Researchers Achieve Quantum Teleportation Between Two Macroscopic Objects For The First Time

The quantum internet is coming, and this is how we're going to get there.

By Clay Dillow Posted 11.19.2012 at 10:00 am 12 Comments

Quantum Teleportation Explained In case you want to try this at home. Xiao-Hui Bao, et al. via arXiv

Sometimes it’s tough to get excited about stuff happening in quantum technologies, not because it’s anything less than fascinating but because it can be so hard to wrap your head around this stuff and anyhow the practical applications often seem very far away. But this is one of those milestones that you have to appreciate: Physicists have for the first time teleported quantum information from one macroscopic object to another.

Researchers have been able to teleport quantum information for a while now. Quick quantum primer: This isn’t Star Trek-style teleportation, but the transfer of information--of quantum states--from one place to another without that information crossing the space between them in any way. This is achieved through the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement, which allows two quantum objects to share the same quantum state such that if you influence one particle you also influence the other, whether they are separated by nanometers or light-years.

So by entangling two photons, for instance, physicists have demonstrated the ability to transmit quantum information from one place to another by encoding it in these quantum states--influence one of the pair and a change can be measured in the other without any information actually passing between the two. Researchers have done this before, between photons, between ions, and even between a macroscopic object and a microscopic object. But now Chinese researchers have, for the first time, achieved quantum teleportation between two macroscopic objects across nearly 500 feet using entangled photons.

That’s pretty huge. The two bundles of rubidium atoms that served as sender and receiver are more or less analogs for what we hope will someday be our “quantum Internet”--a system of routers like the ones we have now that, instead of beaming information around a vast network of fiber optic wires, will send and receive information through entangled photons. So in a way, this is like a first proof of concept, evidence that the idea works at least in the lab.

Now all we have to do is figure out is how to build several of these in series so they can actually pass information from one to the other. To do that, we only have to somehow force these quantum states to exist for longer than the hundred microseconds or so that they last now before degrading. Sounds easy enough.

[MIT Technology Review]

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12 Comments

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killerT

11/19/12 at 2:02 pm

Does this mean live exploration of alien worlds via avatar?

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zerox012

11/20/12 at 12:15 am

I wonder if advanced alien civilizations communicate using some form of quantum entanglement and that's the reason why we don't detect any intelligent activity in outer space, no radio communications, nothing.

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ottokrog

11/20/12 at 3:08 pm

I am sure that FTL communication is pretty close.

But I don't think that the qualities required for The Higgs particle to explain the standard model is there,

and I don't think they will be found.

Neither do I think, that supersymmetry will be recognized in futuristic science. I know I am a pain in the

butt, but I believe in a complete different approach to high energy physics in the future. My vision is that

future science will engulf consciousness. The mind and the spirit will be explainable through physics.

I have been a fan of Sir Roger Penrose for many years. He was the first scientist to say that

consciousness should be found in the quantum field rather than in the brain. I believe that

consciousness might be explained through a better understanding of antimatter and multiverse

dimensions.

My idea is that antimatter is the mirror of this universe, and that antimatter might be where

memory is located.

I think that the subconscious mind and consciousness are located in multiverse dimensions in the form of antimatter.

The original standard model predicted no mass at all. That made no sence to scientists, so Peter Higgs predicted The Higgs Boson, purely from mathematics. I think the original standard model was right, particles does not exist. The physical universe is a flow of energy from minus infinite energy to plus infinite energy.

If you would like to know more, then you can watch a full videopresentation of my theory on my blog:

www.crestroy.com

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Xean

11/20/12 at 3:58 pm

Information is sent through typical fiber optics NOT the QE. A quantum entanglement is used only to restore a quantum state not to send or receive any usefull information otherwise it would break speed of light limit.

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Heap

11/21/12 at 2:55 am

Cool! Does this technology have the potential to be the backbone of a human "collective" of sorts?
I'm thinking a brainwave/neuron-receiver/transmitter that attaches to the user's brain stem maybe, while several users using the same frequency could "think" or imagine thoughts; simultaneously sharing the "collective" consciousness of all the users!
ah, maybe too far out there but it sure would be cool for creating music or multiplying max brain power for problem solving.
Too cool!

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Tuvix

11/21/12 at 5:48 pm

It will be nice when this type of instant communication takes place. It'll start a new communication age. One where I foresee teleoperation of robots on Mars for example. Manned space missions would not be entirely necessary. Since there would be no lag time between communication. And who knows as previous commenters have stated we could pick up scattered alien communication. Wouldn't that be cool.

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.zero

11/27/12 at 4:20 am

I've had a philosophy of distant travel to other worlds in a family concept that one person travels to a city on a different world looks at the sky and uses thought and memories to communicate through the expanse. Somehow the bonding of a family and familiarity can make a person become a peering sky watcher that seeks a bond, just like Quantum Kinetics the potential limit of thought is not that far from being looney. Just look up and think about how we are connected with other beings? We tend to think we are the only ones? Or the only ones like us? Solidarity keeps us safe and feeds our sanity. One big reason why we are excelling in technology over becoming lords of the cosmos! We demand fabrication.

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atsker

01/09/13 at 3:33 am

Practical aspects of quantum entanglement is not at all understandable to common man, Without a spacial channel how can we transmit information?

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