagree on which of the two happened first. One may say supernova A exploded before B did, another may say that B exploded first, and yet another may say they exploded exactly simultaneously, but it doesn't matter since neither event could have affected (or caused) the other. No information could have traveled from A to B or from B to A in the time between the events, no matter which reference frame you are using, so there's no paradox and everyone is free to disagree on which happened first.

      If the events are closer together though, so that a ray of light emitted by A could have traveled to B before B exploded, then there's a causal relationship that will be true for any observer. Nobody will be able to say that B happened before A, the Lorentz transformation will always give the same sign for the time difference no matter what speed the observers are traveling at.

      This all breaks down if you can transmit information faster than light. Suppose Ann says A and B happened simultaneously, and Bob says A happened later than B. Now Ann sends information from A to B "instantaneously". From Bob's point of view, the information traveled back in time. So far this is not really a problem yet since A and B are not at the same location, but it gets better. From Bob's point of view, since A happened later than B, B is really simultaneous with some event A' that happened at the same location as A but at an earlier time. Nothing stops Bob from setting up a system that sends the same information from B to A' "instantaneously". Bingo, the information just traveled back in time from A to A', and Ann just received the stock quotes she will send tomorrow.

      I'm not saying this is definitely impossible, just that this would be the logical consequence of FTL information. FTL implies traveling back in time.

    11. Re:Let me get this straight by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, the article was just written by a completely clueless person who had no idea what they were talking about. I looked up the original paper, and the answer is right there in the abstract:

      For many years, however, it has been implicitly assumed that this scheme is of inherently nonlocal nature, and therefore exclusive to quantum systems[...] We present an optical implementation of the teleportation protocol solely based on classical entanglement between spatial and modal degrees of freedom, entirely independent of nonlocality.

      This effect is, in their words, "entirely independent of nonlocality." The information is being transmitted through space in the ordinary way, traveling no faster than light. The person who wrote the summary just made up the part about "instantly" and "without loss of time."

      --
      "I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
    12. Re:Let me get this straight by kwoff · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing PBS Space Time. He does mention that that's how Einstein and Lorentz thought about it (around 5:20 in the link).

    13. Re:Let me get this straight by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Yes, but ....
      My guess is that time is two different things that we call by the same name, thus creating confusion. ONE of the things started with the big bang. The other pre-existed it, and was necessary for the big bang to have time to happen (in). The one that started with the big bang is probably entropy. The other is ??? sequencing? Is it even measurable? I can't wrap my head around it, but some sort of pre-existingness has to exist for the big bang to have a time and place to happen. And to assume that this pre-existingness disappeared during the interval between then and now seems without reason, other than we haven't detected them, but even ordinary space and time are pretty subtle. One can infer that they must have supported virtual particle formation, because otherwise how could the big bang happen. But if the big bang was just a really unusual virtual particle, what happened to the opposing particle, and why didn't they mutually annihilate? But these are just guesses, or questions based on guesses.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    14. Re:Let me get this straight by jettoblack · · Score: 2

      I'm a big scifi nerd and I'd love for FTL travel/communication to be proven possible, but if it ever is, it likely won't be via quantum entanglement.

      Here's an analogy: We have a red ball and a black ball. We randomly put each one into a sealed box so that it's impossible to tell which ball is in which. I take one on my spaceship and fly away from you at top speed, you do the same in the opposite direction. When we're a light year apart, we both open our boxes. Mine is red, so I immediately know that yours must be black, and vice versa. We were able to determine the color of a ball 1ly away instantaneously, even though it would take at least a year for any message like "mine is the red one" to reach the other.

      However, this doesn't mean we can send information FTL. Even with an unlimited supply of balls, the best I can do for any particular ball is know that yours is the opposite color. I can't manipulate the color or choose the order in order to send information FTL, at least not without some side channel of communication which must necessarily happen at c or slower. (If the side channel communication was FTL then we'd just use that to communicate and skip the entanglement part.)

    15. Re:Let me get this straight by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Does this mean that causality is only a suggestion, or will the physical constraint of having to usefully entangle the two points save the day here?

      Causation is only violated for superluminal propagation. If you don't propagate there is no violation.

    16. Re:Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I'm not saying this is definitely impossible, just that this would be the logical consequence of FTL information. FTL implies traveling back in time.

      Could you explain to me why that's the case? Is it a consequence of what the Lorentz transformation gives? Is the Lorentz transformation valid over quantum entanglement over long distances as well? Or is that time travel too?

