Quantum Entanglement maintained at 10 mile distance!!

[Brokinarrow]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37556750...ience-science/

My mind is still trying to process all the possibilities that are opened up with this... my only regret is that China did it first! Hopefully some US scientists will be able to improve upon it.

Scotty won't beam anybody anywhere anytime soon, but a new report by Chinese scientists shows that it is possible to transmit information over long distances using quantum entanglement.

The research, published in the current issue of the journal Nature Photonics, could lead to faster and smaller quantum-based computers and unbreakable, encrypted communication across the world.

The team reported the were able to "teleport" information 16 kilometers, or 9.9 miles.
This is the longest reported distance over which photonic teleportation has been achieved to date, more than 20 times longer than the previous implementation," said Cheng-Zhi Peng, one of the co-authors of the study and a scientist at University of Science and Technology of China and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

In science fiction, teleportation usually describes the transfer of matter from one point to another, more or less instantaneously. In real physics, it's considered part of the "spookier" aspects of quantum mechanics (as Einstein famously derided the nascent field), that describes the behavior of the atoms and their constituent particles.

According to the theory, bits of light and matter can become entangled with one another and anything that happens to one particle will happen to the other, regardless of the distance or intervening matter. What the Chinese scientists managed to do was transmit change of state information from photon to photon over a distance of 16 kilometers.
n the past, scientists have had trouble separating entangled particles by more than several hundred yards; the particles become un-entangled, and what happens to one particle doesn't happen to the other particle.

In their new experiment, the Chinese scientists managed a quantum leap forward for quantum teleportation. Using a blue laser, a semiconductor, and a beta-barium borate crystal, the scientists first entangled two photons of light. Next, they sent one photon, which had slightly more energy, through about 10 miles of free space, from Beijing to a site in nearby Hebei province. When one photon changed its polarization, the other entangled photon changed its polarization as well.

The sheer distance the Chinese scientists teleported a photon's information is very impressive, said Benjamin Schumacher, a physicist at Kenyon College who reviewed the Nature Photonics paper but wasn't involved in the research. Ten miles is far enough to start thinking about a next-generation satellite communications network based on quantum teleportation, both Schumacher and Peng said.

Teleportation-based telephone calls wouldn't travel any faster than existing networks, Schumacher said. Entangled information arrives faster than the speed of light, but to read it scientists would need a key to decode the information, which would arrive using traditional communication at slower-than-light speeds.

A teleported telephone call would be impenetrable, however. Unlike radio waves, which send out a signal that enemies can pick out, eavesdropping on a teleported telephone call would be impossible. The two particles are entangled with themselves and no other particle, so the quantum mechanical equations simply do not allow it, said Schumacher.
Even if someone managed to monitor an entangled particle, they would need a key, transmitted over traditional communication channels, to interpret the information.

The research could also dramatically speed up computing power. Quantum computing, using entangled particles, has been a dream of physicists for decades. Such computers would be vastly more powerful than existing electronics, and transmitting information across entangled particles with 89 percent accuracy, as the Chinese team managed, is a big step forward towards quantum computing.

A communication system named after a "Star Trek" trick might seem futuristic, but practical ground-to-satellite teleportation could be in place in as little as two years, said Schumacher. That's exactly what the Chinese scientists hope to try over the next few years, said Peng.

With sophisticated telescopes, radar and a low-Earth orbit satellite, the Chinese scientist expect they can teleport information from Earth to a spacecraft and back down to Earth.

Scotty would be impressed.

[The_Blur]

This is so cool.

[WadeWilson]

Too cool!

[Brokinarrow]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

This is so cool.

Right?? Faster than light communication Opens up so many options! Not to mention this could help further actual quantum computers, unhackable 2 way communications.... can't wait to see the tech that starts spinning off of this

Of course this opens a whole realm of questions for people to stew over, the big one on my mind now: Just what the heck connects these particles in this way??

[The_Blur]

I bet this will be on the Z28.

[Xanthos]

Very, very cool.
- X

[brandotron]

Dude.

[Xanthos]

Originally Posted by Brokinarrow

Of course this opens a whole realm of questions for people to stew over, the big one on my mind now: Just what the heck connects these particles in this way??

Basically (and I mean very, very basic take on the subject), when a particle decays, it produces matched pairs of particles with opposite spins. Whichever direction one particle "spins" (spin-up or spin-down), the other particle will always spin in the opposite direction. This is called Quantum Entanglement.

The mathmatics shows that this will always be the case, regardless of separation between the two particles. It wasn't until fairly recently that experimentation has proven this correct. As I understand it (and I might be wrong, I'm not a physicist) the effect is achieved by radioactively creating an entangled pair of particles (in the case of the experiment in china, photons) and then moving one of the pair to another location. At that point the one location can modify the spin properties of its particle, while the other location monitors the spin properties of its particle. Because if entanglement, they are always the opposite of each other. Therefore, the recieving facility can interpret data from the sending facility in a 1/0.
- X

[jrc1122]

Iphone5? lol....

[Brokinarrow]

Originally Posted by Xanthos

Basically (and I mean very, very basic take on the subject), when a particle decays, it produces matched pairs of particles with opposite spins. Whichever direction one particle "spins" (spin-up or spin-down), the other particle will always spin in the opposite direction. This is called Quantum Entanglement.

The mathmatics shows that this will always be the case, regardless of separation between the two particles. It wasn't until fairly recently that experimentation has proven this correct. As I understand it (and I might be wrong, I'm not a physicist) the effect is achieved by radioactively creating an entangled pair of particles (in the case of the experiment in china, photons) and then moving one of the pair to another location. At that point the one location can modify the spin properties of its particle, while the other location monitors the spin properties of its particle. Because if entanglement, they are always the opposite of each other. Therefore, the recieving facility can interpret data from the sending facility in a 1/0.
- X

Interesting... Well that explains how they get entangled, but how does each pair of particles 'know' what the other is doing? Some kind of wormhole link or something... meh, I'll just file it under 'magic' for now This stuff is so cool, dunno if anyone here has read the Ender's Game series of books, but this is pretty much exactly the communication system they used in there.

Originally Posted by jrc1122

Iphone5? lol....

Dude... as a gadget/technology addict I would love to have a 'quantum cell phone'

[FenwickHockey65]

Originally Posted by Chief Blackhawk

Sweet, videogames with no lag.

And the only important application of this new technology is revealed!

[Brokinarrow]

Originally Posted by Chief Blackhawk

Sweet, videogames with no lag.

Originally Posted by FenwickHockey65

And the only important application of this new technology is revealed!

Yeah, can't blame your level of suck on the lag anymore That would (will?) be pretty freaking sweet though

[Rogue Leader]

Originally Posted by FenwickHockey65

And the only important application of this new technology is revealed!

uhh what? You forgot PORN!

[Big Brunsy]