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[XiaNaphryz]

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608252/first-object-teleported-from-earth-to-orbit/

First Object Teleported from Earth to Orbit
Researchers in China have teleported a photon from the ground to a satellite orbiting more than 500 kilometers above.

by Emerging Technology from the arXiv July 10, 2017

Last year, a Long March 2D rocket took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert carrying a satellite called Micius, named after an ancient Chinese philosopher who died in 391 B.C. The rocket placed Micius in a Sun-synchronous orbit so that it passes over the same point on Earth at the same time each day.

Micius is a highly sensitive photon receiver that can detect the quantum states of single photons fired from the ground. That's important because it should allow scientists to test the technological building blocks for various quantum feats such as entanglement, cryptography, and teleportation.

Today, the Micius team announced the results of its first experiments. The team created the first satellite-to-ground quantum network, in the process smashing the record for the longest distance over which entanglement has been measured. And they've used this quantum network to teleport the first object from the ground to orbit.

Teleportation is a building block for a wide range of technologies. ”Long-distance teleportation has been recognized as a fundamental element in protocols such as large-scale quantum networks and distributed quantum computation," says the Chinese team.

In theory, there should be no maximum distance over which this can be done. But entanglement is a fragile thing because photons interact with matter in the atmosphere or inside optical fibers, causing the entanglement to be lost.

As a result, the distance over which scientists have measured entanglement or performed teleportation is severely limited. ”Previous teleportation experiments between distant locations were limited to a distance on the order of 100 kilometers, due to photon loss in optical fibers or terrestrial free-space channels," says the team.

But Micius changes all that because it orbits at an altitude of 500 kilometers, and for most of this distance, any photons making the journey travel through a vacuum. To minimize the amount of atmosphere in the way, the Chinese team set up its ground station in Ngari in Tibet at an altitude of over 4,000 meters. So the distance from the ground to the satellite varies from 1,400 kilometers when it is near the horizon to 500 kilometers when it is overhead.

To perform the experiment, the Chinese team created entangled pairs of photons on the ground at a rate of about 4,000 per second. They then beamed one of these photons to the satellite, which passed overhead every day at midnight. They kept the other photon on the ground.

Finally, they measured the photons on the ground and in orbit to confirm that entanglement was taking place, and that they were able to teleport photons in this way. Over 32 days, they sent millions of photons and found positive results in 911 cases. ”We report the first quantum teleportation of independent single-photon qubits from a ground observatory to a low Earth orbit satellite—through an up-link channel— with a distance up to 1400 km," says the Chinese team.

This is the first time that any object has been teleported from Earth to orbit, and it smashes the record for the longest distance for entanglement.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Pics or it didn't happen.

Spoiler

Pretty cool

 

[frontovik]

So.. photon cannons when?

 

[dragonzdogma]

an actual object as in with atoms or particles?
And what is a 2D rocket?

 

[Volimar]

Soon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro_QpDJX-Sk

 

[His Majesty]

finally no more taking the bus to work

 

[Jason Frost]

finally no more taking the bus to work

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

 

[cyberheater]

Entanglement means that the two photons are have there spin in lock such that if the photon on earth has it's spin swapped then the one in space changes direction instantly.

Have they confirmed that the transmission of information exceeds what is possible by the speed of light?

 

[Pagusas]

Does this happen instantly or at the speed of light? If instant, could this (potentially) solve communication issues for long distance space flight?

Entanglement always sounds like a universe hack.

 

[Alter_Fridge]

I still want to know how it's possible to create entangled particles

 

[Nev]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

SOMA?

 

[Pandy]

Entanglement means that the two photons are have there spin in lock such that if the photon on earth has it's spin swapped then the one in space changes direction instantly.

Have they confirmed that the transmission of information exceeds what is possible by the speed of light?

Literally the first account of entanglement I've read, in years of mild interest in the subject thinking it was all bullshit, that used the phrase '...spin swapped...'.

And now I understand why it's a big deal. Cheers.

 

[mrklaw]

Couldn't they just use a long stick instead?

 

[Elandyll]

SOMA?

Spoiler

The Prestige

 

[tearsintherain]

I really don't understand how they know its a pair of entangled photons and not just photons that happen to share the same spin state. Especially if its covering MILLIONS of photons, if 911 happened to share the spin state at the same exact nanosecond, isn't it just as likely that pure chance was involved rather than entanglement? Especially if you are measuring at the granular photon level instead of measuring a long series of photons that all should be entangled together?

I'm pretty stupid though so I'm sure I am missing something.

 

[Pagusas]

I really don't understand how they know its a pair of entangled photons and not just photons that happen to share the same spin state. Especially if its covering MILLIONS of photons, if 911 happened to share the spin state at the same exact nanosecond, isn't it just as likely that pure chance was involved rather than entanglement? Especially if you are measuring at the granular photon level instead of measuring a long series of photons that all should be entangled together?

I'm pretty stupid though so I'm sure I am missing something.

