Quantum Teleportation

[[46] pushit [2]]

I was currently reading Timeline by Micheal Crichton (a great book by the way, and a great author) and had quite a shock. In his introduction to the book, he comments on the new "wave" of science that is quantum physics. Although I know practically nothing about the field, a lot of the information he mentioned was very "wild", to put it lightly. Talk of being able to measure a human hair with a laser that never actually touched the hair, but might have. He called this "counterfactual" phenomenon, or something along those lines. "Finding something without actually looking" is how he summed it up. However, what really sent my head spinning and jaw dropping was a mention of quantum teleportion. He said that in 1998 3 institutions performed quantum teleportion; in Innsbruck, Cal Tech and in Rome (any bells ringing?). The second I saw that my respect for Valve instantly grew (didn't think it could go any higher). As a game developer they continue to amaze me. To make a character so realistic and actualy implement real world happenings just adds so much more credit to the game.

Oh, and in case you don't understand what I'm talking about, let me summarize a bit. Gordon Freeman visited the University of Innsbruck to watch demonstrations dealing with quantum teleportion. Since the game came out in late 1998 and the real teleportion experiments occured in 1997-98, Valve obvioulsy did their homework. Props to them.

Since this was way back in the late 1990s (1997-1998) I'm sure someone has discovered this before. But I just felt like I had to share it with someone...something this cool has to be! Oh, and it isn't quantum teleportion friggin awesome. I guess I'm sort of a science geek, but I love that kind of stuff. According to many experts, quantum physics will be the new wave of these next decades. And who knows what has been accomplished now...

NOTE: All information taken regarding quantum physics is due to Michael Crichton, none of the above ideas are my own.

I don't know if that necessarily counts a bibliography, but it should prevent me from being accussed of plagarism...

 

[slightlyretarded]

sick i love this type of stuff

 

[Alix Mcdean]

Whoah, freaken awesome.

I didint even know Quantum Teleportation was even nearly feasible at this point in time yet, even at a small scale.

Good stuff.

-Alix

 

[Dreglor]

yes very, they once and away say they done somthing new like a subatomic partical then a whole atom (just recently)
they use the the method called "entaglement" (ring bells )
im not sure how it's done but it pretty hard to explain in the frist place :|

 

[Danimal]

Nice find :thumbs:

 

[Naudian]

I like reading books on science theory's like quantum n stuff, even though I dont understand half of it. Cool stuff. And GJ Valve!

 

[Ames]

What a coinkydink. I just read that book a few days ago.

Though I wouldn't call it particularly jaw-dropping. News about quantum teleportation is relatively frequent these days.

 

[LittleB]

You have to realize, for these scientists "performing quantum teleportation" means sending the info of the state of an electron through a fax line and reproducing the electron. The electron isn't actually moved, only copied. It might work for inanimate objects someday (using gigawatts of power btw), but if you believe in souls, it won't work for living things. Nice book though

 

[kirovman]

Entanglement, Einstein called it the 'spooky' interaction.
Yes, it isn't the actual electron copied, just its identical quantum properties transfered to another.
I'm not sure what speed it happened at, maybe it happened faster than the speed of light, but the results could not be intepreted immediately, so not violating the fact that information could not be transmitted faster than light.

And the soul, who says the soul is not physical: well I believe it would have to have some physical reality if exists...maybe the soul is tied to quantum states? Quantum physics is spooky enough, so maybe it will have this kind of link.

 

[TigerRei]

You'd be surprised at the things they find out with quantum theory. Here's something else that'll boggle you and make you drool at the same time (explained below).

