Laser Beam Teleported 540
Michael Wardle writes "ABC Australia reports that a team of scientists from the Australian National University have successfully teleported a laser beam. It seems that teleportation of solid bodies is still a way off, but at least we're a little closer to Slashdot's favorite super power." Another Australian newspaper has a more detailed story.
Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:4, Informative)
Team leader Dr Ping Koy Lam says it involved creating a laser beam, its disembodiment and the recreation of the original beam in a different location.
To me, that sentence can be translated as such:
Team leader Ping Koy Lam says it involved creating a ball point pen, its destruction and the recreation of the same ball point pen using a factory blueprint in a different location.
This isn't the first time I've read about "teleportation" of some particle or another, when it seems that they are simply re-creating, mirroring if you will, the particle(s) quantum states in another place. That's not teleporting - that's mimicing.
Re:And plenty of code space for more. (Score:2)
Re:And plenty of code space for more. (Score:2, Informative)
no-cloning theorem, that states that a quantum state cannot be copied without destroying the original.
of course, if you are only interested in an imperfect copy (i.e. a copy, not the same(tm) object) of your laser carrying your information, you just take a high bandwidth detector, two lasers and modulate them with the signal from the detector.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:5, Interesting)
You've said the same thing in two different ways; really, there is no difference.
But first, an analogy :P .. Some people describe me as an unmarried man, but others say I'm more of a bachelor.
To teleport something (you can call it mimicry, or mirroring, or whatever you want -- this isn't primarily an argument about semantics) is to encode the thing's physical information (mass and topography and other stuff for matter, a somewhat different list for photons, whatever), transmit those data to another geographic location, and re-convert that info into the original object, with all the same parameters except for location.
Now, whether you describe that as destruction-recreation (sort of like modulation-demodulation?) or teleportation, do you see that it's the exact same act? As I said before, it's not about wording: it's not about the difference in meaning (or nuances of meaning) between one word and another, but about the general meaning of "what it is to teleport a thing." If you don't understand "teleporting" to mean destroy-send-create, then how do you propose to go about it?
Another poster replied beneath the parent thread, illustrating the popular conception of teleportation as "beam me up scotty." It's a quite apt description, but there's a part of the explanation missing. How does the "beam me up scotty" thing actually work? What can Scotty be doing that's different (in more than name) from what the physicists in Australia did, viz. destroy-send-create, a.k.a. teleport?
Finally, about the physics itself (though superficially, of course!). From what we know now, "the way" to teleport a thing is by quantum re-creation. A lot of tricky engineering, and still a bit of a disappointment compared to sci-fi. Similarly, the physics of real-life time travel don't seem to match the more elegant descriptions of sci-fi, and have limitations that make it seem like less than you'd expect from a subject like "Laser Beam Teleported" or "Scientists Discover Time-Travel," but it's essentially a germinal version of the same phenomenon.
(As a side-note, this has some bearing on another popular /. topic: cloning. If you get rid of the "destroy" phase of teleportation, you've got physical cloning, which in some ways is considerably nicer than biological cloning... and with, of course, correspondingly higher ramifications of abuse!)
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2, Interesting)
If not, then a quantum copy is the same being. Correctly done, the 'original' is destroyed, the 'copy' goes on, last memory being at the other place. No harm, no foul. Murder? Who can tell?
If you're not allowed to 'destroy' the original, what happens if you want to reintegrate quantum state (mostly memories, but there are quite a few other interesting possibilities, such as the usual with cloning - if the original dies, can the copy be considered the posessor of the identity? Is the copy even considered human? etc)
At what point does the HIAU (Human Industry Association of the Universe) step in and penalize you for a copyright violation? Or are you allowed one backup copy for personal use?
Does the human being already have copy-protection built in, or not?