Would be super easy to confirm just sending a string of binary commands and using a checksum to confirm. Not sure why your hungup on this, you think they just look at it and say "yep, its the same" without doing test to confirm its not just a coincidence?

 

[takriel]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is left imprisoned in a tesseract.

fixed

 

[LordKasual]

Does this happen instantly or at the speed of light? If instant, could this (potentially) solve communication issues for long distance space flight?

Have they confirmed that the transmission of information exceeds what is possible by the speed of light?

It's faster than light, but it cannot be used to transfer information.


The particles are only entangled until you measure one of them. At which point, the other particle switches, and the entanglement is broken.

Since you can't know the state of the particle before measuring it, you can't fix the particles to actually transmit any information because they're essentially random while they're entangled.

Furthermore, either side would break the entanglement by actually measuring their particle, so there's no way to actually set up a system in which you could transfer meaningful data anyway.


So, if Side A was on Earth, and Side B was on Alpha Centauri.....Side A could measure all of their particles and know the exact state of Side B. But there would be no way to communicate these findings, since the only way for Side B to know that Side A made a measurement in the first place...would be to measure their particles.

Even if they set up some kind of system, like:

Particle 1 = YES / NO (random)
Particle 2 = If first measurement is correct, break entanglement
Particle 3 = if first measurement is incorrect, break entanglement

This is useless because the only way to know whether or not the entanglement was broken is to either make a measurement, or have someone tell you by some other means...which requires information that is limited by the speed of light.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

Give me continuity of consciousness and I'm in.

 

[Ricky_R]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

 

[joe2187]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

Isnt that how Evil Riker was created on Star Trek? The teleporter made a copy that beamed to the ship but left the real Riker stranded on an abandoned, hostile planet?

 

[Barkley's Justice]

Coal-powered quantum networks or bust.

 

[Stinkles]

why we still got trains?

 

[Business]

I understood some of these words.

 

[Pagusas]

It's faster than light, but it cannot be used to transfer information.


The particles are only entangled until you measure one of them. At which point, the other particle switches, and the entanglement is broken.

Since you can't know the state of the particle before measuring it, you can't fix the particles to actually transmit any information because they're essentially random while they're entangled.

Furthermore, either side would break the entanglement by actually measuring their particle, so there's no way to actually set up a system in which you could transfer meaningful data anyway.


So, if Side A was on Earth, and Side B was on Alpha Centauri.....Side A could measure all of their particles and know the exact state of Side B. But there would be no way to communicate these findings, since the only way for Side B to know that Side A made a measurement in the first place...would be to measure their particles.

Even if they set up some kind of system, like:

Particle 1 = YES / NO (random)
Particle 2 = If first measurement is correct, break entanglement
Particle 3 = if first measurement is incorrect, break entanglement

This is useless because the only way to know whether or not the entanglement was broken is to either make a measurement, or have someone tell you by some other means...which requires information that is limited by the speed of light.

IF you cant measure them, how do you know they are entangled.

 

[Aztechnology]

Entanglement is like the holy Grail of network/communications currently. That's really exciting news.

 

[LordKasual]

IF you cant measure them, how do you know they are entangled.

Because if they're entangled, knowing the state of one means you instantly know the state of the other.

 

[AuthenticM]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

yeah, this is the issue.

But how could we prove that the destination-body is the same as the source-body? How do you prove something like this, when both bodies are supposedly exactly the same?

 

[ahoyhoy]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

Well they're both the real you.

Just like you're still the same you as you were last year even though most of your cells from last year have all died and been replaced.

 

[Moose Biscuits]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

Finally, I can both feel the sweet release of oblivion while also ensuring I'm not late for work. Sounds like a win-win!

 

[CrunchyFrog]

Well they're both the real you.

Just like you're still the same you as you were last year even though most of your cells from last year have all died and been replaced.

This is a gross oversimplification and neglects the fact that such rapid turnover does not happen with neuronal cells, which most people assume is the seat of consciousness. It is true that neurons will sever axonic and dendritic limbs and reassign synapses and can undergo limited regeneration upon injury, yes, but the soma of the cell, which for all intents and purposes cannot be replaced, maintains continuity and contains many of the sites for production of NT's in the amounts and patterns which regulate synaptic transmission and are in essence the coding bits of the neural network and thus your behavior/mind. Furthermore, I'm sure everyone can look at paralytics and see why neuroregeneration is a big enough problem in the peripheral nervous system, and it's next to impossible (and in fact naturally inhibited) within the central nervous system. Damage to the brain is near-permanent, so it's not a stretch to say disruption of physical brain tissue would lead to disruption of consciousness. But we already know this, we call it dying.

But continuity of consciousness itself is another thing entirely, and you have to delve into very long philosophical discussions on the mind/body problem for which there aren't and likely won't ever be any real scientifically verifiable answers. As for teleportation of a conscious entity, in a way it's parallel to the quantum activity going on here. It's literally impossible for us to objectively observe from the subject's PoV, and for all intents and purposes if it looks and acts like a duck then we can't possibly ever know that it wasn't. The only one that could is the subject themselves, and in a failure state they wouldn't be able to communicate it with us anyway. Many smarter people than myself have posited that there is some sort of quantum aspect to our biology that gives rise to consciousness, and that a lot of the same objective limitations to observation of the quantum world likely apply to consciousness as well.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

So.. photon cannons when?

