|
Full
Coverage In-depth coverage about High-Energy and Particle
Physics
Scientists Report
'Teleported' Data
Mon Jun 17, 4:33 PM ET By
PETER O'CONNOR, Associated Press Writer CANBERRA, Australia
(AP) - Australian scientists said Monday they had successfully
"teleported" a laser beam encoded with data, breaking it up
and reconstructing an exact replica a yard away. Photos
Reuters Photo Their work replicates an experiment at the
California Institute of Technology in 1998, but the Australian
team believes their technique is more reliable and consistent.
Although the research brings to mind the way "Star
Trek" characters were beamed around on TV and in film,
scientists at the Australian National University said their
technique's main use will be as a way to encrypt information
and for a new generation of super-fast computers. At this
stage, the process perfected by Australian physicist Ping Koy
Lam and his 12-member team can only teleport light by
destroying the light beam and creating an exact copy at the
receiving end from light particles known as photons.
"We have taken a beam of laser light ... and
completely destroyed it and then made measurements of the
destroyed laser beam and then took the measured results to the
other side of the lab and reconstructed an exact replica of
what we have destroyed," said Lam. Teleporting a laser beam
involves destroying and replicating billions of photons. Lam
said he believes the process, called "quantum teleportation"
and which takes a nanosecond - one billionth of one second -
will soon be used for teleporting matter.
"My
prediction is if we are not doing it, it will probably be done
by someone in the next three to five years, that is the
teleportation of a single atom or a small group of atoms," he
said. Teleporting a living person would likely be virtually
impossible, scientists said. "In theory, there is nothing
stopping, us but the complexity of the problem is so huge no
one is thinking seriously about it at the moment," Lam said.
Quantum teleportation makes use of a strange aspect of
quantum physics called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle,
which says it is impossible to measure both the speed and
position of an object at the same time. The researchers
couldn't directly measure the key characteristics of the laser
beam they wanted to replicate, so they turned to a process
called entanglement. In entanglement, characteristics of tiny
particles - like the photons that make up laser beams - can be
mirrored in a second set of particles. So researchers can make
their measurements on a second laser beam that was entangled
with the first. The measurements are then sent by radio waves
to the receiving station, which exactly replicates the first
beam that was destroyed in the process of entanglement.
Lam's team will be presenting the results to an
international conference on quantum electronics in Moscow next
week. More from > World - AP Australia & Antarctica
Next Story: Newcombe: Better Deal for Refugees Tue Jun 18,
1:00 AM ET - (AP) Email this story - View most popular |
Printer-friendly format Archived Stories by Date: Top of Form
Bottom of Form News Resources Message Boards: Post/Read Msgs
(206 msg Jun 18, 4:58 AM ET) ADVERTISEMENT Weekly Specials
Related News Stories · Scientists Report 'Teleported'
Data - Associated Press (Jun 17, 2002) · Australia makes
teleporting reality - Reuters (Jun 17, 2002) · Hunting the
Doubly-Charmed Baryon - Wired News (Jun 10, 2002) More...
Opinion & Editorials · Steam me up, Scotty - The London
Times (Jun 18, 2002) · The Future of Science, and the Universe
- New York Review of Books (Oct 31, 2001) · Very strange but
true - The Guardian (UK) (Jan 8, 2001) More... Feature
Articles · Professor George Rochester - The Independent (UK)
(Mar 17, 2002) · An element apparently discovered two years
ago has just been “undiscovered” - The Economist (Aug 9, 2001)
Related Web Sites · Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory -
U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory for research
exploring the fundamental nature of matter and energy. · The
Particle Adventure - interactive introduction to the theory of
fundamental particles and forces. Includes a timeline of
developments in physics. · Neutrino History - explores
neutrino history, sources, experiments, and more. More...
Tardis
Link
INCREDIBLE WEB DESIGNS
CLICK
HERE
| |
| |
