.BTW if your husband can find me the originals which were published in 1966 by Ace Books or in 1983 by Berkeley Books I'd pay him well for his efforts.
Posted on 10/23/2001 5:15:41 PM PDT by Starmaker
A few weeks ago we just got one big step closer to having quantum computers and teleportation. This is because atoms have an almost ‘psychic´ ability that Einstein once termed spooky. It seems that distant atoms are almost ‘telepathically´ linked to each other in what scientists call entanglement. Plainly put, it means that a group of atoms ‘over here´ knows what a group of atoms ‘over there´ are doing. This is one of the properties of atoms described by of a branch of science called Quantum Theory.
The word ‘quantum´ means a discrete or separate unit of energy, and Quantum Theory tries to explain the properties of these basic units of nature. When people think of atoms, they usually envision solid, separate balls of matter like a group of billiard balls. However, according to Quantum Theory, atoms are much less tangible, with properties that can only be described (right now) as spooky.
One of the first weird things we learned about quantum particles was that we could know where a particle was, or when a particle was, but we could never know both at the same time. Because it reminds me of the socks I always lose in the wash, I call it "Beth´s Principle of Lost Socks and Quantum Particles." (I would know when I had a full pair of socks, or where that full pair had been, but do the laundry and the full pair would be gone.) In fancy terms, we´d say we knew a particle´s location or it´s velocity, but not both. This discovery is called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and understanding it is critical to understanding the possibilities inherent in Quantum Theory.
Quantum particles such as atoms or photons can exist in distinct states, like the head or tail of a coin. But these same particles can also exist in both states at once (known formally as superposition). This is comparable to a coin spinning in the air before it lands.
Now let´s suppose we toss two coins at once. Whichever way one coin lands has no bearing on how the other coin lands. Because of this, we say their outcomes are independent -- if one coin lands heads up, it will not effect the way the other coin lands. However, two entangled quantum particles are not like coins. The fate of one effects the fate of the other. For instance, if one entangled quantum particle is in a 'heads' state, the other must be in a 'tails' state. We say that they are interdependent. And this interdependence is the whole key to teleportation.
For any practical applications, entanglement has to embrace thousands, or even millions, of particles, and maintaining total entanglement is very difficult. However, the scientists have found a way around this problem.
They do without complete entanglement, where the state of each particle depends on the state of every other particle. Instead, they generate two loosely entangled clouds of cesium gas, one with slightly more atoms in a 'heads' state and the other with slightly more in a 'tails' state. (These two states are actually defined by the directions of the atoms' magnetic fields.) By doing it this way, many more atoms can be entangled, and stay that way for a longer period of time.
So how does this translate into teleportation? Well, it does and it doesn´t. But the final effect is the same as teleportation. One set of quantum particles can be instantaneously reproduced somewhere else. So unlike Star Trek, objects are not broken down and their particles ‘beamed´ somewhere. Instead, they are reproduced somewhere. In this way a message encoded in photons of light could be transmitted from one place to another without sending the photons across the intervening space, effectively bypassing the speed-of-light barrier.
Up until now, the maximum amount of particles that scientists could entangle were a measly four atoms. This most recent experiment entangled about a million atoms, bringing us much closer to the realization of teleportation, quantum computers, and a new form of instant communication over vast distances.
Nah. Been there, done that startrek-wise. Some badasss took over somebody and they managed to hit him with an armful of happy juice. Before he could wake they thransported him to a million cubic miles of space. He was dead, OK, but for OBL we need something better. How about transporting him to the surface of the sun. There is a popular song about this that we could play for him while he is in transit.
.BTW if your husband can find me the originals which were published in 1966 by Ace Books or in 1983 by Berkeley Books I'd pay him well for his efforts.
Until someone is able to prove that entanglement is constant from one end of the universe to the other, it is still just a theory.
Though I do agree with you, you cannot speak in absolutes...yet.
"Hello? Megadodo Publications. May I help you? Uh..yeah, Mr. Zarniwhoop IS in his office, but he's on an inter-galactic cruise and can't be bothered."
There is no implication. Information can be sent across the galaxy in an instant once the sender and the receiver are properly entangled matter. It's not an implication, it is a direct conclusion.
Not only can we send info faster than the speed of light, we do send info faster than the speed of light. Electonics, when you push an electron in one end of a wire, institaneously one comes out the other end. The reason why in reality we don't have it faster is processing time. If we were to stretch a wire out to the far reaches of space, and had a power source to overcome the resistance of the wire, and hopefully minimize interference from radiation, we can send it far enough to process the info faster than the speed of light.
Cool picture of betas going faster than speed of light (in water).
1. They are using a light beam to cause the two cesium clouds to become and remain entangled. They even go on about the limitations of how far they can separate the entangled clouds based on limitations of light guiding technology.
2. That all they are measuring is the sum of a quantum effect of each cloud. They claim the cloud was easier to work with than single atoms.
Thus it seems that although this research is groundbreaking in certain ways, it still doesn't mean that we can send detailed messages to a future Mars base instantaneously.
To keep the clouds entangled when one is sitting on a laboratory bench in Houston and the other is being buffeted about in a rocket headed for Mars will be a major trick. Also, to somehow "disentangle" the atoms within a cloud to measure all the "bits" of information without disturbing them will also require some work.
Your statement seems wrong according to what I learned in physics. The electrons in a wire move physically down the length of the wire at a specific speed that is quite a bit less than light speed. However, as each electron affects adjacent electrons down the wire, the WAVE that results moves at the speed of light. Therefore the electron at the other end moves out of the wire at the physical speed of electrons, and that movement starts after a delay correspnding to the time it would take for light to move the length of the wire. Unlike what you said, I think that there is NOT instantaneous transmission down the wire.
But, I do have one question:
Please, explain how this theory relates to one Electron that makes a 'quantum leap' (meaning that electron has enough energy to jump from one orbiting level to another) in a molecule of H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) here on Earth will affect another Electron on a planet circling Proxima Centauri (the closest star to Earth outside our Solar System) ?
I'm not trying to be obtuse...but I don't fully understand everything mentioned in this article....
i know...I Know....I went to a Publick Skool in Alabama. But, I did listen a little bit in Physics Class).
It's good they left something for the next generation of physicists to work on.
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