SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the rest-of-the-person-will-teleport-along-shortly... dept.
Physicists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) ( http://cms.unige.ch/gap/quantum/wiki/research:quantum_communication:teleportation ) have succeeded in teleporting the quantum state of a photon to a crystal over 25 kilometres of optical fibre. The experiment, carried out in the laboratory of Professor Nicolas Gisin, constitutes a first, and simply pulverises the previous record of 6 kilometres achieved ten years ago by the same UNIGE team. Passing from light into matter, using teleportation of a photon to a crystal, shows that, in quantum physics, it is not the composition of a particle which is important, but rather its state, since this can exist and persist outside such extreme differences as those which distinguish light from matter.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140921145007.htm
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Wednesday September 24 2014, @01:45AM
What purpose does this serve? What does teleporting quantum states of photons do? Let's say its a billion light years distance... what use is it?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @02:01AM
The most meaningful purpose of all: It advances our understanding.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimios on Wednesday September 24 2014, @03:17AM
Faster Than Light communication would be the logical application.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @04:20AM
You can't use quantum teleportation for faster-than-light communication. The interesting part of quantum teleportation is that normally you can't put a particle in a specific desired quantum state with only classical interactions. Quantum teleportation is a workaround for that. It could be useful for communication between two quantum computers.
(Score: 4, Funny) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday September 24 2014, @04:22AM
Apparently not [wikipedia.org]. (Although I didn't really understand, why. The article leaves some comforting feeling of dawning understanding- until I think properly about it. It's probably quantum as well, you can either feel you understood or you can try to think about it, but not both at the same time with full intensity.)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday September 24 2014, @04:57AM
What use is it, you ask? It's a physical illustration of the fundamental behaviour of quantum-mechanical systems, an illustration of the basic laws of the universe as we have understood them since Einstein's day [wikipedia.org]. Asking what purpose it serves is like asking what is the purpose behind something like gravity or electromagnetism. It's a meaningless question. If engineers can find a way to make use of this principle to do something useful like, say, transmit information in a way that cannot be eavesdropped upon, that would be nice, but that's not the "purpose" of this thing. The universe is not teleological!
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.