Physicists have found out years ago that what we determined as the smallest unit of matter, the atom, is actually not the smallest unit. In fact, atoms are made up of particles themselves. Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons. But it doesnt even stop there. In recent history, it's been discovered that even these base building blocks are made up of particles themselves. Quarks, Gluons (ring a bell?), Bosons, many different names.
What is really significant though is that they found out that by taking an electron and splitting it into it's base consistent particles is that these particles always spin in the same direction. Either Up, Down, or as the scientists put it, UpDown, which is both Up and Down at the same time (did I mention that matter in the quantum physics world do not always conform to the laws of physics as us not educated in quantum mechanics believe?). Now, when separated, by either a tenth of a nanometer, or spread apart the diameter of the earth (even beyond that, perhaps even millions of parsecs), both particles would always spin in the same direction. If one particle were manipulated to go from spinning Up to spinning Down, at that same instant the other particle would also change it's spin from Up to Down. This shows that somehow the two particles are linked. In our three dimensions (X, Y, and Z. For those that dont know, the 3 dimensions are length, height, and depth) these particles arent connected. Maybe not even in the fourth dimension (time), but in another plane, they are connected.

Now, the part that will make you drool is not the discovery of this quantum property, but what it can be applied to. Imagine a communications system, where one particle of a pair is stationed at some internet server, and another stored on your PC. No matter how far you are, and no matter what is between you and the internet server, you would get absolutely lag free and nearly limitless communication bandwidth. This means hundreds of terabytes a second, no lag. Any. You could be sitting on Mars and the server could be on Pluto, and you would experience no lag whatsoever. Isnt that cool?

 

[kirovman]

Now, the part that will make you drool is not the discovery of this quantum property, but what it can be applied to. Imagine a communications system, where one particle of a pair is stationed at some internet server, and another stored on your PC. No matter how far you are, and no matter what is between you and the internet server, you would get absolutely lag free and nearly limitless communication bandwidth. This means hundreds of terabytes a second, no lag. Any. You could be sitting on Mars and the server could be on Pluto, and you would experience no lag whatsoever. Isnt that cool?

But:

Measurements performed on one system seem to be instantaneously influencing other systems entangled with it. However, information cannot be transmitted through entanglement faster than the speed of light.

;( So much for my lag free connection.

 

[Sid Burn]

Never heard of this before... cool.

 

[Maxi]

Wow, that's really cool! If you liked that book, try Angels and Deamons by Dan Brown, it is also very newishly scientific. I liked it alot

 

[TigerRei]

But:

Measurements performed on one system seem to be instantaneously influencing other systems entangled with it. However, information cannot be transmitted through entanglement faster than the speed of light.

;( So much for my lag free connection.

What you dont understand is it IS only moving at the most the speed of light. What I'm trying to say is, there IS no movement from say you on Mars and the server on Pluto. The particles' relation to each other is not based on distance across what we percieve in our three dimensional world. It's all relativity. To us, they can be 10,000 lightyears apart, but for them, they're right next to each other.

The only way to make people understand this is that it sort of follows the same guide as the wormhole theory. Traveling across space by traveling through a "tunnel" that links point A and point B rather than moving across another dimension (one of our three percievable dimensions) at a long distance.

To make this a more hands on demonstration, take a peice of paper. Draw a dot on one end, label this A. Draw a dot on the other end, label this B. Fold the paper in half so A meets B, then poke a pencil through. When you turn the pencil on one side, point A, the other end turns with it, at point B.

 

[kirovman]

Are you talking about Quantum entanglement or something else?
I understand that theory you are talking about, but entanglement does not transmit information faster than light, due to the time spent having to decode information from the system.

And I'd be sceptical of anything that has the implications to affect causality.

 

[|Ben|]

Very cool.

 

[TigerRei]

This actually has nothing to do with entanglement OR teleportation. It was just something I'd thought you guys would like to know. It doesnt involve transmitting anything. In fact, other than the electricity through wires, it's like the telegraph system. You move a lever on one end, guy on the other end observes and gets his information from that. But instead of two modes (off and on) imagine 3 modes, and at 10 billion times faster, and no lag speed.

 

[hildigrim]

well, as for souls, if you believe in them, they shouldn't be a problem, because they are IN the body of the person, and they can't get out.

So, if you want to teleport a human body(or an animal), you would transport the soul with it....Maybe that would involve lots of problems, the soul being confused and stuff, but in theory, if you're able to teleport a cactus, you're able to teleport a human body too.