    17. Re:Let me get this straight by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 2

      How *dare* you bring facts into a Slashdot argument?

      Have you no pride at all?

      LOL :_)

    18. Re:Let me get this straight by bentcd · · Score: 1

      No, the article was just written by a completely clueless person who had no idea what they were talking about. I looked up the original paper, and the answer is right there in the abstract:

      I can't say I blame them. I blame whichever nitwit it was who decided "quantum teleportation" would be a good term to use for the phenomenon.

      "Quantum teleportation" is nothing like the traditional notion of teleportation at all, in any way shape or form. To call it this is to invite misunderstanding and erroneous interpretation and the name is doing science great disservice.

      My best guess is the term was invented by a scientist desperately looking for grants, in the hopes that this type of dishonest name would land him the big bucks from people too lazy to see through the hype.

      --
      sigs are hazardous to your health
    19. Re:Let me get this straight by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Surely without knowing the state @ both ends first this can't work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    20. Re:Let me get this straight by samwichse · · Score: 1

      But I want my own ansible :(

    21. Re:Let me get this straight by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      Quantum entanglement can be simultaneous for some observers, while connecting two events at different times as seen by some other observer. So quantum entanglement appears to indeed be able to transmit "information" back in time, but this kind of information is not exploitable to send actual information of our choice. Hence, even though the effect is definitely spooky, it does not violate causality. You cannot use it to kill your grandfather in the past, get tomorrow's stock quotes, etc.

    22. Re: Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uhm no.

      In classical physics FTL means travelling at a velocity faster than light where the object changes it's locality by moving.

      In quantum physics FTL could be achieved not by high velocity but by non-locality. On object simply switch location and even at least temporarily doesn't have one.

      FTL means being at a place faster than light. With non-locality you can achieve that in inertia having zero velocity. You simply cease having one set of coordinates and start having another. That's FTL but not at a higher velocity than light. You arrive at your destination faster but not by having a higher velocity than light.

      That's why all arguments against FTL is moot. They all are based on the assumption that you cannot have a higher velocity than light. In the case you don't need velocity to change your coordinates they simply doesn't apply.

      For example if the universe is a computer simulation (I dare you to prove that it isn't) then the laws of physics is coded algorithms and locality is object variables. If that's the case then FTL could be achieved by any code capable of changing an objects location variables so that it moves to a location faster than the code moving light allows it to move. That doesn't mean that observations about that algorithm was wrong. It only means that the assumption that there would be other way to change coordinates was wrong.

      So saying that FTL is impossible is equal to saying that the universe cannot possibly be a computer simulation, which I again dare you to prove.

  2. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We have people named all kinds of things in the US. They are still Americans.

    Germany is a cosmopolitan, modern industrial nation. There is no reason why a native born German citizen cannot have that name.

  3. Never any description by evanh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I always check each of these type of news items, hoping one may attempt to explain how it works. Alas, no such luck yet again. :(

    1. Re:Never any description by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      The basic gist that I can derive, is that the polarization state of one beam is directly entangled with the polarization state of the other beam.

      So, if you measure the polarization of beam A, you will instantly know the polarization state of beam B.

      This is more useful than the quantum states of individual photons A and B, which is what we had previously-- because the state of the polarization is not destroyed by the measurement, and the polarization of the beams can be manipulated to encode data.

      This means that somebody modulating the polarization of beam A, can send a message to the person monitoring beam B, at FTL speeds, because the polarization of beam B will change in accordance with the modulation that the sender at beam A is doing, "instantly."

    2. Re:Never any description by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As soon as I saw the picture in TFA with the 'scientists' holding up models of the Enterprise, I vomited all over the keyboard.

    3. Re:Never any description by frnic · · Score: 1

      I think that is true, but only after beam A reaches location B - so, if we wanted FTL communications with Alpha Centura we would have to wait 4 years before we could start sending.

    4. Re:Never any description by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's still very useful for a number of situations.

      1) Ship en-route to Alpha Centauri-- They entangle their transmitter and receptor beams at the launch, stay in realtime contact the entire flight. Flight takes many decades, but they stay in contact with earth in realtime. (as long as the beams never lose power, and thus stop being entangled.)

      2) SETI wants to talk to aliens in a target system. They send the rough equivalent of a modem's negotiation signal for however many years it takes for polarized light to get there. Hopefully, the aliens know about this kind of entanglement, and can entangle their own beam with the incoming polarized light. The aliens can now alter the polarization state of the beam on earth, and send a return message. The return message is received "instantly." Once the channel is open, realtime communication is possible.

