4 ms·

Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy

106 points by recampbell 17y ago

nkassis 17y ago
Can I use this to charge my laptop?
lisper 17y ago
> the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system That set off my bogometer. What is "quantum energy"? The devil is always in the details, but I have yet to see a popular account of anything having to do with entanglement that didn't completely ignore the fundamental fact that entanglement and measurement are the same physical phenomenon. Once you realize that most of the mysteries simply evaporate. http://www.flownet.com/ron/qm.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/qm.pdf
- Nwallins 17y ago
  Wow, fantastic read. From the concluding section: So Mermin was on the right track, but he didn’t get it quite right: not only is the moon is not really there when nobody looks, but it isn't really there even when you do look! "Physical reality" is not "real", but information-theoretical reality is. We are not physical entities, but informational ones. We are made of, to quote Mermin, "correlations without correlata." We are not made of atoms, we are made of (quantum) bits. At the risk of stretching a metaphor beyond its breaking point, what we usually call reality is really a very high quality simulation running on a quantum computer. This is a very counterintuitive view of the world, but the mathematics of Quantum Mechanics tell us unambiguously that it is correct, just as the mathematics of relativity tell us that there is no absolute time and space. Entanglement, far from being an obscure curiosity of QM, is in fact at its very heart. Entanglement is the reason that measurement is possible, and thus the reason that the Universe is comprehensible.
  - itistoday 17y ago
    I'd be wary of it, I haven't read the whole thing but it seems suspicious, least of which is that he comes off as if he fully understands QM. I only know so much about QM, but I do know that no one fully understands it, and that in attempting to sound deep, the author of this paper misattributed a classic Zen koan to Douglas Hofstadter.
    - Nwallins 17y ago
      I certainly can't attest to its correctness, but I found it insightful and thought-provoking. As to the misattribution, the paper reads: The best I can offer as an answer to that question is a Zen koan from Douglas Hofstadter: It seems to me he is describing Hofstadter as the conduit and not the origin.
      - lisper 17y ago
        I got it from GEB. Hofstadter doesn't attribute it, so I just assumed it was original with him. (And frankly I'd be surprised if you found any references to Zen Master Zeno prior to GEB.)
        deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
        gjm11 17y ago
        It is not original to Hofstadter; it comes from the Mumonkan: http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/29.html http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/29.html . Of course the original doesn't call the sixth patriarch "Zeno"; it leaves him unnamed. (The sixth patriarch actually appears to have been called Huineng: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateless_Gate#Case_29:_Huineng.27s_flag http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateless_Gate#Case_29:_Huin... .)
    - Eliezer 17y ago
      http://lesswrong.com/lw/r6/an_intuitive_explanation_of_quantum_mechanics/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/r6/an_intuitive_explanation_of_quant... "There's a widespread belief that quantum mechanics is supposed to be confusing. This is not a good frame of mind for either a teacher or a student. Complicated math can be difficult but it is never, ever allowed to be confusing."
  - lisper 17y ago
    Thanks! :-)
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature. Niels Bohr Reality is not "running on a quantum computer" it is just that QM is the best description we have of what we can observe of the external world.
  - thangalin 17y ago
    Similar, but with pictures: http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement
- DaniFong 17y ago
  Measurement and entanglement isn't quite the same physical phenomenon. Measurement necessarily involves a certain kind of entanglement, but not every entanglement is a measurement (or, if it is, then you've chosen a particularly confusing definition of measurement tantamount to any interaction between systems with substantial uncorrelated degrees of freedom.)
  - lisper 17y ago
    That's right, not all entanglements are measurements. But all measurements are entanglements. They are the "same" in the same sense that, e.g. heat and motion are the "same", or light and radio waves are the "same". Measurement can be understood in terms of entanglement. They are not distinct physical phenomena.
decavolt 17y ago
Title is totally misleading. Hotta has come up with a theory, but hasn't tested it and hasn't "discovered" anything new.
itistoday 17y ago
So, the summary doesn't make this clear, and if you were to use the colloquial definition of teleportation the title of the article would simply be wrong. Quantum teleportation is nothing like teleportation in shows and movies. The big difference is that you have to already have something on the other side. In other words, you can't teleport a rat to mars because there is no rat on mars. Yet. :-p Further, that rat would have to be entangled with another rat on mars, not something trivially accomplished. At least that's my understanding of it. Here's an article on QM teleportation that's easier to grok (although not about teleporting energy specifically): http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/teleportation.ps http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/telepo...
- JulianMorrison 17y ago
  I think it could roughly be summarized as "quantum teleportation moves identity, not substance".
fjabre 17y ago
The article seems to suggest it's impossible to communicate faster than light speed using entanglement b/c they need to know a bit of information at the sender's side which can't be sent using the entanglement phenomenon itself. That's something I'd like to understand better.. Is it really impossible to distinguish between an 'On' state and an 'Off' state at the receiver's end without this piece of information? Is it our ability to measure the observation that hinders this or is this a law of physics that will 'never' be broken?
- pyre 17y ago
  I thought that the whole point was that you invariably change the state of a quantum particle just by observing it. The particles are so small that just waiting for a photon to reflect off of it so you can observe it changes its state.
- mortenjorck 17y ago
  My impression was that relativity was preserved because the two particles are effectively 0m apart, functioning as the same particle. Kind of like a VPN for elementary particles; the remote client and its presence on the local network are the same thing, if I'm not stretching my computer-physics analogies too far.
  - klipt 17y ago
    You can't actually send information faster than light though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_than_light_travel#Quantum_mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_than_light_travel#Quantu... "Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, appear to transmit information faster than light. According to the No-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; they only let two observers in different locations see the same event simultaneously, without any way of controlling what either sees."
    - BearOfNH 17y ago
      let two observers in different locations see the same event simultaneously [...] So ... what if observer B does nothing while observer A (a long, long ways distant) measures something. Can B then "see" the corresponding wave function collapse, thereby knowing that A took a measurement? What I'm working towards here is not caring about the measurement outcome, but rather knowing that a measurement took place, and using that as "information". If you have enough entangled quanta don't you then have a primitive serial line? It should be obvious here that I'm not very familiar with QM. Just wondering.
thinkbohemian 17y ago
Working for a test and measurement company I would be curious to see the non generalized version of this report. One with tests and measurements, possibly some data and techniques.
phreanix 17y ago
Man for a second I thought the ansible was within reach. Pft. =)
jheriko 17y ago
I couldn't help but laugh at this unfortunate wording "He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton's balls." I hope they mean Newton's cradle...

