Physicists at the university of Calgary recently showed teleportation with photon. They managed to teleport the particle a distance of 6 kilometers across a city fiber optic cable!
What happened?
At the city of Calgary, a group of physicists used the property of quantum entanglement to send a photon 6 km away across using fiber optic cables that were part of the city infrastructure. The quantum teleportation property is referred to commonly as, "spooky action at a distance". It is a property so captivating and mysterious that Einstein first coined the phrase because he couldn't explain it. The property was not understood until 1964 after his death though.
What does it mean to be entangled?
To be entangled in the quantum mechanics world means that two particles are able to interact over infinite distances. When the experiment happened, the team teleport ed a photon over the city hall while still remaining entangled with the photon at the university. Then the photon who had its state teleported to the university was then made in another location at Calgary. It then traveled to the City hall and met with the photon that was part of the entangled pair.
How fast?
During the test, the weather had the potential to change the times and alter the data. This meant that the researched would have to find a way to keep the photons at a strict arrival time of about 1 pico-second ( 1 one trillionth of a second)! But in the end, the team managed to keep with them!
Why do I care?
You may be asking yourself, "well that's cool and all, but how does this benefit me and humanity as a whole?". This experiment is extremely important because it opens doorways to more secure, and faster connections between people using fiber optics. For instance, with many fiber optics today, it is possible for people to eavesdropping on what you do. With quantum teleportation, it allows for amazingly fast communication, and opens humanity to long distance communication beyond earth and still be reliable. With this technology, encryption can become vastly more secure, and will protect global infrastructures.
Progress
The goal is to have every home, building, and place linked through fiber optics which the city of Calgary is working very hard on, and have quantum teleportation be a viable resource for people to use.
Thanks for reading!
Sources:
www.ucalgary.ca/
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-teleportation-quantum-networking-city-hall-1.3770440
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