      Neither of those is possible with traditional entangled photons.

    5. Re:Never any description by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, the beams don't leave the device. You'd have to mail the other end, calibrate it, and then establish the beam. You would never beat a radio to a new location; or even a rocket, since you'll need one.

    6. Re:Never any description by NormalVisual · · Score: 2

      1) Ship en-route to Alpha Centauri-- They entangle their transmitter and receptor beams at the launch, stay in realtime contact the entire flight. Flight takes many decades, but they stay in contact with earth in realtime. (as long as the beams never lose power, and thus stop being entangled.)

      My knowledge of physics is admittedly not as good as I'd like, but would this be subject to any relativistic effects? We don't have anything that can go a substantial fraction of the speed of light, but it seems it still might be a factor given that we have to account for these effects with the GPS satellites.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
    7. Re:Never any description by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if a system could create two entangled photons. One photon is sent outwards to another system in a daisylinked chain. The other photon is kept in a circular loop locally. Depending on the message needing to be sent the polarization of this photon is changed. When another system receives a photon, it changes the polarization of its local photon accordingly.

    8. Re:Never any description by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1

      The techniques could potentially be useful a lot closer to home than Alpha Centauri. Communication even with Mars is greatly complicated by the transmission delay. But can you really send signals that can affect actions taken at a distance at FTL speeds without violating causality?

    9. Re:Never any description by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And there's no explanation of how /. editors consistently miss typos and bad grammar: "teleported information without the transfer or matter of energy."

      So much for the new owners cleaning up the sloppiness...

    10. Re:Never any description by Baloroth · · Score: 2

      That's not how it works. First, while once the aliens measure the polarization of the beam, they know the polarization of our beam, but we don't even know that they know that (because we can't tell if they've measure their beam or not). Secondly, once the aliens would entangle their beam with another beam, it destroys the entanglement with the original beam, which means the two things are no longer correlated. Entanglement doesn't allow you to choose the state of your system, it only allows you to know, once you've made the measurement of your side of the beam, what the other people would see if they made a measurement of the same property on their side. Nothing in entanglement (or quantum mechanics) allows instantaneous transmission of information in any way, shape, or form.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    11. Re:Never any description by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      I would have told these guys about the "Law of No Communication" but apparently they didn't get the memo

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    12. Re:Never any description by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      Surely the cult of innovation is as innovative (and tasteful) as innovation itself ?

      How could kitschy programming be associated with nausea?

      I'm so confused.

    13. Re:Never any description by sh00z · · Score: 1

      Actually, it looks like they tried to correct the typo in TFA, but just made it worse.

      to bring this back on-topic--the premise is entirely wrong. Exactly which part of a working laser requires no energy?

  4. Re:Marco Ornigotti? .. immigration, collaboration? by schini · · Score: 2

    You are correct of course. Additionally, we have quite a number of italian immigrants, who came in the time of the "Wirtschaftswunder" (50s - 70s). Plus, a sizeable chunk of science in Europe is done where various institutions in different countries work together.

  5. Work-around FTL? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

    I was thinking a few days ago, that perhaps the reason this might work is because the entangled pairs when moved apart are moved at non-light speeds. Therefor, even though it may NOW be transmitting at what seems FTL, the entangled system "as a whole" (including the moving apart of the entangled pair) isn't moving anything at FTL. I realize this is a total metaphysical explanation...

    1. Re:Work-around FTL? by mornfall · · Score: 2

      Saying entanglement is like teleportation is basically the same as saying that one-time pad is like PKI. With OTP, you distribute key material 'ahead of time' (just like you distribute parts of an entangled system) and then you can magically 'communicate' (securely in the case of OTP, instantaneously in case of teleportation). This all works only because you distributed things beforehand and then conveniently forgot that part. Even then, entanglement-based 'teleportation' is useless. If you forget fancy lasers and particle pairs, all you need for this kind of 'magic' is a pouch with a black and a white marble. Person A takes one out but does not look. Person B takes the pouch with the remaining marble and moves to Canada. Then A looks at his marble, discovers it is white and instantaneously knows that person B has a black one. Oooh, magic. Not.

    2. Re:Work-around FTL? by bytesex · · Score: 1

      So, the latency is terrible, but the throughput - wow!

