Researchers Succeed at Quantum Teleportation Breakthrough

[Lord Beautiful]

Fantastic. Perhaps by the time I've taken quantum mechanics, there'll be more information on this technology and I'll have a greater understanding of it.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Sorry Tom, but that's a load of crap. Schroedinger's zombie feline works on the basis of probability, that is the contribution of |dead> and |alive> to |cat> (sorry for the bra-ket notation, it's just easier) is both 50% at the time of the toxin's release (As per the original thought experiment), at least until you open the box. This doesn't mean that the cat is both alive and dead, it just means that there is an equal probability of both happening. Logically speaking, the cat is alive and dead at the same time, but that cannot be the case.
/paidattentioninquantummechanicsandlikestomakethemostofit

The idea of superposition is a bit more complex than that, eg that excited states contribute to the total energy of a many particle system. By incorporating more and more excited states into your calculation (known as configuration interaction), you get more accurate results, up to an exact solution at infinitely many terms.

Cool article otherwise!

No, Mr Goldman is correct, in the cat problem, the state of the cat is completely entangled with the state of the Geiger-counter/particle detector, meaning |cat> = a(t)|dead> + b(t)|alive>, a(0) = 0 and b(0) = 1, but these coefficients fluctuate with time (generally 'b' drops and 'a' increases, but, 'b' can never reach zero and 'a' can never reach 1).

In the same way a qubit is superposition of a '0 bit' and a '1 bit' |Q> = a|0> + b|1> (these coefficients can be a little more tricky than those of the cat so we'll ignore their exact nature), so as far as simple analogy goes Tom is right.

And yes he is using the correct definition if superposition as well, your definition sounds more like perturbation expansion than superposition.

If you do not believe me, turn to the font of simple scientific knowledge that is Wikipedia.

Ooh, a fellow quantum person, greetings and welcome to the Escapist!

I didn't get into qubits, because quantum computation is a skyscraper or two above my paygrade. Sadly a chemistry education will only get you so far in quantum theory, but I'm glad to have learned what little I have. Now that feline thing: I seem to recall that no particle can occupy two states simultaneously, which is my objection to the dead/alive scenario.

Nope, perturbation involves an outside disturbance that causes a change in the system. Configuration interaction simply takes combinations of excited states into account in calculations of multi particle systems. 'course, not all combinations are allowed (think Brillouin's theorem), but it's a fun little method otherwise.

 

[Gorden Springel]

It actually astounds me that I am so lucky to be alive at this point in time, so many technological breakthroughs.

 

[StellarViking]

Holy crap, this is awesome. I don't care if I can't take a teleporter to some place far away, I just want an awesome computer.

 

[viking97]

just make sure there aren't any flys in the receiver.

 

[toapat]

I call bullshit because its the university of tokyo

in ultra laymans terms, a qbit is actually 0, where as 1 and 0 are actually - and + respectively, so you can encode in trinary instead of binary

 

[Daemascus]

Couldnt this be used for faster than light comunications?

 

[Hyperthetical]

I didn't get into qubits, because quantum computation is a skyscraper or two above my paygrade. Sadly a chemistry education will only get you so far in quantum theory, but I'm glad to have learned what little I have. Now that feline thing: I seem to recall that no particle can occupy two states simultaneously, which is my objection to the dead/alive scenario.

Nope, perturbation involves an outside disturbance that causes a change in the system. Configuration interaction simply takes combinations of excited states into account in calculations of multi particle systems. 'course, not all combinations are allowed (think Brillouin's theorem), but it's a fun little method otherwise.

Ah yes, you're right, although superposition and Configuration Interaction are still different, both involve summations over available states but superposition is a general principle of quantum mechanics while CI is a method of solving certain cases of the Schrodinger (bah how I hate those little dots) equation.

 

[Moeez]

Well, I hope this never happens...

Before: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/02/23/thefly460.jpg

After: http://www.horrorstew.com/images/TheFly.jpg

 

[Scrythe]

I wonder if it could potentially transmit vast amounts of energy across planets.

We could cover Mercury in solar panels and have near-infinite energy.

And yes, I totally stole that from Transmetropolitan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan].

 

[Hyperthetical]

Couldnt this be used for faster than light comunications?

I must admit I have only passing acquaintance with Quantum Info theories (I attended a conference on it at the end of under-grad and it was a little over my head at that stage), but I don't think you can use it for FTL communication, it's only the 'resurrection' of the information that is instantaneous, not the full propagation.

 

[Anarchemitis]

This generation has now officially split its own atom and carved its own wheel.

 

[Nieroshai]

The fastest computer in the entire world.

But when will printers become teleportation devices?

Teleportation devices are 3D printers. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They deconstruct an object, and send the information to the receiver, then assemble an identical copy. Information is being sent, not matter, and the copy is constructed from matter contained within the "printer." So as of this type of technology, human teleportation is impossible. You will commit suicide, and the receiver will create a dead clone of you on the other end.

 

[Alon Shechter]

I'm a bit of a slow learner, so somebody help me with this...
Did they actually manage to TELEPORT something?

 

[Hyperthetical]

I'm a bit of a slow learner, so somebody help me with this...
Did they actually manage to TELEPORT something?

Only Information, the debate continues as to whether information is the sort of something you are probably referring to.

 

[VanQ]

Anyone willing to bet that when this technology first becomes available for regular households that gaming forums everywhere will be full of the same people screaming "I'm not buying into this gimmick!" like they do for every new piece of technology? Or is it just me that foresees this coming?

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

Even if human transportation isn't exactly possible here, I do know where this CAN be used.

Internet shopping. Get a moderately sized transporter in every household, pay instantly by paypal, zap, you have your product. That might put walk-in stores out of business, though...

In fact, if they really wanted to be efficient, couldn't this be used as a quick cloning machine? If it didn't destroy the information on one side and just sent the information to the other, couldn't you have 2 burgers instead of one or 2 PS3's?

Or do I have the wrong understanding of how it works?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

" It's the Star Trek equivalent of beaming the crew down to a planet and having their organs disappear or materialize in the wrong place."

TBF, losing a bit of quantum information is more like converting them into a pile of fleshy mess.

It's still a great step forward, but it raises some severe moral questions.

For instance, even at the moment, if you're teleporting information, isn't the received information strictly pirated? Because it's not the original copy - that was destroyed.

Or do I have the wrong understanding of how it works?

It's more a matter of size. What they've just passed across is the physical equivalent of an atom.

To get your hamburger across the teleport, they'd require a machine that is 900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more powerful. Because you can't send the hamburger as bits or it'd break apart.

Spoiler: Maths work

113.4 grams in a quarter pound. Taking meat as a molar substance (Biologists can probably tell me if that's correct) = 6.023x10^23 atoms : quarterpound mole = roughly 9x10^25 atoms

Even if it takes a millionth of a second to send your hamburger atom; you'd be waiting longer than the Earth has been around.

So, just like McDonalds then

 

[CaptainKoala]

This is literally the coolest thing I've read in a long time.

 

[DugMachine]

The fastest computer in the entire world.

But when will printers become teleportation devices?

Teleportation devices are 3D printers. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They deconstruct an object, and send the information to the receiver, then assemble an identical copy. Information is being sent, not matter, and the copy is constructed from matter contained within the "printer." So as of this type of technology, human teleportation is impossible. You will commit suicide, and the receiver will create a dead clone of you on the other end.

Well there goes my dreams of teleportation