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Beam Me Up: Scientists Say Human Teleportation Is 'Possible' As They Transfer Atoms Three Metres in Groundbreaking Experiment

Scientists successfully teleported atoms three meters with 100% accuracy, the first demonstration that quantum teleportation of information is possible. While teleportation of humans is theoretically possible if we are just collections of atoms, it is extremely unlikely and would be far in the future. The research is an important step towards developing a quantum internet with much greater processing power than today's computers.

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39 views2 pages

Beam Me Up: Scientists Say Human Teleportation Is 'Possible' As They Transfer Atoms Three Metres in Groundbreaking Experiment

Scientists successfully teleported atoms three meters with 100% accuracy, the first demonstration that quantum teleportation of information is possible. While teleportation of humans is theoretically possible if we are just collections of atoms, it is extremely unlikely and would be far in the future. The research is an important step towards developing a quantum internet with much greater processing power than today's computers.

Uploaded by

katalina ayala
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Beam me up: Scientists say human teleportation is 'possible' as they transfer atoms

three metres in groundbreaking experiment

Star Trek-style 'beaming up' of people through space could become a reality sometime in the far
future, the leader of a landmark teleportation experiment has said.
Nothing in the laws of physics fundamentally forbids the teleportation of large objects, including
humans, researchers claim.
They were able to transport an atom three metres with 100% accuracy.
'What we are teleporting is the state of a particle,' Prof Hanson, from Delft University of Technology
in the Netherlands, said.
'If you believe we are nothing more than a collection of atoms strung together in a particular way,
then in principle it should be possible to teleport ourselves from one place to another.
'In practice it's extremely unlikely, but to say it can never work is very dangerous.
'I would not rule it out because there's no fundamental law of physics preventing it.
'If it ever does happen it will be far in the future.'
In contrast, it is physically impossible for anything to travel faster than light.
Prof Hanson's team showed for the first time that it was possible to teleport information encoded into
sub-atomic particles between two points three metres apart with 100% reliability.
The demonstration was an important first step towards developing an internet-like network between
ultra-fast quantum computers whose processing power dwarfs that of today's supercomputers.
Teleportation exploits the weird way 'entangled' particles acquire a merged identity, with the state of
one instantly influencing the other no matter how far apart they are.
Giving one particle an 'up' spin, for instance, might always mean its entangled partner has a 'down'
spin - theoretically even if both particles are on different sides of the universe.
Albert Einstein dismissed entanglement, calling it 'spooky action at a distance', but scientists have
repeatedly demonstrated that it is a real phenomenon.
The research is published in the latest online edition of the journal Science.
Prof Hanson said: 'The main application of quantum teleportation is a quantum version of the internet,
extending a global network that we can use to send quantum information.
'We have shown that it's possible to do this, and it works every time that you try.
'It provides the first building block of the future quantum internet.
'One application nearest to a real life application is secure communication.
'What you're doin
g is using entanglement as your communication channel.
'The information is teleported to the other side, and there's no way anyone can intercept that
information. In principle it's 100% secure.'
A more ambitious experiment, involving the teleportation of information between buildings on the
university campus 1,300 metres apart, is planned in July.
It is hoped this will answer Einstein's main objection to teleportation, the possibility that a signal
passes between entangled particles at the speed of light.
'I believe it will work,' said Prof Hanson.
'But it's a huge technical challenge - there's a reason why nobody has done it yet.'

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