      --
      Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
    3. Re:Work-around FTL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Saying entanglement is like teleportation is basically the same as saying that one-time pad is like PKI. With OTP, you distribute key material 'ahead of time' (just like you distribute parts of an entangled system) and then you can magically 'communicate' (securely in the case of OTP, instantaneously in case of teleportation). This all works only because you distributed things beforehand and then conveniently forgot that part.

      Even then, entanglement-based 'teleportation' is useless. If you forget fancy lasers and particle pairs, all you need for this kind of 'magic' is a pouch with a black and a white marble. Person A takes one out but does not look. Person B takes the pouch with the remaining marble and moves to Canada. Then A looks at his marble, discovers it is white and instantaneously knows that person B has a black one. Oooh, magic. Not.

      absolutely!!
       

    4. Re:Work-around FTL? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Why reply to me? I never mentioned teleportation in my post...

    5. Re:Work-around FTL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why reply to me? I never mentioned teleportation in my post...

      The vast majority of people, including those with mod points, don't read anything besides the highest-rated posts and some of the replies to them. So if you want your message to be seen on Slashdot, you either "first post" or you find a highly-rated message with few replies and post your message in reply to it.

    6. Re:Work-around FTL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Loss of causality. Get used to it.

    7. Re:Work-around FTL? by mornfall · · Score: 1

      depending on what exactly you mean by FTL, it's either the same thing as teleportation (instantaneous movement of information) or even stronger (time travel)... given the topic, I just assumed the former

    8. Re:Work-around FTL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have done well. I call this the quantum fallacy. "Entanglement" is impossible and shows that there are hidden variables. A hidden variable, is, by definition, hidden, and therefore can not be disproved until FTL information transfer is demonstrated... This article doesn't do that though.

    9. Re:Work-around FTL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Big Bang was the key material distribution ahead of time.

    10. Re:Work-around FTL? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Ah, I actually meant neither. It's an abbreviation for "faster than light", which means anything moving above 299,792,458 meters per second, no matter what the actual method used to acheive it lol. Ideas like the alcubierre drive have been theoretically postulated at around 10x of c, which is FTL yet neither teleportation nor time travel. As for causality, that's only if the FTL is actually truly instantaneous. That's what this particular article is claiming; but the Alcubierre drive isn't claiming this...superluminal movement has already happened during the inflationary period of the Universe so as long as it's not actually instantaneous the laws of the Universe obviously allow it. We just don't understand how yet. Here is an interesting discussion about all of this.

  6. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by EmeraldBot · · Score: 1

    That's a name belonging to a German scientist?

    Across the ocean is this lovely land, where there are these cowboys living in a city called "Silicon Valley" while drinking sweet tea and clam chowder. The state is called Washington D.C , known for its perpetual rain and coffee production, while also being the site of the historic Paul Revere ride and the Native American Trail of Tears bordering Canada, as not far away the state of New York City grows its almonds in the intense sunlight of the Mississippi coast.

    Contrary to popular belief, not all Germans are known as "Guenter Gottfried" and "Friedelumurr Gieselheart", just like there are many Americans with names like "Pierre" and "Midori".

    --
    "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
  7. Classical Information? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    Under 'classical information' I first thought of a piece of parchment with a statement written with a goose-feather, _that_ would have been cool!

    1. Re:Classical Information? by rossdee · · Score: 1

      Was it one of Beethoven;s symphonies?

      Meanwhile in the USA, universities are seeking grants to fund research into teleportation of Soul and Rap

  8. Boring: Not in violation of locality. by extensive · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the press release: "With this form of teleportation, we can, however, not bridge any given distance," admits Szameit. "On the contrary, classic teleportation only works locally." http://www.uni-jena.de/en/Rese...

    1. Re:Boring: Not in violation of locality. by gweihir · · Score: 1

      That explains it. Thanks. Localized phenomena can seem to violate established laws of physics under certain circumstances and not break the whole thing.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:Boring: Not in violation of locality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When does teleportation not mean teleporation - when there's no distance involved? Huh?

    3. Re:Boring: Not in violation of locality. by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      So you can send information faster than light, but only if it doesn't actually go to any other place? Send information from A to A instantly? Damn, I knew I should have gotten a patent on that while I still could!

  9. Editors? by forand · · Score: 1

    ...without the transfer or matter of energy.

    Come on it is the first line of the summary and a glaring error editors.

