Quantum Teleportation: Science Fiction? NOPE! It's been here, is real, is documented, here's the proof, and here's how it works!Did you know that teleportation has been discovered already? Quantum Teleportation has been experimentally tested, peer reviewed, and retested. The phenomenais possible in my forthcoming example because of something called Quantum Entanglement in a system allowing almost instant transfer of information using 2 massless entangled particles, photons, over huge distances. This transfer happens atthe speed of light, the top speed of movement Universally. Mass does not blipout of existance and pop up elsewhere, like you'd see in the movies. What can be exploited is the intimate connection these brother-sister particles that is maintained over massive spaces.

IT'S NOT BS! HERE'S THE PROOF: (to take my word for it, skip paragraph)Nature, a prestigious journal of science, published on Dec. 11th, 1997 the results of the first Quantum Teleportation experiment (Article in Nature.) Another prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters, published on Feb 9th, 1998 (Article,In Phys. Review Letters) the review this work. In between, an experiment involving Quantum Teleportation across the Danube river was published on August 18th,2004 (Article in Nature.) The subject's Wikipedia Article's Citation Section allows for a dozen or so other avenues in which you can retrieve scholarly information for further technical reading.

The most exciting work has been by Chinese scientists, in May of this year (2010,) documenting Quantum Teleportation at a distance of 10 miles with 89% accuracy. (Article on PhysOrg | Article on Nature Photonics) This is AWESOME, most notably because this range would potentially allow communication to or from orbit.

Here's how it works:

QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENTThere's an amazing phenomenon called Quantum Entanglement, where two photons, (in this case last mentioned, generated using a semiconductor, a blue laser beam,and a crystal of beta-barium borate) connected at birth maintain the connectionregardless of spacial separation.

QUANTUM SPINWhat is this connection? Photons, as well as other quantum particles, have a describable aspect to them which is referred to as Spin. This is a measurement inintegers or half integers, of angular momentum. Momentum, as you might remember, is Mass times Velocity. Photons have no mass, but they do have momentum, oddly enough. It's not as crazy as you'd think, when you might look at the counterintuitive unit of measurement of the mass of other quantum particles, the electron volt. The ability to measure quantum momentum isn't as straightforward as you'd think because of...

HEISENBERG'S UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLEThis describes a weird limit to what we can observe. The more precisely we observe the momentum of a quantum particle, the less precisely we can determine thelocation of said particle. Same deal, vice versa. (Wikipedia Article)

Lately this behavior has been linked mathematically to another observable Quantum phenomenon, Quantum Nonlocality... Which brings us full circle back to QuantumTeleportation. For background of this recent breakthrough, refer to my Post, Nov 19th 2010 "Quantum Breakthrough." Within, my post references the Article onPhysOrg, explaining how nonlocality and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle are connected.

Nonlocality occurs when particles interact with each other when they're not nextto each other. This phenomenon of nonlocality is what makes Quantum Teleportation possible!

 

NOW WE HAVE THE NATURAL TOOLSET.LET ME SHOW YOU THE ENCODING PROCESS

+ and - are my designation for spin in this example.

PITCHER:RcS=Random photon, recorded as data and also sent, SE=Sent (entangled photon)

RcS SE1- -2- +3+ +4- +5+ +

CATCHER:Pairs of unidentifiably recieved couples come in, spins are jotted down. One isentangled one isn't. Which is which? This is the same information as just shown, but mixed up.sX=slot X, sY=slot Y, bpE = Back Pocket (other entangled photon that we have tobegin with)

sX sY sX sY bpE1- - Back Pocket (entangled) is + that = - - +2- + Back Pocket (entangled) is - that = - + -3+ + Back Pocket (entangled) is - that = + + -4+ - Back Pocket (entangled) is - that = + - -5+ + Back Pocket (entangled) is - that = + + -

Compute sX sY and bpE by CATCHER (imagine these as charges and your goal is to get to 0 charge)This yields:1=+2=+3=-4=+5=-You've just recieved the exact opposite of the original information because theentangled photon was just that, the opposite. So flip this and what do you get?1=-2=-3=+4=-5=+If you scoll up, that's exactly the values for the original non-entangled photon.This value for the non-entangled photon is what we can change at a whim to encode some actual information. Simply by normalizing A)+-+++-+-++ (arbitrairily) toa flat B)---------- with subnotes jotted down to interpret the differing valuesbetween the two with the notation "FLIP", you are given the ability to make your binary code readable. Because this decoding sequence is on the PITCHER's side, not the CATCHER's, the CATCHER is, in this scenario, a super-efficient data storage system. You'd have to also send the notation of the decoding sequence inorder to decode and use the data from the CATCHER's side.

The entangled pair is what makes it all happen. This is a basic process that istrying to be incorporated into the holy grail of computers, quantum computers.