Quantum teleportation achieved over ten miles of free space

Quantum teleportation has achieved a new milestone or, should we say, a new ten-milestone: scientists have recently had success teleporting information between photons over a free space distance of nearly ten miles, an unprecedented length. The researchers who have accomplished this feat note that this brings us closer to communicating information without needing a traditional signal, and that the ten miles they have reached could span the distance between the surface of the earth and space.

As we've explained before, "quantum teleportation" is quite different from how many people imagine teleportation to work. Rather than picking one thing up and placing it somewhere else, quantum teleportation involves entangling two things, like photons or ions, so their states are dependent on one another and each can be affected by the measurement of the other's state.

When one of the items is sent a distance away, entanglement ensures that changing the state of one causes the other to change as well, allowing the teleportation of quantum information, if not matter. However, the distance particles can be from each other has been limited so far to a number of meters.

Teleportation over distances of a few hundred meters has previously only been accomplished with the photons traveling in fiber channels to help preserve their state. In this particular experiment, researchers maximally entangled two photons using both spatial and polarization modes and sent the one with higher energy through a ten-mile-long free space channel. They found that the distant photon was still able to respond to changes in state of the photon they held onto even at this unprecedented distance.

However, the long-distance teleportation of a photon is only a small step towards developing applications for the procedure. While photons are good at transmitting information, they are not as good as ions at allowing manipulation, an advancement we'd need for encryption. Researchers were also able to maintain the fidelity of the long-distance teleportation at 89 percent— decent enough for information, but still dangerous for the whole-body human teleportation that we're all looking forward to.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/quantum-teleportation-achieved-over-ten-miles-of-free-space.ars

Holy fuck, this is incredible.

Holy fuck, that is incredible. .o.

Holy fuck, the 21st century is incredible in the world of science. o.o

I'll be impressed when they can teleport a girl to me.

On the real, this is pretty neat.

I'll be impressed when they can teleport a girl to me.

YOU DON'T NEED SCIENCE TO TELEPORT YOUR HAND TO YOUR PANTS HAR HAR HAR. :v
But seriously, qft.

Only a matter of time until we are ass deep in Combine.

I think you're misconstruing what they're saying here. It's not about teleporting matter, but information. Its like fiber-optics.

is joke.

Big joke. Holk no understand joke.

Quantum computers would be the most important thing I want.

You simply wouldn't measure its performance, because it wouldn't really have a measurable performance. It would just do whatever you wanted. Encode a HD movie? Ok, it's done. It would mess up the financial market though, being able to break any encryption.