    1. Re:Editors? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your own sentence lacks punctuation.

    2. Re:Editors? by forand · · Score: 1

      Two wrongs do not make a right.

  10. Not For Consumer Use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We'll never get to use this type of tech (when they get it working across distances) as then the government wouldn't be able to intercept any communications. On the plus side, that also means advertisers wouldn't be allowed to directly inject ads and false memories of gleeful product use into our brains.

  11. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh _NOW_ other people can be German? No, if you look him up the man is Italian (born, bred and educated) simply working at a German institution.

  12. Imagine the bandwidth for downloading porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    once they get this up mainstream

  13. Spatially delocalized state by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 1

    "Elementary particles such as electrons and light particles exist per se in a spatially delocalized state."

    A bit like Iowans, then?

    1. Re:Spatially delocalized state by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Elementary particles such as electrons and light particles exist per se in a spatially delocalized state."

      A bit like Iowans, then?

      Except without the corn.

  14. FTL beats microwave by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unfortunately, the beams don't leave the device. You'd have to mail the other end, calibrate it, and then establish the beam. You would never beat a radio to a new location; or even a rocket, since you'll need one.

    Commodities prices and stock prices are in many cases correlated in the short term. Traders are building direct microwaved systems between Chicago and New York in order to save information transmission times in the order of microseconds for high speed trading. Speed delivers profit by beating the competition. FTL speed beats microwave. It becomes a matter of predefining protocols around simple messages.

  15. Star Trek Buzzwords == MOAR FUNDING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Star Trek Buzzwords == MOAR FUNDING! Next, they'll fix the inertial dampers with power couplings using 1.21 gigawatts of power! Oh... wait.

  16. Relativity by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 3, Informative

    If time is relative, then it would seem to reason that causality would have to be at best local to one's own time frame.

    Only it doesn't work like that at all in relativity: causality is preserved by the fact that information cannot travel faster than light. If you can transmit information faster than this then you can create real paradoxes which are not at all explainable i.e. events which occur in one reference frame and which do not occur in another because someone stopped them. This is not something which has ever been observed.

    My guess is that the information speed is actually less than, or equal, to that of light because we have seen this sort of thing before with tunnelling photons. A photon can tunnel through a potential barrier faster than light but the chance that it makes it is less than 100%. This means that you have to send many photons to be sure the signal is transmitted and by the time you do that the average speed of information transmission has dropped to the speed of light even though single photons are faster.

    I don't know the details of this experiment yet but I very, very strongly doubt that they actually transmit "actionable" information (i.e. information that could influence an observer's actions) at FTL speeds and I expect that the summary misread and misunderstood the results.

    1. Re:Relativity by michelcolman · · Score: 2

      They transmitted information "instantaneously" between different properties but at the same location. Nothing traveled faster than light. The part about "across multiple locations" is fiction unrelated to this experiment. They even admit that "With this form of teleportation, we can, however, not bridge any given distance".

    2. Re:Relativity by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Ii.e. events which occur in one reference frame and which do not occur in another because someone stopped them.

      Perhaps, you could say that Faster than Light Transmission is instant, because it "Skips" space.

      Then the space of potential valid reference frames you can construct becomes discontinuous.

      In other words, those "Reference frames that are paradoxes" , are actually invalid reference frames which do not even exist, for transmission of information that "skips" over spacetime directly from sender to recipient without traversing the causal space and time in-between.

    3. Re:Relativity by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, you could say that Faster than Light Transmission is instant, because it "Skips" space.

      It doesn't matter how the information is transmitted all that matters is that there is a causal link between two events which requires any form of FTL information transmission. Provided that event A causes event B then for ANY type of FTL transmission there will be a reference frame for which event A occurs after event B and hence it is possible to stop event A from happening after seeing event B which was caused by it. The only way around this is to break relativity or break causality.

    4. Re:Relativity by quax · · Score: 1

      Terrible reporting, isn't it?

    5. Re:Relativity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm totally with you that there is almost certainly nothing suggesting FTL here.

      However, if FTL content were actually discovered, it wouldn't really be that bad for existing theories. You can recover as a subgroup of the "true" symmetries of a solution for the EFEs where the slope of the surface of the causal cone is less than that of SR's.

      Geroch (a serious relativist) did a serious paper on this here http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.1614 -- his central point is that SR is in a GR sense just a solution to the EFEs ("first-order quasilinear system of PDEs admitting a hyperbolization"), that time machines do not automatically arise in the face of FTL and that SR would remain a viable (if effective) theory in approximately flat spacetime mostly devoid of FTL matter content.