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the key issue that isn't being articulated here is that destruction-recreation can only be easily thought of as teleportation if the destruction phase is an absolutely necessary, intrinsic part of the process. Otherwise, what you've got is a situation where something is duplicated, and the only reason to destroy the original is to preserve the metaphor of teleportation. In the case of teleporting humans, unnecessary destruction comes uncomfortably close to, well, murder. It is for this reason that people (rightly so) feel the need to draw a clear line between duplicative technologies and transportive technologies.
An evocative scenario involving this conundrum is a "teleportive" technology used on people in which the original has to be destroyed because of technological limitations (incomplete knowledge or deviation of lab results from theory), instead of because of a demonstrable theoretical limitation (like Heisenberg's principle as the foundation of quantum encryption). What if people embrace and use such a technology as "teleportive" for ten years, then technology improves and we suddenly don't need to destroy the original? Whether the use of teleportation would come to a grinding halt or people would continue (now unnecessarily) to destroy the original would be very interesting indeed.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, given your premise, people will pay more for energy and even more for convenience of energy, ie: the right kind of energy at the right place at the right time. Then we'll trade it on the stock market.
We won't be 'producing' anything but we will be 'insuring' it and 'distributing' it (big items that don't fit in your home 'replicator') and providing all sorts of upgrades and add-ons to offset the cost of energy for the initial purchase of intellectual property (the car or computer 'design' instead of the materials it is made of).
Capitalism will be alive and well, beyond the production is zero' line.' People will always find a way to improve upon what is essentially free... look at bottled water or suntan salons or any number of things which are free technically but we end up payig for the convenience of getting them when we want them instead of having to plan for them.
This doesn't take into account purely social pursuits like entertainment or peace of mind (imagine gangs being able to 'replicate' weaponry of all types at any time)... of course these social pursuits would most likely change over time as the tech finally began to be common place and not simply the toys of the priviledged.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Oligarchs Will Never Let it Happen (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't count on it. The oligarchs will impose capitalism on us whether we like it or not. Consider intellectual property in the digital age, where replication costs are effectively zero and there is no real justification for creating such an artificial scarcity.
They'll argue that the designer of the car deserves to get paid for their creation (while glossing over the fact that the designer is probably an underpaid employee of some megalithic corporation owned by said oligarchs and completely ignoring the fact that a society of such abundance doesn't really require money anymore anyway), and that anyone who replicates such a car is stealing from the original designer.
We will all be kept in artificial impoverishment in order to sustain the current system, and the power of the oligarchs over the rest of us, long after any compelling justification for such has ceased to be the case. This is already happening flagrantly with respect to information technology, with ever more draconian laws to make certain it continues to be so.
If information is the only area in which this is the case (ie. we never have replication technology, be it via 'teleportation without the destruction phase' or nano-technology), we will either end up shuffling off the capitalistic system in the information area (capitalism assumes scarcity, which abundance negates), or have laws that are so draconian that the old communist regimes will look positively liberal in comparison.
Imagine how much worse it will be if such laws are applied to physical goods, where everyone could have a car and a mansion and live like a king, but MegaCorp, Inc. owns all the patents on the technology, and all the copyrights on all the design templates, and unauthorized replication has been forbidden to protect those profits.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
This also involves entanglement. The photons get re-created almost instaneoulsy. This nothing like sending the blue-print for pen to a factory. This is sending the information for a 'pen' to a device the re-creates the 'pen' from raw atoms instantly - just like Star Trek. Of course they are just using photons which simplifies things as they are all 'the same' and massless.
Slightly Incorrect. Here's Some Quantum Info: (Score:5, Interesting)
This brings up the point of How do you define "teleportation"?
if creating a photon from an identical ('quantumly') photon in another place, so long as the original is necessarily destroyed (and this is the only possible case) and you have duplicated ALL attributes: phase, amplitude, polarization as well as all quantum attributes (of which i know little) then you HAVE teleported it! Unless you give photons some kind of aethereal, disembodied "essence" or "soul" that is by definition an unique and induplicable attribute, then i fail to understand your disagreement with the moniker "teleportation". And entanglement makes this all work out kind of nicely.