 

[hildigrim]

and you're right if you say this doesn't involve transportation, because if you want to move something from one place to another faster then the speed of light, you would need more energy then there is to find in our WHOLE KNOWN UNIVERSE :cheers:

 

[Maxi]

I think the "easy" part of teleportation will be the actual transporting of the energy particles. The hard part would be the reconstruction of them. And what happends when you get "packet loss"? You end up with one ear instead of two?

and you're right if you say this doesn't involve transportation, because if you want to move something from one place to another faster then the speed of light, you would need more energy then there is to find in our WHOLE KNOWN UNIVERSE :cheers:

Why didn't you just edit your post?

And if you're sending energy particles across the universe, it would be possible to send them at the speed of light or even faster, since energy doesn't have mass.

 

[TigerRei]

Actually due to the nature of faster than light matter, also known as tachyons, the more energy you put into them, the slower they go, so actually massless objects balance out at the speed of light.

 

[mym8marmite]

When I started playing Half-Life 2 I'd just finished reading a book on Special Theory of Relativity and Super String Theory. It was quite a supprise when Alex Vance started talking about Super String Theory and Calabi Yau shapes (shapes with six dimensions). Just goes to show Valve did there homework regarding Quantum Theory. BTW we could never travel at the speed of light as we have mass.

 

[Maxi]

When I started playing Half-Life 2 I'd just finished reading a book on Special Theory of Relativity and Super String Theory. It was quite a supprise when Alex Vance started talking about Super String Theory and Calabi Yau shapes (shapes with six dimensions). Just goes to show Valve did there homework regarding Quantum Theory. BTW we could never travel at the speed of light as we have mass.

Unless we bend space so that we would only have to travel a very short distance, and creating a wormhole. We would be going faster than light in our dimension, but from the spaceships perspective, they wouldn't.

 

[mym8marmite]

Unless we bend space so that we would only have to travel a very short distance, and creating a wormhole. We would be going faster than light in our dimension, but from the spaceships perspective, they wouldn't.

Thats cheating

 

[sHaDdoW]

the ship in event horiszon bends space using a blackhole

 

[kirovman]

the ship in event horiszon bends space using a blackhole

"The Black Hole is contained behind 3 magnetic fields"

Yeah? Don't see how that would contain it?

Good film though "You don't need eyes where we're going"

 

[corkscru74]

1) Event Horizon is one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen.

2) Another interesting aspect of Quantum Mechanics is the theory that if you had a blue ball and a red ball (for example) and put them under seperate cups without knowing which one went under which then both balls would be under both cups and also under neither. So until you lift up the cup, to check which coloured ball is under it, the ball neither exists nor doesn't exist. I don't think I explained it all that well but it's all to do with probability. Same way it's technically possible to walk through a solid brick wall without breaking it - there's the probability (although extremely remote) that the properties of the material, and the nature of physics itself, could suddenly change and that it would now be possible to walk through the unsolid object. It's a ridiculously low probability but by the fact that it's a possibility it now becomes possible.

Oops, I think I've gone cross-eyed.

 

[antaydos]

Hi, this is my first post here on the forums. I've been reading them for about a week, and it wasn't until this thread that I decided to comment. I'm a physicist, and I'm seeing some fairly erroneous comments in here that I think should be corrected. I'm not trying to denounce anyone, just make some adjustments so that you have the right info.

and you're right if you say this doesn't involve transportation, because if you want to move something from one place to another faster then the speed of light, you would need more energy then there is to find in our WHOLE KNOWN UNIVERSE :cheers:

Regardless of how much energy you pump into a particle, never ever will it reach the speed of light. The speed of light is constant in all reference frames, a postulate that Einstein called the Invariance Principle. No matter how fast you or anything else moves, light will always be faster. So even with an inifinite amount of energy (inifinite being greater than the energy in our universe), it's still impossible to move faster than light.

Actually due to the nature of faster than light matter, also known as tachyons, the more energy you put into them, the slower they go, so actually massless objects balance out at the speed of light.

You're right, tachyons do move faster than light. I'm assuming that since you know of tachyons, you also know that they're completely fictitious, due to the fact that since they can move faster than light, they can travel at random through time, and would destroy the universe at the moment of their creation. I'm just noting that they are fictitious so anyone else who didn't know now does.