      That's not to say that it'd be easy to adapt to FTL matter content if it were actually discovered, including its effect on the generation of the metric. I doubt, however, that the BTSM physics would have to focus much on the isometry group front.

    6. Re:Relativity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But you could only stop Event A by having something happen local to Event A. What are you gonna do, send an FTL transmission to that location (where it HAS already occurred) and try to stop it? Causality will look violated from the observer's point of view, but I don't see how it could actually cause a paradox.

    7. Re:Relativity by suutar · · Score: 1

      From the descriptions of that kind of paradox I've seen, yes, essentially. http://www.askamathematician.c...

    8. Re:Relativity by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      But you could only stop Event A by having something happen local to Event A.

      Exactly. With FTL event A is not longer guaranteed to precede event B in all inertial reference frames. For example consider the case where a terrorist sends a signal (event A) to blow up a bomb (event B). Clearly for the terrorist the two events are causally link (A causes B) and A happens before B.

      However for an observer travelling at high speed (close to c) from where event B occurs towards event A that observer will see event B happen first and will get to where event A will happen before event A actually happens. So if a terrorist at A sends a signal to detonate a bomb at B then someone travelling towards where A will occur will see the explosion before event A actually happens in their reference frame. Hence when they arrive at where A will happen they can shoot the terrorist to ensure that they never send the signal which caused event B....at which point you have a temporal paradox.

    9. Re: Relativity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This explanation makes a lot of assumptions that needs to be proven for it to be true. How exactly would the traveller be able to arrive at A before the event occurs?

    10. Re: Relativity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How would I be bad? It's not like Einsteins theories were bad for Newtonian theories. They showed us another layer of reality where classical physics simply doesn't apply. As an exception that is just an irrelevant rounding error in the domain's where classical physical was and still are used.

      The problem here is that you and many other interpret FTL Incorrectly. You assume for example that it means travelling at a speed greater than light while it doesn't.

      Faster in this case simply doesn't imply higher velocity. You are all other argument against FTL assumes that it does.

      If something disappears at a point in space and then appears in another this doesn't mean that it has appeared any other points between.

      While you can calculate a mean speed for such a jump it wouldn't actually be a mean speed, because the object didn't visit any other location.

      Of course FTL could consist of a series of such jumps making it appear like it's going that distance but that would be an illusion based on insufficient data.

      Also you make the unfounded assumption that the object (or un this case information) moved at all. One interpretation of the data is that it doesn't. That could imply that distance as it appears to us is illusionary, nothing is really separate something just makes it appear that way. If someone force creates the illusion of time and space in what's actually a single point then of course objects can appear to move faster than light while nothing actually moves at all. Of course there are a number of different ways it could be explained but this is one of them.

      Another explanation of course is that the universe as we know it is a computer simulation. I dare you to prove that it isn't. Then physics as we know it is variables changed by algorithms. In that case code that changes the coordinates of an object is all you need for FTL.

  17. Isn't this supposed to be impossible? by transami · · Score: 1

    I just watched this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc) which says such a thing should be impossible.

    --
    :T:R:A:N:S:
  18. Transfer or matter of energy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Was the study done by German scientists or Swedish chefs? Bork a Bork Bork.

    Seriously BIZX, spring for some adult literacy classes for your editors. Lots of churches and community colleges run stuff like that. Should be cheap.

  19. Now I can have my quantum communicator? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

    Funny how even tried to attack me when I suggested the possibility...

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    1. Re:Now I can have my quantum communicator? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd suggest you befriend uneven then.

  20. ...but it utterly breaks causality by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 3, Informative

    Flight takes many decades, but they stay in contact with earth in realtime.

    This utterly breaks causality. For example suppose a terrorist had planted a bomb on the ship and uses this instant signal to detonate it. However nearby our hero Buzz Lightyear is cruising in the opposite direction at a large fraction of the speed of light. He sees the ship explode but in his frame of reference the terrorist of Earth has not actually pushed the button yet so he carries on flying to Earth and shoots the terrorist before the signal is sent....so why did the ship explode? ...and if it didn't explode why did Buzz fly to Earth and shoot someone?

    The moment you have FTL information transmission you have time travel: the two are inextricably linked in relativity and the moment you have time travel you have causality violations. So either this experiment does not transmit actionable information FTL or there is a serious flaw with relativity. The later would be an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence.