If you want some more info that's easy to read, but very informative about quantum teleportation and entanglement, see this excellent summary [ibm.com]
In writing this reply, i tried to include a summary of that article, but it's pretty impossible to summarize. I would have had to copy,paste huge paragraphs - they give you no more info than really necessary while keeping it very interesting. READ IT!
Discussion welcome!! Mods: please don't 'OT' thread below. knowing me, it could get obscure/wierd/esoteric - almost certainly offtopic, though. at least eventually.. pretty please? :-P
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you think the difference is. However the important point to the story is that the team used quantum entanglement to transfer the information. That's amazing stuff in itself. It's going to change communications even if it doesn't lead to Star Trek teleporation devices.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if the person created was the exact same down to the quantum level, it would be you, exactly. Your last memory would be a strange tingling as your body was torn apart at the quantum level to be stored, then once you were recreated your memories would begin again. Now this raises all sorts of philosophical questions, like what happened to your soul when you were torn apart, but really, I dont believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo :P If it was proven to be safe i'd use it, sure.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2, Interesting)
From someone else's point of view, the other guy may as well be me, However, from my point of view, I've been murdered, my body vaporized, and some other guy is now walking around with my memories.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
Which "point of view" would that be? The only point of view available to you is that of the guy walking around with your memories... who, by definition, is you.
Assuming the Perfect Quantum Replication thing is even possible, of course. Although, come to think of it, we should probably pass legislation now to censor the Internet using PQR, on the assumption we'll someday have the technology to enforce such a law [pcworld.com].
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:3, Insightful)
There strikes me as being two processes involved here, duplication and destruction. The argument seems to be that the two together has the same affect as moving a person to another location, and that if both are done the second entity is the same as the first.
That doesn't make sense, because nobody in their right mind would suggest the second entity is the same as the first if both exist at once. Destroying the first cannot possibly change that, that's an attempt to remove the evidence, not an attempt to move the position of sentience.
Soul or no soul.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the question is where exactly does consciousness live? Does it A) live in the actual, physical atoms that make you up? Is it B) some manifestation of the way your neurons are wired together (as some AI researchers who claim computers have life might contend)? Or is it C) something else, totally unrelated to the physical world (ie on the astral plane, like the Spirit referred to in Christianity and other religions)?
If it's A) there's an exact copy of you somewhere else, but "you" no longer exist. If it's C), well, you're banking that God doesn't mind taking the time and effort to transport your soul over to the "new you". Only if it's B) can you rest assured that your consciousness will be transferred to the new unit, trouble free.
I, for one, wouldn't take chances on something philosophers have been debating to no end for hundreds of years now...
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand the difference between A) and B). In the case of C), wouldn't that become clear after the first experiment?
I'd probably do it after it had been tested for a long period of time. The way I see it, who I am is either made up of matter which we already know about (photons, quarks, etc), or there is an as yet observed factor, call it a soul, which makes up who we are. In either case I think it will become clear by making a test case. Whether or not it should be allowed to make such a test on a human being is something I'll leave as a whole separate argument, which I fortunately don't have to make an opinion about (since it isn't yet possible).
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
BTW, the Slashdot blackout was like two months ago.. isn't it time to take it out of your sig?
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:4, Funny)
What could possibly be more self-preserving than being able to keep backups?
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
Listen, the fact is, I probably *would* go through the teleporter. But it would take a lot of thinking. I'm just explaining where the unease comes from.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
All our ideas of consciousness and identity are just that -- ideas. If they are proven to be false by experimental evidence, then we have some pretty major re-adjustment to do... but that's no reason to ignore the reality of the evidence (if that's the way it works out).
(Actually, "just" is probably inappropriate up there, as these ideas underlay everything in our lives... but you know what I mean
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
Is the body to be transferred destroyed at the exact same time as the new body is created? Does it matter? More importantly, what becomes of the remains? Are they to be delivered to the new body in an urn? Or would that just be too weird?
