QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT Quantum entanglement is the mysterious phenomenon where two particles become tightly intertwined and behave as one system. The particles will behave this way whether they are next to each other in a laboratory, or on either sides of a galaxy. Scientists know if they examine one particle and measure a certain property, for example, vertical polarization, then the other will instantly adopt the opposite property, in this case, horizontal polarization. It’s mind-bending physics to consider. Albert Einstein described it as “spooky action at a distance” when he was still struggling to understand the ideas proposed by quantum theory. But it’s a powerful phenomenon and one that physicists have long attempted to harness in the lab. The difficulty has been creating a pair of particles with any distance between them and has always been a difficult hurdle to overcome. Imperfections in optic fiber glass or air turbulence means that the qubits become unentangled. Plus, as the distance gets farther, your beam gets wider, so photons simply miss their target. Juan Yin at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai claims to have solved the dilemma. His team sent photons between two stations, separated by 97 kilometers over a landscape including a lake. To perform this experiment, Yun and his colleagues used a 1.3 Watt laser and a clever optic steering technique to keep the beam precisely on target. With this setup, they were able to successfully teleport more than 1,100 photons in four hours, over a distance of 97 kilometers, shattering the last quantum teleportation record of 16 kilometers, which was set by a different set of Chinese researchers in 2010. The application of utilizing this mysterious phenomenon to teleport people and objects is looking more and more like a very realistic proposition, if it has not already been developed in the top secret “black” programs. Quantum entanglement can also be used for the instantaneous swapping of information, as well as teleportation. It will be key in transmitting information, because with instant communication at a distance the data doesn’t travel through space. It cannot be snatched or intercepted while in transport, making it the ultimate form of encryption.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 04:13:30 +0000
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