    1. Re:...but it utterly breaks causality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would he reach the terrorist before he pressed the button? I grant that he'd see the events out of order, but as he approached Earth eventually the information, propagating at the speed of light, would reach him.

  21. SETI by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

    Tech like this would explain why SETI hasn't turned up anything. We've only been transmitting EM for around 150 years, and if this tech actually works in another 50 years this will probably be the main comms for all probes, off-world colonies, etc. In another 100, it would replace most other communication systems. That is, of course, assuming, President Trump or President Cruz don't start WWIII lol.

    1. Re:SETI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If my interpretation is correct you can transmit information faster than light but you still have to use laser light for the entanglement. So you still can't establish a comms link faster than light. And both ends of the comms link would have to cooperate. I don't think this replaces EM. It may have some very specialized terrestrial uses if it can be made practical. Like perhaps no more lag in a satellite link going around the world. Or near instant comms with a space probe instead of minutes or hours turnaround (= real time control, imagery and telemetry). So nothing to sneeze at but not a replacement for radio.

  22. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by schini · · Score: 1

    Friedelumurr Gieselheart

    ??
    Does not sound German in my ear. Maybe scandinavian (a Danish name crossed with something British).

  23. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    Contrary to popular belief, not all Germans are known as "Guenter Gottfried" and "Friedelumurr Gieselheart"

    Yet strangely, all Swedes are named, "Sven".

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  24. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nad, soon there are more Ahmeds, Muhameds and Mehmeds than Svens or Björns in Sweden

  25. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

    Yet strangely, all Swedes are named, "Sven".

    Nonsense! Just flip through the IKEA catalog, to see the richness of Swedish names.

    My favorite Swedish female name is "Skrolan", and if I had a St. Bernard dog, I would name him "Bootsman".

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  26. How is this different than existing techniques? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fiber optic communication systems have used frequency and phase modulation techniques for years. How is this any different than existing methods?

  27. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Marco Ornigotti is not German. He is an Italian, who is working in Germany. He is not of German birth, nor is he German citizen. In other words - he is NOT German.

    Other than that, though, you're pretty accurate.

  28. Wait what? by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    >>> Researchers used polarization to encode information within a laser beam, enabling the teleportation of information instantly and in its entirety without loss of time.

    Wait they transmitted information between two locations faster than the speed of light? I thought quantum physics states that even entaglement can't break the speed of light?

  29. If he emigrated to the USA would be Italian? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, he'd be an American because that's where he lives. He lives in Germany, so he's German.

    Dumbass.

    1. Re:If he emigrated to the USA would be Italian? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where someone lives does not change his nationality.

    2. Re: If he emigrated to the USA would be Italian? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes it does. Unless you're a national romantic aka racist. In Europe we stopped believing that about 1945.

  30. So they implemented an optical "tee" function. by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 1

    Information in on one beam, information out on two beams. That is about it right? This breaks quantum encryption on fibre optic links does it not, because you can duplicate a state without interfering with the original in a detectable manner?

    However if you were dreaming of faster pizza deliveries this is not what the work is all about.

  31. proves the theory by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    This supports the theory that people who think "information" (aka a human concept created by human thought) cannot transfer faster than the speed of light have absolutely no logical basis for thinking that other than observations of the non-quantum mechanics of the universe, which obviously is a flawed basis to begin with. Then they look at black holes and stick their fingers in their ears and go "nah nah nah can't hear you" and pretend black holes aren't part of the observable, measurable, simulatable universe.

    1. Re:proves the theory by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      No, it supports the fact that the author of this post knew fuck all about the article referenced.

  32. Re:Marco Ornigotti? by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

    Contrary to popular belief, not all Germans are known as "Guenter Gottfried" and "Friedelumurr Gieselheart",

    No, many of them are called Sepp, particularly in the south.

  33. What's the big deal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The German scientists teleported classical information.

    In other words, they broadcast the libretto for Wolfgang Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte," which is nothing new. I suppose it qualifies as magical, of course... but it also qualifies by the same token as a flute, so... there's that.

  34. Re: Marco Ornigotti? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except that it has the high German consonant shift. Unlike low German (hansaic league) like Danish and English which lack the consonant shift.

    There are a lot of German dialects that are close to Low German and sounds more like Dutch or English but the consonant shift is unique to Germany.

  35. Re: Marco Ornigotti? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Being born or citizenship has nothing to do with your ethnicity.