Oh, and additionally: You Skinnarian Baboon, you.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
On the other hand, if you entangle the raw materials, send half the entangled atoms to the destination, then scan and 'teleport' via 'spooky action at a distance' then it would be instaneous. Doing this with atoms, as opposed to photons, is a long ways off.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
where you put the 'contents' of a person's brain (in the given example, einsteins) into a book
and manually process each nerve impulse, and if the person who's brain was stored in this book
would experience consciousness (albeit on a much slower scale). There's loads of stories
which raise many philosophical questions, from AI to Cloning
(it was written by the same author as 'Godel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid, or just GED)
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
Think about it: using the technology, you could make multiple instances of yourself; perhaps even delay their creation through time, if you had enough storage space you could set aside to hold the pattern. Any and all copies would think themselves to be you, assuming that memories properly transfer. However, you would cease to exist if you were destroyed in the creation of any copy or copies.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because when we're talking about a beam of light, the notion of analyzing it, transmitting the information, and reproducing the original seems more like television than teleportation.
Like most of the non-hoax science stories on Slashdot that relate to fantastic-sounding possibilities (teleportation, time travel, etc.), this is most likely a breakthrough of some sort but not nearly as cool as the summary makes it sound.
Getting to the subject of destroying an object and creating an exact duplicate, it's a hazy issue. I understand how I'd theoretically be the same person if you were to reproduce me at the most detailed level, but I'm still nervous about potential problems with it.
For example, should the destruction of the original me fail, there are suddenly two of me in the Universe, each with a full claim to being me and each slightly different (based on the brief experiences that occur after the duplication). One interesting exploration of this scenario was featured in James Patrick Kelly's story, "Think Like a Dinosaur".
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
Yes, but if youd read up on this a bit more, you'd know that the only way known to do this kind of teleportation, the only way known to determine the states of each particle ata given instant, is to destroy the object being teleported. It simple is NOT possible for the read item to not be destroyed. Therefore, if something went wrong during the process, you'd be dead. There is no chance of there being two of you walking around though.
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
Data Processing Inequality (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand, exactly the same thing happens to my brain every time I drink a pint of beer, and it hasn't stopped me doing it...
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-indi
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:4, Interesting)
As for the difference... no science we have yet teleports actual particles.
It does bring up an interesting dilemma though...
if we COULD make a precise, quantum copy of a person, which one would be the 'real' person? Both would percieve they are real, both would be for ALL purposes, identical. If one were destroyed immediately after quantum duplication, there would be no way to find out which is the original.
So if someone duplicates you.. which one is really you? what happens to your sense of continuity?
Re:Teleportation, or recreating? (Score:2, Insightful)
according to quantum physics, particles are waves and vice versa.
Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:2, Interesting)
wierder conclusion (Score:4, Insightful)
What I think is an even wierder conclusion to jump to is the claim that this will make supercomputers the likes of which we never have seen, as much faster than current computers as current computers are faster than pre-transister computers. Now where does that come from? We are reaching a point where the size of silicon chips is causing problems, so magically teleporting info from one side of the chip to the other instantly would be a big help. But I wonder at the kind of hardware that would take, and the conversion process. Can this route the info the wherever it is needed in realtime, or is there a delay as data is chopped up into chunks that the data teleporter can handle? It wouldn't take much of a delay to totally negate any benefit from doing this for cpus of current size. It would have to be like a foot long cpu to be any good if that was the case!
Basically, I am making the same argument as I made against how (normal, non-teleported) light based computations will replace current electron based computations. It would have to be a 100% photon system because if you have any kind of conversion involved, you are going to slow things down, ruining the point of using photons to begin with.
Yeah, I can see how really, really advanced technology beyond anything currently made in research labs could possably overcome all these problems, but I don't see any of that happening in my lifetime.
It is nice to dream, but dont take bets on when photon circuits and teleporation cpus replace silicon.
