Is teleportation possible? Yes, in the quantum world
“Beam me up” is one of the most famous catchphrases from the “Star Trek” series. It’s the command issued when a character wishes to teleport from a remote location back to the Starship Enterprise.
While human teleportation currently exists only in science fiction, teleportation is possible now in the subatomic world of quantum mechanics — albeit not in the way typically depicted on TV. In the quantum world, teleportation involves the transportation of information, rather than the transportation of matter.
Quantum teleportation involves two distant, entangled particles in which the state of a third particle instantly “teleports” its state to the two entangled particles.
Last year, scientists confirmed that information could be passed between photons on computer chips even when the photons were not physically linked. Now, according to National Science Foundation-funded research by University of Rochester and Purdue University scientists, teleportation may also be possible between electrons.
In a paper published in Nature Communications and one to appear in Physical Review X, the researchers, including Rochester physicists John Nichol and Andrew Jordan, explore new ways of creating quantum-mechanical interactions between distant electrons.
The research is an important step in improving quantum computing, the scientists say, and has the potential to revolutionize technology, medicine and science by providing faster and more efficient processors and sensors.
Quantum teleportation is a demonstration of what Albert Einstein famously called “spooky action at a distance” — also known as quantum entanglement. In entanglement, one of the basic of concepts of quantum physics, the properties of one particle affect the properties of another, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.
Is there life on other planets?
The ultimate goal of NASA’s exoplanet program is to find unmistakable signs of current life on a planet beyond Earth. How soon that can happen depends on two unknowns: the prevalence of life in the galaxy and how lucky we get as we take those first, tentative, exploratory steps.
Our early planet finding missions, such as NASA’s Kepler and its extended incarnation, K2, or the coming James Webb Space Telescope, could yield bare bones evidence of the potentially habitable worlds. James Webb, designed in part to investigate gas giants and super Earths, might find an outsized version of our planet. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope or the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, could zero in on a distant planet’s reflected light to detect the signatures of oxygen, water vapor, or some other powerful indication of possible life.
But unless we get lucky, the search for signs of life could take decades. Discovering another blue-white marble hidden in the star field, like a sand grain on the beach, will probably require an even larger imaging telescope. Designs are already underway for that next-generation planet finder, to be sent aloft in the 2030s or 2040s.
MIT physics professor Sara Seager looks for possible chemical combinations that could signal the presence of alien life. She and her biochemistry colleagues first focused on the six main elements associated with life on Earth: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, sulfur and hydrogen.
“We’re going to have so few planets, we have to get lucky,” Seager said. “I don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want to miss it because we weren’t smart enough to think of some molecule.”
To find out how about the advanced, space-based telescope technology being developed at NASA to search for life among the stars
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