Quantum Teleportation

[Nakor]

Scientists in China have managed to teleport information between photons over a new record distance of 16km (free space, no wire needed) with about an 89% fidelity (accuracy of duplication).

I'm not even going to try to paraphrase the article or explain the process -- I won't claim to understand it well enough -- but as far as futures in technology, this is pure awesome.

http://www.physorg.com/news193551675.html

[NOA Imawario]

Pretty cool.

Makes me wonder if we will ever say things like "Beam me up."

[Roemello]

Beaming anywhere may be beyond our lifetimes if they're just now working out transmitting simple information. Interesting progress, though!

[Frong]

I wonder what the heck "tangling" photons means and why it causes them to continue to interact, even at 10 miles away from each other. They never did attempt to explain that. I also wonder if the funky contents of the upper levels of the atmosphere would have any effect on this stuff or not. Transmitting quantum info through empty space at ground level is pretty awesome, but weird things happen with solar radiation and the Earth's magnetic field and whatnot when you start getting out into space. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Oh, and I wonder how long this effect lasts, where the two photons continue to alter their states in tandem. If their connected state decays relatively rapidly, then it probably wouldn't be feasible to use it for satellites and whatnot. It's not like somebody's going to keep going up there to put a new photon on the satellite every time the old one craps out on them, after all.

[Nakor]

I have to imagine that they didn't try to explain it because it would only further hurt our brains.

[Frong]

I dunno what the point of worrying about THAT is. Once you've fried my brain beyond a certain point, it's not gonna get any more fried than it already is. May as well just throw everything out there at once and get it over with.