Sci-Fi in the news again...
Interesting story on BBC news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2049000/2049048.stm
Headline: Australian teleport breakthrough:
By Red Harrison
BBC correspondent in Sydney
Scientists in Australia say they have achieved a breakthrough once
considered possible only in the fantasies of science fiction.
They have been able to teleport a laser beam from one part of a laboratory
to another - an achievement, they say, that promises to revolutionise
computing and communications.
Some pioneering work has already been done on teleporting in the United
States, but the Australian scientists say they have been able to achieve
much more consistency and reliability in the experiment than the Americans.
Teleporting involves disintegrating an object in one place, then
reassembling or recreating it almost instantaneously somewhere else.
Some popular science fiction TV serials use teleporting as a mode of
transport to "beam" people around the universe.
'Quantum teleportation'
The Australian experiment was rather more modest. Led by Dr Ping Koy Lam at
the Australian National University in Canberra, the scientists embedded a
radio signal into a laser beam, then disintegrated the beam and reassembled
it a metre away in the tiniest fraction of a second.
The laser beam was destroyed in the process but the radio signal survived
intact.
Dr Lam describes this as "quantum teleportation" and says it should soon
enable governments, banks and anyone else who wants to exchange information
to do so at incredible speed and in absolute secrecy.
Teleporting humans, however, still seems far away.
Laser beams are made up of photons and they are quite different from the
atoms of solid material which make up humans.
And it must be remembered, Dr Lam says, that the laser beam did not survive
teleportation.
Adrian, etc...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2049000/2049048.stm
Headline: Australian teleport breakthrough:
By Red Harrison
BBC correspondent in Sydney
Scientists in Australia say they have achieved a breakthrough once
considered possible only in the fantasies of science fiction.
They have been able to teleport a laser beam from one part of a laboratory
to another - an achievement, they say, that promises to revolutionise
computing and communications.
Some pioneering work has already been done on teleporting in the United
States, but the Australian scientists say they have been able to achieve
much more consistency and reliability in the experiment than the Americans.
Teleporting involves disintegrating an object in one place, then
reassembling or recreating it almost instantaneously somewhere else.
Some popular science fiction TV serials use teleporting as a mode of
transport to "beam" people around the universe.
'Quantum teleportation'
The Australian experiment was rather more modest. Led by Dr Ping Koy Lam at
the Australian National University in Canberra, the scientists embedded a
radio signal into a laser beam, then disintegrated the beam and reassembled
it a metre away in the tiniest fraction of a second.
The laser beam was destroyed in the process but the radio signal survived
intact.
Dr Lam describes this as "quantum teleportation" and says it should soon
enable governments, banks and anyone else who wants to exchange information
to do so at incredible speed and in absolute secrecy.
Teleporting humans, however, still seems far away.
Laser beams are made up of photons and they are quite different from the
atoms of solid material which make up humans.
And it must be remembered, Dr Lam says, that the laser beam did not survive
teleportation.
Adrian, etc...