Teleportation Takes Another Step

Discovery News ^

[RightWhale]

It's digital. Binary base. One bit today, one byte tomorrow, encyclopedia britannica next day.

[js1138]

There is no claim being made that information is communicated faster than light, or that quantum communication will be faster than light.

[ez]

Now if we could only turn people into photons and back!!!

[RightWhale]

It is, though. It's instantaneous once the entangled photons have been separated no matter how far apart they are.

[biblewonk]

Kirk, Scotty and Bones still remain in the distant, sci-fi distance, however.

This is what will never happen.

[biblewonk]

Instantaneously between stars and across the galaxy.

It will never work and I missed the part where it is faster than the speed of light.

[biblewonk]

Of course, if I knew Him, I'd be Him. But it's curious to otherwise ponder the point of creation.

John 17 "eternal life is this, that they might know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

[js1138]

It will never work and I missed the part where it is faster than the speed of light.

You didn't miss it. It wasn't claimed in the article.

Let's think about how this might work in interstellar communication. First you entangle two streams of photons. One stream has to reach the "receiver" via the usual route (at the speed of light). Once the stream has reached it's destination, you can theoretically wiggle them instaneously by wiggling their entangled brothers. (The part conveniently skipped over is the time required for the photons to reach their target.) There are other problems also.

[RightWhale]

It will never work and I missed the part where it is faster than the speed of light.

It does work, and you apparently did. It's old news, also, and has been done at many labs around the world. There have been several FR threads over the years. Perhaps someone will link to one or more of them.

[sheik yerbouty]

"Help me! help me......"

[Junior]

If the photon disappeared from point A and reappeared instantaneously at point B, never crossing the intervening space, I'd say it moved faster than light.

Can stutterwarp be too far away?*

*see GDW's 2300AD for further details.

[js1138]

I don't believe it works that way. Entanglement requires that two particles interact. I see no claim in the article for information travelling faster than light.

[Junior]

The article said the researchers had teleported a photon two kilometers. I assumed it meant the researchers had teleported a photon two kilometers.

[js1138]

I'm no Physicist, but I've read one on this subject on this very site. I'll try pinging him.

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

Well.... not exactly!

-no more need for oil (besides heating)

You will still need oil for:

- factories to make the products you are teleporting
- generating electicity to run your appliances
and of course

- Mega Power Plants to run those power hungry teleporters.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

you just order it online, and it gets zapped into your living room Would this work with Ann Coulter....?

Sure would. Ever see the movie "Logan's Run"? He got Jenny Agutter into his living room that way.

[onedoug]

Ethical Monotheism

[VetoBill]

Egads! My long awaited dream of having a pizza emailed to me grows nearer.

[cgbg]

My favorite short story on this subject is James Patrick Kelly's "Think Like A Dinosaur". (Click on my name for my other favorite sf novels and short stories.)

Kelly's 1995 story uses teleportation for intersteller travel. Once confirmation has been received that the copy has reached its destination the original is killed. When all goes well this happens in less than a second. But Kelly explores what happens when communications are garbled and Murphy's Law takes over.

Kelly shows how teleportation creates mind-boggling ethical issues.

It is to physics what cloning is to biology--one radical force with a potential to transform society, bringing lots of great new conveniences.

Given human nature, though,it would be easily abused and turned into a horrible nightmare. (If you think the space shuttle politically correct missions to nowhere with high school science experiments are risky and ridiculous you ain't seen nothing yet!)

btw this story can be found in Hartwell's Year's Best SF (the first one) which is still available in most bookstores.