Unless we bend space so that we would only have to travel a very short distance, and creating a wormhole. We would be going faster than light in our dimension, but from the spaceships perspective, they wouldn't.

Mmm... not true. A little study of special and general relativity shows this statement to be false. Spacetime is bent through the presence of matter (in this case, a LOT of matter). Many understand this through the example of a basketball (or other heavy object) resting on a sheet of stretched spandex, where the spandex represents spacetime. The curving of the spandex represents the curvature of spacetime as produced by the presence of the giant mass. Introduce another mass, and their paths interact according to the path of least resistance; they will move toward each other. That's gravitation, and that's how matter curves spacetime.

Now, light, like everything else, follows the path of least resistance. If you were to open a wormhole between two points of curved spacetime and travel through it, that becomes the path of least resistance for the light. So it will not travel around - it will travel with you, and indeed, faster than you. You can't escape it.

"The Black Hole is contained behind 3 magnetic fields"

Yeah? Don't see how that would contain it?

You're right. No way could that contain a black hole. In fact, the notion of "containing" a black hole is without definition, unless it was meant that the gravitational effects of the black hole are limited to within a certain radius. And even then, if the graviational effects are limited to within that, then so would the curving of spacetime. It's the gravitational field that curves space.

Another interesting aspect of Quantum Mechanics is the theory that if you had a blue ball and a red ball (for example) and put them under seperate cups without knowing which one went under which then both balls would be under both cups and also under neither. So until you lift up the cup, to check which coloured ball is under it, the ball neither exists nor doesn't exist. I don't think I explained it all that well but it's all to do with probability. Same way it's technically possible to walk through a solid brick wall without breaking it - there's the probability (although extremely remote) that the properties of the material, and the nature of physics itself, could suddenly change and that it would now be possible to walk through the unsolid object. It's a ridiculously low probability but by the fact that it's a possibility it now becomes possible.

It should be noted that these are simply analogies. Quantum mechanics is valid only for very small scale events.

The analogy of the two balls works, and explains that you can never be sure that a particle exists until you make a measurement. And even then, you only know that it existed at that moment, and you know nothing of any other time.

The "walking through walls" thing is an analogy of tunneling. Every particle is capable of being expressed as a wave, and as such has a probability density curve that is related to the potential energy around it. In classical physics, an object must obtain an equal or greater amount of energy than the potential energy barriers around it to move past them. Liken it to ball rolling up a hill. The ball must move higher than the hill to get over it. Now, in quantum mechanics, the wave function for a particle does not terminate succinctly at a potential energy barrier. Instead, it is damped through the barrier, which is the theory of tunneling. In some cases, the particle can move through the barrier without the required amount of energy to pass it.

Well that's it. Sorry for being a bit anal about this stuff. Hope you learned/enjoyed something.

 

[[46] pushit [2]]

Thanks for all the interesting feedback and discussion, let's keep it up.

Antyados, welcome to to the Forums! It's good to see an actual physicist commenting (and correcting in most cases) on our posts. If you don't mind, I would like to ask some about your profession as that is my main interest in life. I'm senior right now and plan on majoring in physics. I'm more interested in the theoretical/research approach, and was wondering if you had any comments on that. Also, where do you work? I hope none of these questions were too personal, if so you don't have to reply.

 

[ray_MAN]

I think the "easy" part of teleportation will be the actual transporting of the energy particles. The hard part would be the reconstruction of them. And what happends when you get "packet loss"? You end up with one ear instead of two?

Yes. Scientist just recently were able to teleport a few atoms a few feet perfectly. However, that is atoms. Human teleportation is much more complex. In a recent survey, humans were asked whether they would use teleportation if the chances of them being disfigured during reconstruction are 1 in 100,000 (or something like that). Most people said no. Interestingly enough, that is the equivalent of someone get injured in a car accident. :O I think for "true" teleportation to be succesfull, we need to have a breakthrough in cloning. We need this because it could possibly allow us a better understanding of how life is made and we could put atoms together. We must also make better (shit! forgot the name) "atom smashers" that "throw" two atoms at eachother at violent speeds, forming a black hole. At this time, the black hole is so small and so brief, that is is barely noticable by the most capable instruments.

