Brave New World
Star Trek references will be all over the web during the coming days, as word gets out about the successful teleportation experiment at the Niels Bohr Institute. This wasn’t a duplication of the well-known experiment a few years ago where a particle of light was sent from one spot to another. It wasn’t even a repeat of the teleportation of a single atom over a few millimeters 2 years back.
No, these guys sent both light and matter a half meter.
To this day, instantaneous transportation is the stuff of geek fantasies (see NBC’s new show “Heroes”), but the first practical applications of this kind of Quantum Optics will revolutionize the way that we communicate rather than the way that we travel.
Currently, we send messages along established networks that require substantial investment to develop and maintain. Instead of transmitting your e-mail or phone call, imagine being able to teleport it from one point to another. No more wires needed. No satellites. In theory, we could communicate with space probes with no time delay. Real-time control of the probes on Mars or other planets would become a reality, cutting development time for missions drastically.
Your privacy will be assured, as it would be impossible to intercept information teleported from one point in space-time to another.
This doesn’t even get into the effect that it would have on our computers. Processors would be able to send massive amounts of information with little need for increased physical components. The space and energy limitations that we are coming up against now in the chip industry could very well disappear in the coming decade or two.
After that? The machines take over.
No, these guys sent both light and matter a half meter.
To this day, instantaneous transportation is the stuff of geek fantasies (see NBC’s new show “Heroes”), but the first practical applications of this kind of Quantum Optics will revolutionize the way that we communicate rather than the way that we travel.
Currently, we send messages along established networks that require substantial investment to develop and maintain. Instead of transmitting your e-mail or phone call, imagine being able to teleport it from one point to another. No more wires needed. No satellites. In theory, we could communicate with space probes with no time delay. Real-time control of the probes on Mars or other planets would become a reality, cutting development time for missions drastically.
Your privacy will be assured, as it would be impossible to intercept information teleported from one point in space-time to another.
This doesn’t even get into the effect that it would have on our computers. Processors would be able to send massive amounts of information with little need for increased physical components. The space and energy limitations that we are coming up against now in the chip industry could very well disappear in the coming decade or two.
After that? The machines take over.
posted by Unknown at 8:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home