I'm not getting in one of those things (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm not getting in one of those things (Score:4, Funny)
What if they could scan the original you, make sure they have two or three backups first, and confirm several long checksums of the backups versus the copied you, before they killed the original you? Would it be acceptable then?
Re:I'm not getting in one of those things (Score:5, Funny)
It's bad enough people are sharing music and movies over the net, the last thing we need is people to start sharing themselves online!
oh, wait...
On teleporting humans (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm not getting in one of those things (Score:2)
Re:I'm not getting in one of those things (Score:3, Funny)
Um. If I way up after someone makes a copy of me elsewhere, that's proof enough that that person is not me.
"We're not killing you, just turning off your body here; you're really now in Paris. Trust me. Be still!"
E-bay auction (Score:3, Funny)
The item will be sent either via FedEx or by FAX machine, buyer's choice.
Re:I'm not getting in one of those things (Score:2)
Re:Religion, 'the soul', and teleportation (Score:2)
Would you care to explain this phenomenon in detail? Oh, wait, you can't prove it but you believe it to be true. You're argument is just as "solid" as the argument of the "fundamentalists" that you deride. You have none.
Re:Religion, 'the soul', and teleportation (Score:2)
Philosophically it doesn't matter to the rest of the universe what entity emerges from the destination chamber as long as it's a perfect copy of the original. However, it's still murder.
You can go; I'll take the bus.
Re:Religion, 'the soul', and teleportation (Score:2)
Please...a perfect copy IS the original. Everything in the universe is made of energy. People are no exception, and one person certainly isn't made of "different" energy than another. Also, for teleportation to work the only thing that can come out of the other end is a perfect copy. We couldn't begin to measure how randomly changing the kinetic energies and translational vectors of the chemicals in your body will affect you.
Amazing Science (Score:5, Funny)
The team was understood to be using a device known to insiders as a "video camera", although how it functions exactly was not disclosed during their press release
"Disembody me, Scottie!" (Score:2)
Disembodiment? Well, if that's the way a human teleport would work, you can be assured I won't be telling Scottie to beam me up!
Wow, teleportation of waves (Score:2)
Re:Wow, teleportation of waves (Score:2, Informative)
1 these are billions of photons, not the average of air preasure over the cone of a microphone.
2 They are the teleportation makes an "exact" replica of the photons in the lazer at the other point.
3 these are photons not waves, if you remember your high school physics light waves and light photons are two different (interconected) things.
5 in mic -> speaker you are basicly making an electrical aproximation to the air preasure waves, sending that electrical signal down a wire, and the speaker aproximating movement of its cone via the magnetic interactions from that signal.
In quantum teleportation such as this, the quantum states of the molecules at each end are directly conected.
6 im sure someone eles could give a better explanation and more reasons
Nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
More detailed my foot - it was gibberish. There were definite erorrs (a previous post already pointed out that the "spooky interactions" are instantaneous, not "at the speed of light"). It's a real shame, too - this may be near-sci-fi technology, but it really isn't so arcane that a little basic proof-reading couldn't be done on articles about it.
DMCA violation? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DMCA violation? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:DMCA violation? (Score:2)
This might also explain the "region 2 error" I get in my experiments when I try to teleport a DVD to England.
Replication or Recreation -- not an easy question (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether this is teleportation or replication is more of a philosophical question, or maybe a matter of semantics. Is an object (or a laser beam) equal to the sum of its properties? If you can make the sum total of an object's quantum properties disappear from one place and reappear in another place, have you merely copied the object or have you moved it?
I think you've moved it, but questions like these deserve more than offhanded answers.
I wonder how long-range can they make it (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be even better if it didn't have propagation time but hell, I'll settle for the speed at which a laser normally travels through a fiberoptic cable. That wouldn't disappoint me at all.
Of course ... (Score:2)
And with this ... nobody knows where the laser beam went to.
It is surmised that it is currently in time-space next to the time-machine that was invented several years ago, switched on ... and summarily disappeared.
