BEAM US UP, NERDS: Scientists Conduct Breakthrough Teleportation

The concept of teleportation alone is very cool. How many times have you wished you could teleport your buckled self home after a big night instead of waiting for the abysmal nightrider? I’d hazard a guess at many. 
WELL BEAM ME THE FUCK UP, SCOTTY, ‘COS SCIENTISTS HAVE JUST MADE A HUGE STEP FORWARD IN THE FIELD.
YIEWWWWW
But before you start planning your instantaneous trip to Europe, we should probably tell you that in this instance, a huge step is still nowhere near that kind of capability. 
The separate teams, located in the cities of Hefei in China and Calgary in Canada, have successfully teleported matter to a new location using fibre-optic communications networks. Granted, the matter is simply photons of light, which has been done before, but the breakthrough’s in the details, friends. 
The ability to transport information like the quantum state of an atom was first demonstrated in1997, which includes the energy, spin, motion, magnetic field and other physical properties of the atom in question. This study, however, shows that the process is technologically viable through mainstream communications networks. SENDIN’ SHIT THROUGH YA PHONE LINES, M8.
This “non-ideal environment” made it a particularly impressive feat, says Dr Ben Buchler, Associate Professor of the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at the Australian National University
“People have known how to do this experiment since the early 2000s, but until these papers it hasn’t been performed in fibre communication networks, in situ, in cities,” he said.
The Chinese team were able to teleport single photons through the communications network across 7km at a speed of two photons per hour. The Canadians kicked that shit up a notch, teleporting at 17 photons per minute, but across a shorter distance of 6.2km.
Dr Buchler says “this kind of teleportation is part of the protocol people imagine will be able to extend the range of quantum key distribution”, which is a technique used to send encrypted messages.
While we’re still a long way from teleporting your belted face home from the club at 3am, this has been hailed as a huge breakthrough for quantum technologies and communications networks like quantum internet and improved online security.
Source: ABC.com.au.
Photo: The Simpsons.


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