back to article Japanese quantum boffins 'may have the key to TELEPORTATION'

Don't get too excited, the world's not about to get Star Trek-style transporters. However, if a quantum communications theory formulated by three Tohoku University boffins can stand the test of experiment, they could break the distance limitations that currently constrain quantum communications. At this point, the exercise …

COMMENTS

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  1. Mtech25
    Joke

    Sod Teleportation

    I just want my hoverboard

    1. Shrimpling

      Re: Sod Teleportation

      Why use the Joke Alert icon?

      I really want a hoverboard... some of the self tying shoes and the self drying coat would be good too.

      They had better be quick inventing these things, they only have 1 year left.

      1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

        Re: Sod Teleportation

        ...and the self drying coat would be good too...

        Burtons did a self-drying coat in the 1960s - didn't catch on...

  2. Faye B
    WTF?

    Squeezed Vacuum

    How the hell do you squeeze a vacuum? I sometimes think these physicists are just making things up to get more grant money.

    1. Paul Kinsler

      Re: How the hell do you squeeze a vacuum?

      Strictly speaking, a squeezed vacuum isn't a vacuum - it has photons[1] in it. It's called a vacuum because it has a zero amplitude, but in fact its quantum uncertainty has carefully arranged correlations, for which some excitation above the true vacuum are required.

      Or: a squeezed vacuum not a vacuum, we just call it that because the field amplitudes measure (in average) as zero. But a photon number measurement will be non-zero.

      [1] Assuming we're talking about an electromagnetic (squeezed vacuum) state.

      1. bep

        Re: How the hell do you squeeze a vacuum?

        Well of course, that's easy for you to say.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How the hell do you squeeze a vacuum?

        > Strictly speaking, [....]

        I just upvoted your comment so I could pretend to have understood anything of what you said.

      3. Michael Dunn
        Joke

        Re: How the hell do you squeeze a vacuum?

        Use the Denis Healey method - tax it till the pips squeak!

    2. VinceH

      Re: Squeezed Vacuum

      How the hell do you squeeze a vacuum?

      Put it in a vice, and make it really, really tight.

    3. dssf

      Re: Squeezed Vacuum U.....

      By sucking the photons out of it?

      Now, if only this tech could replace the "vacuum cleaner", the washing machine, and skin cleaners...

      Just don't install the carpet cleaner strength/debugging unit with the teleportonic shower replacement. You might REALLY be "washed up" beyond recovery....

  3. Stretch

    I think I speak for most when I say...

    ...huh?

    1. GrumpyOldMan

      Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

      Yup! me to...

      Whut?

      1. Ragarath

        Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

        I recommend reading Moving Mars by Greg Bear. This introduced me to quantum stuff in a sci-fi setting. It has always interested me since.

        I still don't understand much of it, but I see the potential.

      2. Thomas Whipp

        Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

        this is one of those articles where I understand every word on its own... but have real trouble with the whole

        1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
          Unhappy

          Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

          "this is one of those articles where I understand every word on its own... but have real trouble with the whole"

          Yes the words are simple. It's just that when they coalesce into sentences the meaning breaks down.

          Which seems to apply to a lot of quantum physics.

          1. bep

            Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

            I think I've discovered a quantum effect: articles discussing quantum mechanics make my brain hurt before I start reading them.

            1. cortland

              Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

              According to Deusenberg's Uncertainty Principle, one can know either what a quantum mechanic does or how much it costs, but not both.

              If, at the end of the day, you pay him, since you now know both of those, something else will immediately break down; if you've used a charge card, that will happen when the bank pays it, generally at the worst possible moment while you are driving. Parity is sometimes conserved by them paying the wrong amount.

          2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

            Obviously is everything not as it seems for everyone, John Smith 19

            "this is one of those articles where I understand every word on its own... but have real trouble with the whole"

            Yes the words are simple. It's just that when they coalesce into sentences the meaning breaks down.