 

[kirovman]

Hi, this is my first post here on the forums. I've been reading them for about a week, and it wasn't until this thread that I decided to comment. I'm a physicist, and I'm seeing some fairly erroneous comments in here that I think should be corrected. I'm not trying to denounce anyone, just make some adjustments so that you have the right info.

Hey fellow physicist.

How do you rank in the physics world? BSc, MSc, Phd....?

 

[antaydos]

Hey fellow physicist.

How do you rank in the physics world? BSc, MSc, Phd....?

Actually, I only have my B.S. Come this fall, I'll be starting on my doctorate.

 

[MajorPayne]

You're right, tachyons do move faster than light. I'm assuming that since you know of tachyons, you also know that they're completely fictitious, due to the fact that since they can move faster than light, they can travel at random through time, and would destroy the universe at the moment of their creation. I'm just noting that they are fictitious so anyone else who didn't know now does.

Ya gotta love the tachyon... Almost everyone I know who likes to think they know something about physics/quantum physics likes to throw these "special" particles in somewhere. I had one friend even suggest the possibility of harnessing these particles for a time machine (because they move backwards in time). He did not find it amusing when I pointed out that they do not exist. He insisted that scientists simply have not looked hard enough.

Oh well, funny how the imaginary particles in physics get more notice from the public than the real ones which may have much more importance -- Not one of the people I have ever spoken to had ever heard of the Higgs Boson... Arguable a far more important particle than a tachyon, which would not be usable even if it existed!

 

[TheAmazingRando]

I believe it was in the newest issue of Discover that it was published that we are really close to finding the Higgs Boson. I'll try to find the article in a minute here.

 

[L337_Assasain]

You have to realize, for these scientists "performing quantum teleportation" means sending the info of the state of an electron through a fax line and reproducing the electron. The electron isn't actually moved, only copied. It might work for inanimate objects someday (using gigawatts of power btw), but if you believe in souls, it won't work for living things. Nice book though

considering that the object replicated is then destroyed after it is duplicated...makes it quite obvious that it would never work on a human being, unless it copies memories.

 

[Maxi]

considering that the object replicated is then destroyed after it is duplicated...makes it quite obvious that it would never work on a human being, unless it copies memories.

Even if it did copy memories, would it still be you? the you that you know are?

 

[[46] pushit [2]]

Anybody ever heard of this multiverse (Many World) theory proposed by Hugh Everett in the 50s. Pretty crazy stuff. Basically, he said that there were a inifinte many universes exisiting side by side...one where Hitler won the war, one where JFK lived. At least, that's the basic idea. There have been experiments proving this theory, but I don't really know much about any. I think they have to deal with the photons of light or something similar...

 

[TheAmazingRando]

Ya, They use the Theory Of Parallel Universes to explain the unusual nature of subatomic particles. Scientific American had an issue about some of it's latest updates last year.

 

[kirovman]

Actually, I only have my B.S. Come this fall, I'll be starting on my doctorate.

Oh I see. I'm going to be getting my BSc soon, but that'll be enough of physics for me. Maybe I'll do a doctorate if I'm bored when I retire in 40 years time

Being a physics BSc doesn't really let me answer mainstream physics questions though, I find. I know a lot but it's mostly the stuff everyone takes for granted or never heard of before, can't answer the string theory questions or detailed general relativity (could have done that though, but it looked horribly mathematical, just to get a single formula at the end. Know all about special relativity though).
Learning Crystalography and things about quantum physics right now.

Quantum Physics and nuclear physics are simple enough to answer questions on, I don't find the maths hard, despite dealing with wavefunctions and the like.

 

[Unfocused]

As for the souls in quantum teleportation I do think they are not physical objects. If there are souls then there is God who gave them to us. It would be a bit wrong to replicate your soul, I don't thing God would allow it. Just imagine lots of copies of the same soul in Heaven or Hell.

I think if you teleported someone (made a copy of him on the receiving end) it would just become a ragdoll (speaking as a gamer ). Something like spawning a characters ragdoll in building_blocks (what? it's a HL2 forum after all :])