You must build additional Pylons!

 

[Shauni]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

I mean, if you have the same personality and memories it'd be worth it.

 

[talkingood]

Until we discover that this is not really teleporting you, but only making a copy of you at your destination and the real you is destroyed in the process.

Still better than public transportation!

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Time to shit on everyone's hopes and dreams.

Quantum teleportation doesn't have anything to do with the physical teleportation you're thinking of. Quantum teleportation doesn't transport material, only information.

 

[BlazinSkatinAxel]

So.. photon cannons when?

Infinity War.

 

[Izayoi]

Time to shit on everyone's hopes and dreams.

Quantum teleportation doesn't have anything to do with the physical teleportation you're thinking of. Quantum teleportation doesn't transport material, only information.

And it's a one-way street. Communication is not possible.

 

[kevin1025]

Send a person through. Then a cat jumps in at the same time and something horrible happens in transfer and then everyone up at the satellite has to contend with a mancat hybrid monster.

Then call it Cat and Mouse.

Coming March 2019.

 

[Seesaw15]

"It's longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!"

 

[Chezzymann]

Im starting to think quantum stuff is just a glitch in our reality due to an oversight from whoever created us. Should have bug tested more.

 

[LordOfChaos]

It's in the bolded but the title could be clearer; the photon didn't move from the ground to space. Rather, two entangled photons allowed instant transmission of information, when one is manipulated on earth the same thing happens to the one in space. It's part of Spooky Action at a Distance.

Gigabit wifi on Enceladus is a-go.

 

[Alexlf]

It's in the bolded but the title could be clearer; the photon didn't move from the ground to space. Rather, two entangled photons allowed instant transmission of information, when one is manipulated on earth the same thing happens to the one in space. It's part of Spooky Action at a Distance.

Gigabit wifi on Enceladus is a-go.

This is incorrect, the photons were absolutely launched at the station from the ground.

EDIT: Also, manipulating either breaks the entanglement.

 

[Pagusas]

Because if they're entangled, knowing the state of one means you instantly know the state of the other.

But how do you know the state of the 2nd?

 

[Linkstrikesback]

But how do you know the state of the 2nd?

You measure one photons state and you know the other, that's what quantum entanglement is.

To use a crude macroscopic real life example, if you throw a dice and look at the top number you rolled, you also know which number is in the bottom because the two opposite sides are 'entangled' in that we know any two opposing sides on a dice add up to 7. So if the top number is 6, you know the bottom side is 1,even though you haven't looked at it.

Something similar is true of entangled particles, if you look at one you know information about the other.

It's a lot more complicated than that but yeah.

 

[jett]

Murica, are you even trying?

Seriously though, that's an amazing achievement.

Well they're both the real you.

Just like you're still the same you as you were last year even though most of your cells from last year have all died and been replaced.

This isn't how consciousness works.

 

[StarVigil]

Can someone explain this to me like I'm Donald Trump?

 

[The Technomancer]

Can someone explain this to me like I'm Donald Trump?

Particles are identified by a very limited number of properties. If you can make a particle at end B have the exact same properties as a particle at point A you have essentially transported A to B, since now a thing identical to A exists at B. Its like physical faxing

 

[Random Human]

Can someone explain this to me like I'm Donald Trump?

Very good news! Science winning BIGLY! #MCGA

 

[Pagusas]

You measure one photons state and you know the other, that's what quantum entanglement is.

To use a crude macroscopic real life example, if you throw a dice and look at the top number you rolled, you also know which number is in the bottom because the two opposite sides are 'entangled' in that we know any two opposing sides on a dice add up to 7. So if the top number is 6, you know the bottom side is 1,even though you haven't looked at it.

Something similar is true of entangled particles, if you look at one you know information about the other.

It's a lot more complicated than that but yeah.

We know the number on the bottom of the dice because we made the dice. How do you know the entanglement even exist in the first place if you can't measure both instances? Is it just a theory? That's like saying "if I flip this quarter in my bedroom and it lands heads, then the quarter in the kitchen must be tails, and I know that because I can see the quarter in the bedroom is heads". Like what? You didn't explain at all how you'd know the quarter in the kitchen is linked to the quarter in the bedroom, or how you are confirming the quarter in the kitchen is actually heads. Your saying "they are only entangled if you don't look at them". That's like me saying "the fridge is full so long as you don't look inside it" (the fridge is actually empty, but you don't know that so you'll just assume I'm telling the truth). How have they proven this is actually happening?

 

[Pagusas]

Particles are identified by a very limited number of properties. If you can make a particle at end B have the exact same properties as a particle at point A you have essentially transported A to B, since now a thing identical to A exists at B. Its like physical faxing

But if that's true then why did a person in this thread say it can't be used to send data? If your changing the state of a and b reflects it, why can't you use that as a binary code for transmission?