Researchers Succeed at Quantum Teleportation Breakthrough

[Icehearted]

I keep thinking of that limes guy asking "why can't my computer hold all these quantum?" or something equally silly. $5 says Crytek is already working on an engine that will discombobulate this thing.

 

[samsonguy920]

True wireless instant communication. Color me intrigued.
Now to just get the common hardware up to snuff to handle that kind of information quantity.

Petabyte, anyone?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Step 1: Play Portal on Quantum Computer
Step 2: Actual Portal opens
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Deadly neurotoxin

Funny, I thought you'd be playing Bayonetta

But...but then my clothes would come off and my hair would grow long and gain epic powers...

...you're just interested in the clothes coming off part, aren't you. <_<

Damn, my subtle plan was foiled!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Thank god it's not real teleportation. Because;

1) The fly. The fly, the fly, the fly, the fly.

2) does no one think there is a real danger of them testing a real teleportation device, it being successful, then being rolled out hastily despite it actually in reality killing the user and merely creating a copy? This thought scares me. Imagine it, in the future we'd have thousands dying every day, and no one would even know. If it is discovered, I'd suggest using it for goods transport only, no biological entities.

But as it is, this is brundellfly-induced speculation, I'm all for faster computers.

You forgot the two worst parts.
1) Air: All the air surrounding you would HAVE to be teleported or you'd die. Which leaves a vaccuum where you were and a sudden pressure increase where you teleport to.
2) Energy: You're going to be on a revolving planet. Unless they match the velocities (and temperature/height/gravity etc.) exactly - your body will self-destruct. 2 degrees temperature change is enough to kill you - if instantaneous.

 

[BrownGaijin]

To me the most amazing thing is this: Last month Japan was struck by a devastating quake, and this month they successfully achieved quantum teleportation.

Just food for thought.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Wait a minute, I read about this last year. It was a different group that did it though.

Of course, the single greatest weakness of this is a piece of paper.

 

[TimeLord]

Interesting...

Someone get back to me when they put it inside a 1963 Police Box and make it teleport actual matter and not information.

 

[TimeLord]

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.

You see, I don't get this argument.

You are your memories and your thought processes.

If, somehow, all the information required to clone a human, mind and all, could be sent over vast distances and recreated completely and without flaw on the other side. Then how have you died?

Your memories and your mind was just transferred to a different shell. Them being in a state of basic information for the course of the data transfer isn't really all that big of a deal.

I think we can all agree that the body is not what makes us who we are. It's our mind. So as-long as that's transferred correctly. We're alive.

Atleast, that's how I see it.

It's more that on one side you are basically being destroyed, then copied to the other side and put back together, the person at the other end is a new man. A clone with the same memories, thoughts and feelings, but not the person who left the starting side.

However what you describe in your post above is more matter transportation. i.e Star Trek, where your molecules are broken down, and physically sent somewhere and then reassembled. In which case, the person at both ends is the same person.

Well at least that's the way I understand it.

 

[TimeLord]

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.

You see, I don't get this argument.

You are your memories and your thought processes.

If, somehow, all the information required to clone a human, mind and all, could be sent over vast distances and recreated completely and without flaw on the other side. Then how have you died?

Your memories and your mind was just transferred to a different shell. Them being in a state of basic information for the course of the data transfer isn't really all that big of a deal.

I think we can all agree that the body is not what makes us who we are. It's our mind. So as-long as that's transferred correctly. We're alive.

Atleast, that's how I see it.

It's more that on one side you are basically being destroyed, then copied to the other side and put back together, the person at the other end is a new man. A clone with the same memories, thoughts and feelings, but not the person who left the starting side.

However what you describe in your post above is more matter transportation. i.e Star Trek, where your molecules are broken down, and physically sent somewhere and then reassembled. In which case, the person at both ends is the same person.

Well at least that's the way I understand it.

You don't seem to understand me.

You ARE your memories and your thought processes. That's what makes you, you.

The body is inconsequential.

What I was talking about wasn't matter transportation. Go read it again.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter that you were broken down and cloned at the opposite end. If the data to recreate your mind (perfectly) was successfully transmitted. Then it's still you.

