TURKU, Finland — Beam me up, Scotty! In a study that seems straight out of a “Star Trek” episode, an international team of researchers has achieved a remarkable feat in the realm of quantum teleportation. They have successfully conducted near-perfect quantum teleportation despite the presence of noise that typically disrupts the transfer of quantum states.
Quantum teleportation is a process in which the state of a quantum particle, or qubit, is transferred from one location to another without physically sending the particle itself. This transfer requires quantum resources, such as entanglement between an additional pair of qubits.
There’s zero chance this will be used to transport matter in our lifetimes, much less sending sentient beings across space. Right now, it’s just information, which is phenomenal by itself.
I know, I was being sort of glib … But the internet doesn’t get sarcasm or gentle irony.
I got you, I just think there’s a lot of pop science reporting on this, and people act like we’re going to have transporters. Even the thumbnail for this article implies it. The problem with that sort of hyperbolic reporting is that then people are disappointed when reality doesn’t live up to the hype.
This is really big news and a great leap forward in research physics. If we can utilize quantum entanglement, it will change the world in ways we cannot even comprehend.
It would be like when Bell first called Watson, every newspaper started promising same-day Amazon delivery.
Y’know, I think I read this same hyperbolic reporting in the 80s in a New Scientist, and again in the 90s. For some reason teleportation went quiet in the early 2000’s as far as popular reporting went, but it looks like it is back.
I have a suspicion that, alongside space travel, there is this fascination in getting out of this place because we’ve fucked it up.
I’m deeply skeptical that they even managed to transmit information ftl, since that violates a fundamental law of physics.
They transferred the qubits but using it (and knowing when you can use it) still requires non causality breaking methods.
Things like this are more useful for secure transfer of data without eavesdropping. You send qubits of data at a set time, etc and then send a message at non FTL speeds to say “it’s ready… read it” and they can do so.
Oh man, this is going to be exciting for you then. Quantum mechanics is breaking all sorts of laws of physics that were previously assumed to be inviolable.
Healthy skepticism is good, but the more you read about this, the crazier it gets. Quantum entanglement requires an entirely new understanding of dimensional spacetime.