Scientists teleport first object ever from Earth into space

[Vertigo]

We should all keep calm about this...

 

[SilentRoamer]

Probably a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway: how can we measure a particle if we don't know what its state is?

As Vertigo says this is kind of the point. We don't know the state of the particle until measured and whatever the measurement is for one of the entangled particles then it is the same as the other particle. This is one of the principles of Quantum mechanics - this is the Observer principle and is often confused with the Heidenberg uncertainty principle.

Although I think "spooky action at a distance" is a far better descriptor than "teleportation"!



Quantum Mechanics is probably the least intuitive science.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm not quite sure why they even use the terminology 'teleportation.' I suspect it might be the argument that if you have two identical particles, two entangled photos for example, and fixing the state of one fixes the state of the other identically then then two particles are now identical and at a very fundamental level it would be impossible to tell them apart and therefore the particle that has been acted on has effectively been at transported.

But personally I think that's pushing the definition of transported.

 

[The Ace]

Katie Hopkins ?

 

[SilentRoamer]

I'm not quite sure why they even use the terminology 'teleportation.' I suspect it might be the argument that if you have two identical particles, two entangled photos for example, and fixing the state of one fixes the state of the other identically then then two particles are now identical and at a very fundamental level it would be impossible to tell them apart and therefore the particle that has been acted on has effectively been at transported.

But personally I think that's pushing the definition of transported.

Yeah I agree - unless my understanding is wrong we can't fix the states at the moment - only measure the pre-existing state. The limitation is we don't know what the states are until we measure them and by the process of measurement we in fact fix their state. I think this has more applicability for communications security than it does for any type of Star Trek transporter technology.

Still, teleportation sounds cool and I suppose these sites need click baitery titles - advertiser revenues roll on....

 

[Vertigo]

Yeah I agree - unless my understanding is wrong we can't fix the states at the moment - only measure the pre-existing state. The limitation is we don't know what the states are until we measure them and by the process of measurement we in fact fix their state. I think this has more applicability for communications security than it does for any type of Star Trek transporter technology.

Still, teleportation sounds cool and I suppose these sites need click baitery titles - advertiser revenues roll on....

Yes my understanding is that the intention is to use entangled pairs for encryption keys, rather than FTL communications. It's an interesting dilemma; how do we see if it works FTL because we can't watch one particle to see when it changes state as watching it fixes it (and therefore the other one as well. So essentially as soon as we attempt to look at the particle intended to be the receiver we make it the transmitter)...aaaaaaahhhhh!!!