            Which seems to apply to a lot of quantum physics. ...John Smith 19 Posted Thursday 30th January 2014 11:19 GMT

            To quantum physicists/metadatabase physicians, are the stealthy opportunities quite clear in the mean research and the security implications in the need for care in the use of marked and potentially classified ultra secret and sensitive discoveries, even more so, given what can be wrought and delivered for good and for bad in technologies/modi operandi and vivendi not understood and/or misunderstood.

          3. Michael Dunn
            Headmaster

            Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

            Yeah, back to the statutory Feynman quote: "Anyone who thinks they understand quantum physics doesn't."

    2. Mike Bell

      Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

      Don't worry about it. God thinks that way, too. He hasn't a fucking clue what it all means at the nuts & bolts level because that's the way he designed it. We'd like to think that everything is understandable, but that doesn't mean that's the way things are. It's one of the many reasons I get smashed at the pub several times a week.

      1. Paul Kinsler

        Re: It's one of the many reasons @ Mike Bell

        Yes, but don't think just by calling yourself "Mike" is going to let you off - we all know you personally are responsible for the inequalities, John.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I think I speak for most when I say...

        > God thinks that way, too. He hasn't a fucking clue

        Are you calling me an ignorant???

  4. andreas koch
    Black Helicopters

    The main question is:

    How can NSA and GCHQ tap into it?

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: The main question is:

      The main question is:

      How can NSA and GCHQ tap into it?..... andreas koch Posted Thursday 30th January 2014 10:13 GMT

      Answer: With extreme difficulty verging on the impossible if they want to retain and maintain status quo intelligence applications/established politically incorrect situations?

      And one would fully expect that to be the case whenever au fait and working and majoring with IT in its C42 Quantum Communication Control Systems …. AI@ITsWork fields. [C42.... Cyber Commanding Creative Control with Computers and Communications/Communicating Computers]

      The real main question for the likes of an NSA and GCHQ, and one which they currently would/will most probably foolishly choose to studiously ignore and plausible deny is a problem they be trying to address and work around for it would be able to easily terrorise them, is how to stop such communications from entering their systems and applications and leaking to external third parties/other most effective non-state actor bodies, basemetadata discovered and being utilised therein?

      Step carefully from here on in, for one false move in the wrong direction delivers exactly everything that one be fearing in failed intelligence circles with right royal dodgy promotions and unable to counter.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: The main question is:

      Short answer: no.

  5. Tom 11

    Aww crap

    Now I'm going to be thinking about this all day, and I will still be non the wiser when I hit the sack tonight :(

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Jake already invented this.

    In the 70's but his mates "Steve and Wozzy" made him keep it under wraps.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Trollface

      Indeed. He uses it to teleport into the backroom of the "Ace of Spades" stripper saloon just down the road from his hog farm whenever he takes time off from being grumpy in the commentariat section.

  7. sorry, what?

    OK, so what are they actually talking about?

    It would have been nice if the article gave a bit of clarity as to what possible practical applications this could have... if it's just being done for pure knowledge sake that's fine with me but let's make that clear in the article too!

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: OK, so what are they actually talking about?

      It's just for weirding out cats.

      Silly humans.

  8. dintech

    Alice and Bob

    I think Alice should take the hint and realise that Bob just isn't interested in her. He never calls her first...

    1. Mexflyboy
      Facepalm

      Re: Alice and Bob

      Christ, the fact that I understood that Alice & Bob joke shows what a geek I am...

  9. ukgnome
    Pint

    I have read the dumbed down version and the super dumbed down version as well as the version that has been aimed at the totally clever but have no friends people....

    And I still only have a very very basic understanding of the concept.

    *****I probably need to add ------------------------------>

  10. Omgwtfbbqtime
    Pint

    It was a triumph....

    Anyone else notice that they used orange and blue for the opposite sides of the porta.... I mean message?

    1. MJI Silver badge

      Re: It was a triumph....

      Well spotted

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: It was a triumph....

        You monster.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It was a triumph....

      Orange & blue, sorry could someone explain that to me?

      I give up on the vacuum squeezing bit.