106 points by recampbell 17y ago

Can I use this to charge my laptop?

> the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system That set off my bogometer. What is "quantum energy"? The devil is always in the details, but I have yet to see a popular account of anything having to do with entanglement that didn't completely ignore the fundamental fact that entanglement and measurement are the same physical phenomenon. Once you realize that most of the mysteries simply evaporate. http://www.flownet.com/ron/qm.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/qm.pdf

Nwallins 17y ago
Wow, fantastic read. From the concluding section: So Mermin was on the right track, but he didn’t get it quite right: not only is the moon is not really there when nobody looks, but it isn't really there even when you do look! "Physical reality" is not "real", but information-theoretical reality is. We are not physical entities, but informational ones. We are made of, to quote Mermin, "correlations without correlata." We are not made of atoms, we are made of (quantum) bits. At the risk of stretching a metaphor beyond its breaking point, what we usually call reality is really a very high quality simulation running on a quantum computer. This is a very counterintuitive view of the world, but the mathematics of Quantum Mechanics tell us unambiguously that it is correct, just as the mathematics of relativity tell us that there is no absolute time and space. Entanglement, far from being an obscure curiosity of QM, is in fact at its very heart. Entanglement is the reason that measurement is possible, and thus the reason that the Universe is comprehensible.
- itistoday 17y ago
  I'd be wary of it, I haven't read the whole thing but it seems suspicious, least of which is that he comes off as if he fully understands QM. I only know so much about QM, but I do know that no one fully understands it, and that in attempting to sound deep, the author of this paper misattributed a classic Zen koan to Douglas Hofstadter.
  - Nwallins 17y ago
    I certainly can't attest to its correctness, but I found it insightful and thought-provoking. As to the misattribution, the paper reads: The best I can offer as an answer to that question is a Zen koan from Douglas Hofstadter: It seems to me he is describing Hofstadter as the conduit and not the origin.
    - lisper 17y ago
      I got it from GEB. Hofstadter doesn't attribute it, so I just assumed it was original with him. (And frankly I'd be surprised if you found any references to Zen Master Zeno prior to GEB.)
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - gjm11 17y ago
        It is not original to Hofstadter; it comes from the Mumonkan: http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/29.html http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/29.html . Of course the original doesn't call the sixth patriarch "Zeno"; it leaves him unnamed. (The sixth patriarch actually appears to have been called Huineng: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateless_Gate#Case_29:_Huineng.27s_flag http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateless_Gate#Case_29:_Huin... .)
  - Eliezer 17y ago
    http://lesswrong.com/lw/r6/an_intuitive_explanation_of_quantum_mechanics/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/r6/an_intuitive_explanation_of_quant... "There's a widespread belief that quantum mechanics is supposed to be confusing. This is not a good frame of mind for either a teacher or a student. Complicated math can be difficult but it is never, ever allowed to be confusing."
- lisper 17y ago
  Thanks! :-)
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature. Niels Bohr Reality is not "running on a quantum computer" it is just that QM is the best description we have of what we can observe of the external world.
- thangalin 17y ago
  Similar, but with pictures: http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement
DaniFong 17y ago
Measurement and entanglement isn't quite the same physical phenomenon. Measurement necessarily involves a certain kind of entanglement, but not every entanglement is a measurement (or, if it is, then you've chosen a particularly confusing definition of measurement tantamount to any interaction between systems with substantial uncorrelated degrees of freedom.)
- lisper 17y ago
  That's right, not all entanglements are measurements. But all measurements are entanglements. They are the "same" in the same sense that, e.g. heat and motion are the "same", or light and radio waves are the "same". Measurement can be understood in terms of entanglement. They are not distinct physical phenomena.

