They may not be able to ask Scotty to beam them up yet, but California researchers said they had completed the first full teleportation experiment. They said they had teleported a beam of light across a laboratory bench. They did not physically transport the beam itself, but transmitted its properties to another beam, creating a replica of the first beam. We claim this is the first bona fide teleportation," Jeff Kimble, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, said in a telephone interview.

Kimble thinks the experiment can eventually transform everyday life. Scientists hope that quantum computers, which move information about in this way rather than by using wires and silicon chips, will be infinitey faster and more powerful than present day computers.

"I believe that quantum information is going to be really important for our society, not in five years or 10 years, but if we look into the 100 year time frame it's hard to imagine that advanced societies don't use quantum information," Kimble said.

"The appetite of society is so voracious for the moving and processing of information that it will be driven to exploit even the crazy realm of quantum physics."

Quantum teleportation allows information to be transmitted at the speed of light--the fastest speed possible--without being slowed down by wires or cables.

The experiment depends on a property known as entanglement--what Albert Einstein once described as "spooky action at a distance." It is a property of atomic particles that mystifies even physicists. Sometimes two particles that are very long distance apart are nonetheless somehow twinned, with the properties of one affecting the other.

"Entanglement means if you tickle one the other one laughs," said Kimble. In the weird world of quantum physics, where the normal ideas of what is solid or what is real do not apply, scientists can use these properties to their advantage.

What Kimble's team did was create two entangled light beams--streams of photons. Photons, the basic unit of light, sometimes act like particles and sometimes like waves. They used these two entangled beams to carry information about the quantum state of a third beam. The first two beams were destroyed in the process, but the third successfully transmitted its properties over a distance of about a yard, Kimble's team reported in the journal Science.

Last December a team of physicists in Innsbruck, Austria and a month later another team in Rome said they did a similar thing, with single photons. But Kimble said his team was able to verify what they had done, and also used full light beams as opposed to single photons.

"Ours is an important advance beyond that," he said.

The appetite of society is so voracious for the moving and processing of information that it will be driven to exploit the crazy realm of quantum physics."

Editorial

Wow, what an intriguing statement, I mean just take a look at how we can communicate now on the Internet by making new friends and business contact thousands of miles away in minutes.

The teletransportation will occur without cables or wires. Truly amazing! "Beam Me Up Scotty" teleportation will one day in the near future be very possible indeed.

What then will the intended purposes be for such journeys? Who will get to use this form of travel? What will be its main purpose?

Reminds me of such shows as Star Trek and Earth: Final Conflict with their teletransportation system and the commonality.

Here's a question: Some day, will we be able to reach God and Heaven via some form of travel without dying? What's your opinion?

Thank you,
Cheryl.

Back to Mystical Times