One small step for a man, one giant leap for teleportation
We've still got a long way to go before human beings can be beamed from one place to another Star Trek-style, but on Friday a team of scientists at the University of Maryland achieved, nonetheless, a milestone in teleportation.
According to LiveScience, the university's Joint Quantum Institute for the first time was able to teleport information between two separate atoms across a distance of a meter--about one step for an adult.
The overview of the experiment's setup.
(Credit: LiveScience)Generally, teleportation works thanks to a remarkable quantum phenomenon called entanglement that only occurs on the atomic and subatomic scale. Once two objects are put in an entangled state, their properties are inextricably entwined. In layman's terms, if they are in entangled mode, what you "see" on one is what you get on the other.
The JQI team set out to entangle the quantum states of two individual ytterbium ions so information embodied in one could be teleported to the other. Each ion was isolated in a separate high-vacuum trap, suspended in an invisible cage of electromagnetic fields and surrounded by metal electrodes.
After that, the experiment worked like this: Single photons from each of two ions in separate traps interacted at a beamsplitter. When both detectors recorded a photon simultaneously, the ions were entangled. At that point, ion A was measured, revealing exactly what operation had to be performed on ion B to teleport ion A's information (see illustration at right).
It's important to note that the achievement is not any form of conventional communication. This is because in teleportation no information pertaining to the original object actually travels to the other. Instead, the information measured from the first object appears on the second object.
The research was supported in part by the Intelligence Advanced Research Project Activity program under U.S. Army Research Office contract.
It looks like the military's interest in teleportation remains strong. Who knows? This might mean we'll catch Osama bin Laden soon.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong. 
In Star Trek, the transporters operate by converting matter to energy, transmitting that energy to a location and then converting it back to matter.
Just kidding about being offended :-) This is pretty cool stuff though
"It's important to note that the achievement is not any form of conventional communication. This is because in teleportation no information pertaining to the original object actually travels to the other. Instead, the information measured from the first object appears on the second object."
This development is useless for any sort of communication or locomotion, but because the scientific community chose to use the word 'teleportation', every esoteric development in this field gets major media coverage.
"Single photons from each of two icons in separate traps interacted at a beamsplitter. When both detectors recorded a photon simultaneously, the icons were entangled."
I believe those would be ions and not 'icons'.
This particular experiment is noteworthy because it demonstrates teleportation at the atomic-level. This "atom-to-atom" teleportation had never been performed before.
Just kidding.
Please have a little look at it and you will see that even though these people seem to be not achieving much, their work is going to be the foundation of a whole new lifestyle for our descendants. Hopefully they will provide solutions for problems from cooking dinner to interstellar travel. Sadly not likely in my lifetime, pity.
I am so tired of cheap shots aimed at our military. This ass makes a joke about us failing to capture a mass murderer? Really stupid, CNET!
OK, I'll stop being nerdy
This was instantaneous transmission of information from location to another.
Not the same thing.
Some people may argue that matter and energy ARE information but that's a little too far from the point I'm trying to make.
This argument that you can't use this to instantly communicate between two spots appears to be weak.
If you instantly superimpose information from the first object onto the second object, are you not then measuring the change at the same time of transmission? And if you modulate the changes, you can send a simple on-off signal. Viola! You can send bits that can be combined into a message.
- by capernicous2 February 1, 2009 5:27 AM PST
- I too am tired of these cheap shots by liberals on the military. They do not have a clue to the workings of the real world. The military can only do what these temporally occupants of the white house and congress let them.
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