Yea I get that. But my point is that depending on the way you are teleported, depends on whether you count yourself as you anymore, or a clone. It's basically down to personal opinion whether you are really the same person on the other end as DNA will tell you that you are, but that doesn't mean anything.

Kinda like The Prestige.

Spoiler: Massive spoilers if you haven't seen the Prestige

Guy get machine that instead of teleporting himself across the stage, created and exact duplicate of himself in both locations. So as soon as the machine is activated, one duplicate is killed by the other. My point is that while they were clones of each other. They were different people and acted differently.

 

[YawningAngel]

Not seeing the point here. I can already buy a computer that will boot an OS in five seconds and run a game that renders a ten-mile radius with reasonably faithful accuracy. What exactly will a consumer in 20 years/however long this technology takes to become available actually WANT from a quantum computer that conventional computing can't already provide?

 

[klasbo]

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.
-snip- (for saving mousewheels of frantic scrolling)

If, somehow, all the information required to clone a human, mind and all, could be sent over vast distances and recreated completely and without flaw on the other side. Then how have you died?

Your memories and your mind was just transferred to a different shell. Them being in a state of basic information for the course of the data transfer isn't really all that big of a deal.
-snip-

It's more that on one side you are basically being destroyed, then copied to the other side and put back together, the person at the other end is a new man. A clone with the same memories, thoughts and feelings, but not the person who left the starting side.
-snip-

You ARE your memories and your thought processes. That's what makes you, you.

The body is inconsequential.
-more snip-

Yea I get that. But my point is that depending on the way you are teleported, depends on whether you count yourself as you anymore, or a clone. It's basically down to personal opinion whether you are really the same person on the other end as DNA will tell you that you are, but that doesn't mean anything.
-snipzorz-

The problem with this whole thing is that a lot of the information in your brain (basically "who you are") is stored in electrical and chemical interactions between the cells. This is why people who hit their head bad or have epilepsy (or similar things) can lose parts of their memories or completely and suddenly change in personality. This is also why you don't become a new person over every 7 years, even though all your cells in your body are practically replaced by then.

To "teleport" (or 3D-print) a person would need an exact duplicate of the charges and chemicals stored between the cells, but to get that information out, you would have to interact with the cells, charges and chemicals, thus changing them.
Analogy: You write some information (memories) on a piece of paper (brain), then crumple it into a ball. Someone else has to read the information on this now-deformed piece of paper, but without straightening it. The information is still there, but inaccessible without messing with the information carrier (the piece of paper, or the brain). Getting to the information means partially destroying the information carrier, and thereby possibly (read: most, most likely) destroying some other piece of information. At some point, you'll also encounter the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Couldnt this be used for faster than light comunications?

[...]  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.

Quantum Computing is something i'm terribly interested in, albeit quite a good bit over my head. I do believe that, since the two qbits are in an entangled state, it is not only FTL, but it is the instantaneous transmission of information.

From what I understand, when do things are entangled, they are bound by a fundamental property of the universe, the conservation of energy. The act of changing one of the spin states of one of the particles will instantaneously change the other.

Good things from both of you here:
The "spooky action at a distance" is indeed instantaneous, but getting that entanglement set up in the first place is not-so-much instantaneous. Marcus Chown explains:

Spoiler: Marcus Chown says: (click)

[On entanglement]
Attempts to use the spin of particles across large distances might use one direction of spin to code for "0" and the other for a "1". However, to know you were sending a "0" or a "1", you would have to check the spin of the particle. But checking kills superposition, which is essential for the instantaneous effect. If you sent a message without first looking, you could only be 50% sure of sending a "1", a level of uncertainty that effectively scrambles any meaningful message.
So although instantaneous influence is a fundamental feature of our Universe, it turns out nature does exactly what is required to make it unusable for sending real information. This is how it permits the speed-of-light barrier to be broken without actually being broken. What nature gives with one hand it cruelly takes away with the other.

[...]