decavolt 17y ago

Title is totally misleading. Hotta has come up with a theory, but hasn't tested it and hasn't "discovered" anything new.

itistoday 17y ago

So, the summary doesn't make this clear, and if you were to use the colloquial definition of teleportation the title of the article would simply be wrong. Quantum teleportation is nothing like teleportation in shows and movies. The big difference is that you have to already have something on the other side. In other words, you can't teleport a rat to mars because there is no rat on mars. Yet. :-p Further, that rat would have to be entangled with another rat on mars, not something trivially accomplished. At least that's my understanding of it. Here's an article on QM teleportation that's easier to grok (although not about teleporting energy specifically): http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/teleportation.ps http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/telepo...

JulianMorrison 17y ago
I think it could roughly be summarized as "quantum teleportation moves identity, not substance".

fjabre 17y ago

The article seems to suggest it's impossible to communicate faster than light speed using entanglement b/c they need to know a bit of information at the sender's side which can't be sent using the entanglement phenomenon itself. That's something I'd like to understand better.. Is it really impossible to distinguish between an 'On' state and an 'Off' state at the receiver's end without this piece of information? Is it our ability to measure the observation that hinders this or is this a law of physics that will 'never' be broken?

pyre 17y ago
I thought that the whole point was that you invariably change the state of a quantum particle just by observing it. The particles are so small that just waiting for a photon to reflect off of it so you can observe it changes its state.
mortenjorck 17y ago
My impression was that relativity was preserved because the two particles are effectively 0m apart, functioning as the same particle. Kind of like a VPN for elementary particles; the remote client and its presence on the local network are the same thing, if I'm not stretching my computer-physics analogies too far.
- klipt 17y ago
  You can't actually send information faster than light though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_than_light_travel#Quantum_mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_than_light_travel#Quantu... "Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, appear to transmit information faster than light. According to the No-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; they only let two observers in different locations see the same event simultaneously, without any way of controlling what either sees."
  - BearOfNH 17y ago
    let two observers in different locations see the same event simultaneously [...] So ... what if observer B does nothing while observer A (a long, long ways distant) measures something. Can B then "see" the corresponding wave function collapse, thereby knowing that A took a measurement? What I'm working towards here is not caring about the measurement outcome, but rather knowing that a measurement took place, and using that as "information". If you have enough entangled quanta don't you then have a primitive serial line? It should be obvious here that I'm not very familiar with QM. Just wondering.

thinkbohemian 17y ago

Working for a test and measurement company I would be curious to see the non generalized version of this report. One with tests and measurements, possibly some data and techniques.

phreanix 17y ago

Man for a second I thought the ansible was within reach. Pft. =)

jheriko 17y ago

I couldn't help but laugh at this unfortunate wording "He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton's balls." I hope they mean Newton's cradle...