*STAR TREK* (Score:2, Funny)
***HACK HACK HACK CHOKE!
Kirk: Rauh! Rauh!
May be we'll create long range tractor beams from the teleporting laser beams?
It's faster than light teleportation too! (Score:3, Interesting)
Using a process known as quantum entanglement, the researchers, led by 34-year-old physicist Ping Koy Lam, have disassembled a laser at one end of an optical communications system and recreated a replica a metre away
and
But the radio signal survives and is sent electronically to a receiving station, where within a nanosecond an exact replica of the beam - with the radio signal intact - is retrieved and decoded.
I'm having trouble working out whether that nano-second is the elapsed time from when the original beam is destroyed and the new one is created, or whether it's the amount of time required to recreate the beam from the received radio signal.
If it's the former then we're talking faster-than-light teleportation here because it takes light 3 nanoseconds to travel a yard.
A bit more vagueness, please? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, a simplified definition from my very limited research into Quantum Entanglement: The supposed link between particles that have once interacted, enabling them to influence each other instantaneously over indefinite distances.
I'll mention before hand I'm not a quantum physics major of any sort, but if I'm reading this correctly, they have encoded a laser beam with a radio signal and "quantum entangled" the two mediums which is then "scanned" (whatever the hell that is) in which the laser is destroyed in the process. So now we should supposively have an intact radio signal with a "destroyed" laser sub-atomically anchored to it in ether somewhere. Sending this radio signal downrange to a receiver will recreate this signal and "pull" the laser back into reality (pardon my butchering of terms).
My problem here is perhapse not how unbelieveable this sound, but how damn vague the artical is. Scanning? How the hell was the beam recreated? Did it appear from thin air? Did it have to be "un" entangled? It doesn't seem as if the laser is infact destroyed at all... How do you go about "entangling" something to being with? This artical doesn't simply bog you down in scientific explanation; In fact it doesn't bog you down in ANY explanation for that matter-- it throws some words in and stirs them up with teleportation references. Hell, the only way I could figure out ANY details was independent research, and oh, how fun that was. The above definition was as easy as it got. After that? Whew... Maybe I'm just bitching, but I'm asssuming this article was written for the common man, but goes far beyond watering things down. It leaves out key pieces nessisary for understanding to occure. Jeez, that's shitty writing...
quantum teleportation is not teleportation (Score:2)
But for teleporting humans, what matters is first of all the classical physical structure: the DNA sequence, arrangement of membranes, intracellular locations of proteins, and all that. There is no indication that you need quantum mechanical information or even dynamical information in order to make teleportation work.
Maybe it will be quantum mechanical tricks that ultimately make teleportation feasible. But these results so far really have nothing to do with the teleportation of real-world objects, because they don't solve the hard problem. The hard part is not transmitting entanglements, the hard part is transmitting the instantaneous locations of molecules in 200 pounds of matter and recreate them at the other end nearly instantaneously.
Practical Application? (Score:4, Funny)
How about a device that will teleport the laser back into the eye of the dumbass teenager shooting his laser pointer on the movie theater screen?
transporter was budgetary device (Score:2, Informative)
and here it is, inspiring cool science. neat.
-- p
Nice, but the real question is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not just encryption... (Score:2)
Obligatory Douglas Adams Quote (Score:4, Funny)
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away,
And I got Sidney's leg.
that was a single photon (Score:3, Insightful)
spooky... (Score:2)
You know, the big feller always did strike me as a bit of a Yankees fan...
Re:Spooky, says Einstein (Score:2)
I hope that you're not referring to Einstein's frequently abused quote about "God does not play dice with the universe." In fact, this was his reaction to the whole probability feature inherent in quantum physics. Einstein didn't believe in a god, at least in a sense that you or I would think of one. At most, he believed that the entire universe was God. Quantum physics is one of the few areas that Einstein was shown to be wrong about. Dice are flying everywhere in our universe.
