Breakthrough Brings Star Trek Transporter Closer

japerr writes to mention The Independant is reporting that a new breakthrough may bring scientists one step closer to a Star Trek style transporter. " A team of physicists has teleported data over a distance of 89 miles from the Canary Island of La Palma to the neighbouring island of Tenerife, which is 10 times further than the previous attempt at teleportation through free space. The scientists did it by exploiting the "spooky" and virtually unfathomable field of quantum entanglement - when the state of matter rather than matter itself is sent from one place to another. Tiny packets or particles of light, photons, were used to teleport information between telescopes on the two islands. The photons did it by quantum entanglement and scientists hope it will form the basis of a way of sending encrypted data."

Bad Summary

[Zenaku]

It is true that "Star Trek style Transporters" are used to send Data, but it is with a capital "D" and they can send other crew members too.

Misleading summary. Minus 100 points.

Re:Teleport?

[Tablizer]

This sounds like a new form of fiber optics rather than teleportation. No item was physically disassembled and reassembled in another place.

In other words:

No red-shirted crewman were harmed in this experiment.
     

Re:When the day come...

[LWATCDR]

I bet he would really hate that since he is still alive.

Re:When the day come...

[Opportunist]

Given the way he speaks, I find a 5 stage rocket more fitting.

Re:The "Independant"?

[spun]

They tried to teleport the name of the source directly into the summary and it got scrambled. Cut them some slack, it's a new technology.

Re:Bad Summary

[RealGrouchy]

It is true that "Star Trek style Transporters" are used to send Data

He woke up the next day and told Geordi he didn't think he'd be able to go to the holodeck.

"Sorry, but I woke up feeling really encrypted"

- RG>

*Overheard in the lab*

[DarthStrydre]

LORA - Well, here goes nothing ...

GIBBS - Hah. Interesting, interesting. You hear what you said? "Here goes nothing."

LORA - Well, I meant -

GIBBS - Whereas actually, what we propose to do is to turn something into nothing and back again. So you might just as well have said, "Here goes something and here comes nothing." Hah!

Re:When the day come...

[AttillaTheNun]

I vote for beaming William Shatner into space now. Why wait for ashes?

Re:IndependEnt!

[blueturffan]

-1 Pendantic

Re:Call me dumb...

[RealGrouchy]

But it seems to me that 'transporting' data, whether or not using quantum entanglement, isn't quite the same thing as transporting matter and really brings us no close the 'transporter' technology as seen on Star Trek.

It's actually a far more advanced version of the Star Trek technology.

Say, for example, that you are in orbit and someone on the surface wants to know what colour shirt a crewman is wearing.

With the inefficient Star Trek model, you'd have to send the crewman down, wearing the shirt.

With this data-teleportation model, you only have to send the message "The crewman is wearing a red shirt."

Unfortunately, since he didn't actually go on an away mission, you'd have to find another way to kill him off.

- RG>

Re:Call me dumb...

[digitalderbs]

Exactly right. The hurdle for teleportation is the conversion of data and energy into matter. In theory, a Star Trek starship could beam crew members over 250 years time using 802.11g. (assuming, of course that a average human being contains exactly 55.8 petabytes worth of data).

Re:Bad Summary

[Tablizer]

[Data:] "Sorry, but I woke up feeling really encrypted"

Explains why Data had the urge to write Perl ;-)

-1 Troll

'tis uncertain...

[Namlak]

Have these guys who wrote the summary heard of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

Yes, but as soon as they heard of it, they couldn't locate it.

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[hal2814]

Seems like ansibles would be a bad idea. Sure you could have faster than light communications but at the expense of the Buggers hearing every word of it.

Transporters won't ever happen

[mbadolato]

Perhaps it will some day be technologically possible, but it won't ever happen in reality. Scott Adams (Dilbert) said it perfectly:

It would be great to be able to beam your molecules across space and then reassemble them. The only problem is that you have to trust your co-worker to operate the transporter. These are the same people who won't add paper to the photocopier or make a new pot of coffee after taking the last drop. I don't think they'll be double-checking the transporter coordinates. They'll be accidentally beaming people into walls, pets, and furniture. People will spend all their time apologizing for having inanimate objects protruding from parts of their bodies.

'Pay no attention to the knickknacks; I got beamed into a hutch yesterday.'

Re:Teleport?

[nelsonal]

Wouldn't he only be rolling in his grave if you try to observe him?

Re:Bad Summary

[Viraptor]

Data: Cpt., I feel encrypted by that last teleportation...
Cpt.: What do you mean?
Data: All my video data has been modified... and there is a number burned in my mind... it's 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.

Re:Teleport?

[Lockejaw]

He'd be spinning both clockwise and counterclockwise until you observe him.

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[SEAL]

It still has the benefit that you can send data without using the (limited) electromagnetic spectrum, or laying down lines, both of which are expensive markets to enter. ... because hiring a team of quantum physicists, securing patents, and avoiding becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the NSA is so much cheaper?