[On teleportation]
Say we have a particle P, and we want to make a perfect copy P*. It stands to reason that in order to do this it is necessary to know P's properties. However, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, if we measure one particular property of P - say its location - we inevitably lose all knowledge of some other property - in this case, its velocity. Nevertheless, this crippling limitation can be circumvented by an ingenious use of entanglement.
Take another particle, A, which is similar to both P and P*. The important thing is that A and P* are an entangled pair. Now, entangle A with P and make a measurement of the pair together. This will tell us about some property of P. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, however, the measurement will inevitably involve us losing knowledge of some other property of P.
But all is not lost. Because P* was entangled with A, it retains some knowledge about A, and because A was entangled with P, it retains some knowledge about P [klasbo note: P*->A->P]. This means that P*, though it has never been in touch with P, nevertheless knows its secrets. Furthermore, when the measurement was made of A and P together and information about some property of P seemed to be lost, instantaneously it became available to A's partner P*. This is the miracle of entanglement.
Since we already know about the other properties of P, obtained from A, we now have all we need to make sure P* has exactly the attributes of P.

[footnote] The information on the original particle, P, must be transmitted by ordinary means - that is, slower than the speed of light. So even if P and P* are far apart, the creation of P* - the perfect copy of P - is not instantaneous, despite the fact that communication between the entangled particles, A and P, is instantaneous.

 

[Rayne870]

*adjusts glasses* neato.

 

[YawningAngel]

Not seeing the point here. I can already buy a computer that will boot an OS in five seconds and run a game that renders a ten-mile radius with reasonably faithful accuracy. What exactly will a consumer in 20 years/however long this technology takes to become available actually WANT from a quantum computer that conventional computing can't already provide?

You're kidding right?

30 years ago 1gig was an absolutely ridiculously large HDD and no one could conceive how anyone would require a hard drive any larger.

Who can fathom how large and complicated files and computer architecture will get in 20 years time.

Quantum computers could herald the rise of full on virtual reality.

With people being able to store and instantly transfer amounts of data that are required to accurately recreate real life environments that fully interact with all of our senses.

Can you imagine how large of a file that would be.

It's literally impossible to estimate how much computing will advance in the coming 20 year.

I can however tell you that if we're at the same level as we are now. I'll be more than a little peeved.

That is precisely the point: why do I give a flying about a quantum computer when a PC now, let alone a PC in however many years quantum computing takes time, is already mind-blowingly useful?

 

[Nimcha]

Not seeing the point here. I can already buy a computer that will boot an OS in five seconds and run a game that renders a ten-mile radius with reasonably faithful accuracy. What exactly will a consumer in 20 years/however long this technology takes to become available actually WANT from a quantum computer that conventional computing can't already provide?

Yeah... this science is not done just so you can have a faster computer at home. Not everything in science is done to benefit the consumer.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Call me a cynic, but when lightning fast information transfer hits the public market and means terabytes of information can be transferred worldwide for almost nothing...

Who thinks we're still going to be throttled by ISPs scared that we might 'use' the services we're paying for and we'll still be stuck on a 2-50mb line when there's the capability to give everyone 100tb lines for $5 a month? Not to mention the entertainment industries will go insane at the thought of piracy at that speed, despite it making pay per view and instant digital purchase so much simpler.

 

[Miral]

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...

Actually that'd be possible with general 3D printer tech, if it's made sufficiently fine-grained and extended to work with more materials. You'd still have to buy the raw materials for your printer, though, same way you buy ink/toner now -- you'd have to install "element cartridges" or something.

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?

Yes. In principle, one real item would need to be scanned in -- and if we're aiming for an exact quantum duplicate, then this process cannot be done without destroying the original object. However once scanned in, it should be able to be copied as many times as desired -- but you'll still have to have the raw materials to reconstruct it however many times you wanted.

Of course that's still quite a long way away from the technology the article is talking about. We won't be seeing that sort of replicator for quite a long while.

The more immediately useful implications of the article's tech is faster (near instantaneous) modems, albeit only point-to-point. So most likely all the backbones would install devices that eliminate the country-to-country lag; home users probably wouldn't be able to afford a direct link though.