I wish he had been around long enough to find out some of the things we've learned about the universe since the time he died.
Re:Spooky, says Einstein (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a direct quote:
See more here. [colorado.edu]Re:Spooky, says Einstein (Score:3, Interesting)
So your definition of God is... (Score:2)
McDonalds? (Score:2)
Aha! So that's what they burgers are made of!
Faster than super fast! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah I thought that was pretty funny too. I think the reporter is wrong, though -- the spooky part is that it happens *faster* than the speed of light. I'm pretty sure about this, in fact, because there's a famous Einstein line about "spooky action at a distance" referring to faster-than-light quantum effects, which I'm pretty sure the scientists quoted would be aware of.
That being the case, everyone here is totally missing the point. And in fact, the reporters who wrote the linked-to story missed it to, despite this quote:
The bits about teleporting solid objects (including humans) were just humoring the reporter -- sort of like the whole "could this experiment destroy the universe" thing surrounding supercolliders. The true interesting practical application of this is FTL communication -- vital for any space missions going much further than, say, Mars -- and pretty handy even if you're only that far away.
Re:Faster than super fast! (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is begged, "what is the point of making a a laser go the speed of light? Isn't that like making a german sheppard go the speed of dog?" and the answer is um, sort of. Because the laser is reconstructed at the other location sort of faster than the speed of light, in that half of it arrives instantly (FTL) and the other half arrives at the speed of light.
This doesn't make any sense, but that's cool, so we'll keep going. The important thing to note is that the two halves of the laser beam (not really half, in the terms of 1/2 intensity or anything like that, it's more about the polarization, but we'll gloss over that) are needed to transmit any information. That's any information at all, including if the laser is even turned on or not.
That means that half of the laser can arrive from Jupiter, and the other half is en route for however long it takes for light to get here from Jupiter and you pretty much have to wait around.
(Actually, you can do a whole bunch of nifty calculations while you're waiting, and this is usually a good idea, but I've already dreadfully confused myself so let's skip that part.)
Then your speed-of-light transmission arrives with the other half of the data and you can reconstruct the original. Which is fabulous, and actually quite exciting, but importantly not faster than the speed of light.
Information turns out to be limited just like everything else is by the universal speed limit of 3X10^8m/s. So, if you want to go past, say, Mars, you're going to have to be ready for some lag on your phone call home. It's sad, but it's true.
Re:teleportation (Score:4, Insightful)
For all practical purposes, it is like if you die (and disappear) each time you go to sleep, and your complete copy gets reconstructed at the instant you wake up.
Given that cells of your body don't live long, you are a new, reborn person, every N years.
The key to perceived continued existence is the slow transfer of your consciousness into another body, with clear departure from the old one. The copy operation (cp) is not good enough, you need the move (mv) here.
Re:teleportation (Score:2)
IIRC some parts of your body are only once around.
Your brain for instance.
Some of the other human organs have this principle too, and there is even a name for the group of them as a whole, but darned if I can remember it. ^_^
Re:teleportation (Score:2)
Re:teleportation (Score:2)
That's exactly why I used this theory in my analogy - it makes more sense at this time. If the soul gets discovered in some way (for example, as a wave in ether or hyperspace) then very many concepts will change.
Re:teleportation (Score:2)
Nerve cells (axons) do regenerate [jccc.net], how else damaged nerves could be reconnected?
Neurons, on the other hand, were believed to not regenerate at all. Recent studies [ualberta.ca], however, disprove this theory, concluding, in part, that "the human hippocampus retains its ability to generate neurons throughout life".
Re:Paralysis? (Score:2)
It is a big question, and I am not a doctor. But probably your question is incorrectly stated. There is no such single thing as "paralysis". There are many illnesses and injuries that have symptoms of paralysis. If a portion of the brain gets seriously damaged (in a stroke, for example) then some functionality can be lost. Some of lost functionality can be later regained, and so far it is attributed to brain's rerouting capabilities. But I don't know much about that, and nobody knows.