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[iluvcapra]

my understanding is that the main principle behind transporter operation is the idea that matter-energy conversion is possible (and practical). Same goes for holodecks and replicators

I own many of the technical manuals, and they go to pains to handwave over this part of it, making a big deal about "Heisenberg compensators" and working through how these machines capture the data (basically every quantum number in the system, in real time, digitally). All of the gear you mention usually has something called a "phase transition coil" that does the complicated job of making the matter non-corporeal. One can assume the mass is turned into energy, the books won't dissuade you from this, but mass into energy isn't a phase transition, and the amount of energy you'd get from the average human mass would destroy the Enterprise several times over.

The likely explanation a writer, cornered, would give you is that these devices handle matter that is in an as-yet-undiscovered, highly exotic, highly energetic, wavelike, and protean phase of matter, that might as well be energy from our modern-day perspective. In the canon, an object being transported is never referred to as energy, but as "phased matter," which would seem to support this.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going off to sleep with my highly exotic, highly energetic, and as-yet-undiscovered girlfriend.

Re:Teleport?

[LoveGoblin]

Hah. I read that as "No red-shifted crewman were harmed" and thought "Well, they would be moving pretty fast..."

Re:Call me dumb...

[JeanPaulBob]

Actually, I recently wrote a paper on quantum teleportation, and I was surprised to find that teleporting a human being with current telecom equipment would take longer than the age of the universe.

Oh, I dunno. Six thousand years doesn't seem like that long to me.

Re:Transporters won't ever happen

[Bullet-Dodger]

I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.

-Douglas Adams

Re:IndependEnt!

[dreamchaser]

You mean -1 Indepedantic, don't you?

Re:Teleport?

[sabernet]

mod up. by the way, is the cat dead or alive?

Yes, I believe it is. But I'm not certain.

Re:Teleport?

[dave420]

I have a quantumly-entangled scale model of him on my desk, and it's rolling like a bastard right now. Just knocked my coffee into the middle of next week. But that's a different problem all together.

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[brunascle]

this is god speaking. stop looking for superluminal travel. it doesnt exist.

whats the big deal?

[Virgil Tibbs]

whats the big deal?
at the moment all it seems they have done is transmitted data(with small d). We have been able to do that since morse code... Can somebody explain to me what the big deal is becasue apart from the ultimate aim, I'm failing to see how this is a breakthrough.

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[ConceptJunkie]

The good news is that you can send unbreakably encrypted messages over long distances instantaneously. The downside is that the people who receive your messages are complaining about President Kucinich's proposed tax legislation and how expensive produce is since California fell into the sea, and all the foreign aid we've given to Mexico because of it, and whether Quebec's Senator is eligible to be the U.S. President because when he was born, it _was_ a foreign country, and they have no idea what the hell your warning about terrorist activity at Kennedy airport is all about.

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[KingMotley]

God, it's "doesn't".

Re:spooky?

[crakbone]

Either way, I think we are now one stop closer to the Fax-a-Pizza

Re:Dear Slashdot

[AMSRay]

That wouldn't do you much good if you were 89 miles away from where your penis went.

Re:Give me data, not matter

[ErikZ]

Instantaneous spam. All over the universe.

Re:Bad Summary

[revengebomber]

That wasn't informative. Everyone on slashdot already knows that.

Re:Dear Slashdot

[stonedcat]

It sure would freak her the hell out though.

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[syousef]

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going off to sleep with my highly exotic, highly energetic, and as-yet-undiscovered girlfriend.

The infamous undiscovered cun.....no I just can't do it

Re:One step closer to an ansible, maybe.

[thesandtiger]

This is Lord Kelvin speaking, and I agree: all that remains of physics is a few more decimal places.

Nah, he's dead Jim!

[freaker_TuC]

mod up. by the way, is the cat dead or alive?

He's dead Jim, but not as we know it!

Re:Call me dumb...

[Subacultcha]

Okay, let's assume that for a moment. Will anyone actually give a shit?

Well, there was one guy who cared, but he'd be gone by then. There's another guy who looks just like him, though, and he's totally cool with it.

Re:Call me dumb...

[deadweight]

Didn't Dr. McCoy (Bones) have exactly this reservation about using the transporter?
He wasn't sure if the original soul got transported along with the body.
Capt Kirk: Hi there St. Peter! You may not know it, but I am a famous starship captain. You're not going to hold the green alien chick thing against me, are you?
St. Peter - points to about 400 Capt. Kirks standing around - You again!

Re:The "Independant"?

[dosquatch]

"Independant" is an infact

infact; v; 1. to agressively attack with facts and/or information 2. the state of being so set upon ("I'm infacting as hard as I can, Captain!", "Help! Help! I'm being infacted!") n; any implement used in the execution of such
See also "LART", "clueing"

I'm not so sure that "Independant" is an infact, but it makes my head hurt so you may be right.