Quantum information teleported from light to matter

Breakthrough by physicists in Denmark brings quantum communication and computing closer to reality.

The story "Quantum information teleported from light to matter" published October 4, 2006 at 4:29 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[Captain_Spock]

"Although teleportation...

... is associated with the science fiction series "Star Trek," no one is likely to be beamed anywhere soon."... how sure can this be? What if there is an accelerated rate of development in this capabilities or contact with higher intelligent life forms who can show the people "Planet Three" how to accomplish these "feats" quite easily (who knows if Professor Eugene Polzik is Professor Eugene Polzik or "someone" else or I am who you think I am? Ha! Ha! Ha!. WOW! BEAM ME UP SCOTTY!

[SeizeCTRL]

Lack of Computer Power

We simply do not have the computing power nor memory needed to contain the exact placement of every molecule in your body. A computer would have to disassemble every part of you, remember where each piece was, transfer that information into sub atomic particles that could be teleported on a beam of light and once at that location, be reassembled.

I'm not saying it will never be possible, but it's WAY WAY WAY down the road if it can be done.

[baggyguy1218]

Its incredible

I am amazed, I cant wait to teleport from my couch to my desk and back again it will save so much time!! Seriously I am amazed.

[J_Satch]

I can't wait...

...to teleport a beer from my fridge to my hand while watching tv! The possibilities are endless! :)

[Blito]

If that 'matter' turns into DNA

Then it could recreate your body with memory intact if read properly of course.
Quantum states are starnge though. Probably better to take a ship and create a Dark Matter hole

[hawkeyeaz1]

Energy

Each atom and molecule in a living organism has a certain amount of energy, which will be impossible to correctly 'transfer'. Therefore, a plant teleported would come out dead, as there would be no motion (life) to it. Likewise for humans. Further, in humans, any neuron passing a message during an attempted teleportation will result in the message being dropped, and that message could be your heartbeat... (or the command to your legs to stand).

[DeusExMachina]

Schizophrenia

No one said anything about turning matter into DNA. Nor would
doing so in any way have anything to do with memory, which is
NOT stored in DNA.
I seriously doubt you are qualified to make any comments
regarding quantum states, as I highly doubt you know what they
are.

[MikeDson]

Chill out - it's not real teleportation

I think some of you commenters don't understand the nature of these experiments. In the real sense, nothing is being "teleported" except quantum information. This experiment took advantage of the weirdness of quantum entanglement to make one submicroscopic group of atoms reflect the traits of another group of atoms.

There is NO possibility that this can EVER in the future be scaled up to handle something as large and complex as a lab mouse, much less a person.

This portends something for quantum copmuting, not transportation. Don't sell your car yet.

[Amazingant]

No no no,

Ignore this guy. Do sell your car. Give me the money too. Then I can buy a camcorder to get video of myself laughing when you can't drive to work.

[DeusExMachina]

quantum computing

This portends nothing for quantum computing, as it has nothing to
do with it. This is about information exchange, not quantum
computing, which is an entirely different beast.

[Ghost Spider]

Cool, but....

Doesn't the Heisenberg uncertainty principle say that this kind of thing should be impossible?

I'm no scientist, but I have looked at few things to do with Quantum Mechanics over the years.

Anyway, just a thought. :)

[wsboyd]

Heisenberg travel question

'Heisenberg was pulled over by a traffic cop. The cop asked "Do you know how fast you were going ?"
Heisenberg stated "No, but I know where I am ! " '

[DeusExMachina]

no buts.

No, the Heisenberg uncertainly relation says that ?x?p>h(cross)
[or, since CNet seems to choke on Unicode, Delta x * Delta p > h
(cross).]
All this means is that as the degree of precision in the estimation of
the position of a particle goes up, the degree of precision in the
estimation of it's momentum goes down.
Here, quantum states are being replicated across a boundary. No
measurements are being taken.

[hawkeyeaz1]

Storage potential

This has potential for computer information storage (to replace hardrives) if things pan out.

[DeusExMachina]

Potential storage

No, it doesn't

[grey_eminence]

Colossal Storage published a nice web article

about 2 years ago with some nice gifs.

Go to entangled particle encrypted communication.

They atalk about this technology and more.

http://www.colossalstorage.net/

[kylekillough]

Quantum Computing and Quantum Teleportation

In response to DeusExMachina's statement that these have nothing to do with one another; That is not entirely correct. While this type of teleportation as put, is more akin to faxing a document by keeping the image in a short term buffer and streaming the signal through the line, or in this case, a beam of light, to another location, the other type of quantum teleportation that would be necessary for larger object (especially anything living or bigger than say, a very small ant, even) would require computing power on scales far beyond what we have today. Enter quantum computing, this type of information transfer, both in scale and quantity, would require a computer so fast that the entire processing would only take mere nanoseconds, in order that the object/subject/person dissassembled could be nearly instantaneously dissassembled and reassembled so that the structure of the reassembly could be cohesive and the subject would emerge from the process as living (or even functional in the case of inanimate or non-living materials). A quantum computer is speculatively projected to be the only type of computer that would be capable of such large scale intensive data manipulation.