      1. Omgwtfbbqtime

        Re: It was a triumph....

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(video_game)

  11. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

    A few minor implications...

    Not that I understand anything about the science. But I wonder how much power a personal transportation booth would draw. There'd probably be one sitting in the hall of each house. But I find a lot of my friends insisting that we ought to save energy - and they don't listen to me when I say that there's a lot of energy in the universe. So I made up a little illustrative story:

    1900 - typical power to transport a person = 1Hp

    1950 - typical power to transport a person = 20Hp

    2000 - typical power to transport a person = 100Hp

    2050 - typical power to transport a person = ?

    If the above trend is followed, it will probably be around 1000Hp, say, 750Kw. Which means that we'll need bigger cables going into each house. I don't anticipate any problems generating the power, but it certainly won't be from windmills...

    1. KR Caddis

      Re: A few minor implications...

      @ dodgy geezer

      well, it's 2014 now and there's already 1000hp cars; 500hp is no longer uncommon (no need to cite- ask any gearhead); methinks Moore's Law might soon apply, if not already.

      And as for cable size to operate telephone teleportation, I believe the gist of the article was energy teleportation, so Tesla was 100 years ahead of his time. A lot closer to reality than Leonardo, so perhaps Moore's law applies to more than chips. Look at almost anything in science, maybe less so in manufacturing. My Dad was born just 6 years after the first US patent for radio (Tesla again) and 11 years after the invention. Now we have telescopes in space looking back 13+ billion years (light years). We just can't go there (yet). Need I say "aircraft"?

    2. Arthur Dent
      Boffin

      Re: A few minor implications...

      You haven't got an "above" trend - or if you have, you haven't got enough data to see what the trend is. For example it would be reasonable to llok at it and say the increase in teh first half-century was a factor of 20, in teh next half century it was a factor of 5, so maybe the increase factor goes down by a factor of four each half century - so for 2050 a good prediction might be 125Hp, which is a long way from your 1000Hp. Of course there's no reason to believe that a regular factor beteen each half-century makes any more sense than a series that alternates divide by 4 and muliply by 2 (which delivers 10 for teh third gap, so fits your 1000Hp).

      My point is that on this data you have no evidence to suggest any value at all for 2050 - claiming it imolies "probably around 1000Hp" is just nonsense.

  12. Nuno

    You lost me on

    "Don't get too excited"

  13. MatsSvensson

    So, what do you call the thing that squirts out when you squeeze a vacuum?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Excited vacuum?

    2. MrDamage Silver badge

      Semen.

      The same white, gooey substance that emerged every other time you played with the penis pump.

  14. Feldagast

    We have had teleporters for years, ever since the first clothes dryer made a sock jump to another random clothes dryer, how else would you explain all the single socks?

    1. MrDamage Silver badge

      And here I was thinking they just eloped with all of my pens.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      I have the same problem with keys and money.

  15. MrT

    They may have the key...

    ...but have they got the lock? And which way should they try the key? Will the lock be the same if they try the key twice?

    Can't they just sort out Dextermath - I'd quite like burgers that fly to your mouth at the sound of a whistle...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good thing I keep an eye on my sources.

    According to today's XKCD, they're just talking about last night's date.

  17. mtp
    Headmaster

    The quantum world is indescribable but real

    When I did a physics degree one of the most significant parts of it was second year quantum mechanics. A large part of that was trying to get over the habits of trying to visualise what is going on and just do the maths. Quantum mechanics has been tested to the breaking point in many ways for almost 100 years and has been proved right in every case but intuitively it just cant be visualized. Anyone trying to describe something that is intrinsically quantum mechanical without using differential equations is doomed to failure. This feels so wrong but basically in extreme conditions the universe does not behave in the way that we experience in day to day life.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: The quantum world is indescribable but real

      It is just differently describable.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hello from the future!

    We still don't understand it either.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Hello from the future!

      I see what you did there.

  19. AbeSapian

    Step One:

    Build a Heisenberg compensator.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Step One:

      ...and attach it to the Flux Capacitor.

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