Even if paralysis is caused by nerve damage, nerves grow very slowly. If a significant section of a nerve is lost, it may never be restored.
Re:teleportation (Score:2)
No. That would work only for the copy of me, but not for the original. The copy does not see a break in memories anyway. The problem is the original. Just imagine, you walk into a chamber, stand there for a minute, and then the operator says "All ready, you've been copied, now be please so kind to walk to the wall and I will shoot you." That is a problem - break of continuity for the original person.
Think about this process. You are teleporting somewhere. You enter the Blue Chamber, press the button. Instantly the surroundings begin to fade into something else, colors fade, teleport operators become more and more transparent, and at the same time other people become visible where they weren't... and finally everything is stable again, and you are in Green chamber at the other end, with all your memories intact and not broken for a moment. That would work.
IF this is true... (Score:2)
Re:Question (Score:5, Funny)
Magic.
Shitty Journalism (Score:2)
Quantum Entanglement: The supposed link between particles that have once interacted, enabling them to influence each other instantaneously over indefinite distances.
Da Mullet's interpretation: Once the two mediums are "entangled" (how you do that is anybodies guess because the article sure as hell doesn't say), they are mysteriously anchored to one another, partical to partical regardless of distance. THEREFORE... While you can "destroy" the laser beam into a chaotic mess, those particals are still mysteriously anchored to their radio counterparts. According to this article, they have destroyed the laser and it's signal, but transmitted the radio to a reciever and have been able to recreate the laser via quantum entanglement effect. The radio partical's laser counterparts (supposively scattered around incoherently) are pulled back from ether to create the original laser signal at point B.
That's the best I can do. Hope it helps, cuz the author sure didn't.
yes and no (Score:4, Interesting)
the 'yes' part is that to receive a teleportation, you have to have one of the entagled particles, and a measured quantity.
the 'no' part is that since the measured quantity is transmitted classicaly, there's no FTL transfer of anything.
That was only one photon (Score:5, Insightful)
Next time, read the article before complaining.
(Yes, this is redundant, but the parent was being incorrectly modded up, and the only rebuttals were ACs @ score 0. And I don't have mod points today, so...)
Re:Link (Score:4, Informative)
The URL you have provided is for a page published by a student undertaking a first-year physics course. Whilst it may (or may not) contain some good content, I doubt the student is part of the research team, and the page should not be treated as authoritative.
The page at http://photonics.anu.edu.au/qoptics/ [anu.edu.au] is somewhat more official.
Re:Still limited by speed of light (Score:2)
Re:exceeding the speed of light (Score:2, Interesting)
The "spooky interaction" postulate was based on the fact that these things seem to be interacting at faster than the speed of light.
As other posts say, the re-constituted object appears (essentially) before the old one is destroyed.
Re:exceeding the speed of light (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a relativly (pun intended) interesting experiment on NEC Institute's web page. It proves that light can go faster than C. Here for NEC Faster than C webpage [nec.com]
It seems that this beam of light traveled about 3C. However, there's conjecture that it traveled slower, but time dilation made it seem 3C. That's unprovable at the time though.
Re:exceeding the speed of light (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Crappy Australian science journalism (Score:2, Funny)
Australia's Teleportation project:
All we needed was Superconductor and Future Tech. In another 2 turns we will also have Genetic Engineering and the SETI Program!
Re:Remember... (Score:2)
it won't be hot (Score:2)
Which I guess is what you are worrying about. Can the matter all the way through a solid object be 'endoced' or 'saved' or 'sent' or whatever at the same time? If not, you have problems about molecular (specifically dna) transfer. If it is good enough to keep your molecules intact, you won't feel any pain or anything like that. You would be dissassembled and reassembled much faster than any biological process you have can detect.
Re:light transportation? (Score:2)
Re:secure laser comms (Score:2)
They might know the answer, but they will not share it with the other agencies.