[dropcap size=small]S[/dropcap]cience fiction movies have always shown us different dreams. Well, one of them has been to somehow transport people and things from one place to another instantly without even crossing the physical space in between, in other words [highlight color=#ff0000 ]Teleportation[/highlight]. Movies like Star Trek have always made teleporting look pretty convenient but it all seems like a science fiction.
Quantum mechanics has always been weird. So if nature gives you weird lemons, why not make weird lemonades. This time it is Teleportation. Teleportation might be real due to the most crazy and oddball prediction of Quantum mechanics i.e. “Quantum Entanglement”.
[toggler title=”What is Quantum Entanglement?” ]Entanglement is a theoretical prediction which comes from the equations of quantum mechanics, two particles can become entangled if they are close enough that their properties become linked. Quantum mechanics says that even if you separate those particles and send them in opposite directions even at infinite distance, they can remain entangled and connected to each other. To understand how peculiar this is, consider two unbiased coins. If we toss either of the two coins, they will randomly land either on heads or tails. Now suppose these two coins behave like two entangled particles and these coins are tossed again and if we catch one of them to find heads the other one is affirmed to land on tails and vice-versa. This isn’t all, even if the two coins are far away, suppose one of them is on moon and they are connected by no means like wires or transmitters and if you look at one to find tails, the other is guaranteed to be heads. Albert Einstein called this weird property as [highlight color=#ff0000 ]”Spooky action at a distance”[/highlight].[/toggler]
At Canary Islands on the west coast of Africa, the tests are already under way. European physicist Anton Zeilinger is a long way away from teleporting humans but he is [highlight color=#ff0000 ]trying to teleport tiny individual photons (particles of light) by quantum entanglement[/highlight]. Zeilinger has teleported dozens of particles between the two Islands, La Palma and Tenerife. He starts by generating a pair of two entangled photons and sends one of the two from the Island of La Palma to Tenerife about 143 km away by means of laser. Now he brings a third photon which he wants to teleport and allows it to interact with the photon on La Palma. The team studies the interaction and compares the quantum states of the two photons. Because of the spooky action, the team is able to use that comparison to transform the photon on the distant Island into an Identical copy of the third photon. It is if the third photon has teleported without crossing the space between the islands.
[toggler title=”Can this process make human teleportation possible some day, as we are also made up of particles?” ]If you want to teleport yourself, suppose from Delhi to Melbourne, you need a chamber of particles at Delhi that are entangled with another chamber of particles at Melbourne. The quantum states of particles of your body are scanned with a scanner and are allowed to interact with the chamber of entangled particles. This information is then sent to Melbourne where an exact replica of you is made in the other chamber of entangled particles, and snap, You are teleported!
But horrifying thing is that the original structure of your body will get destroyed. So the new you at Melbourne is really you or just a copy of you? This brings the Ship of Theseus paradox come into action.[/toggler]
There will be a lot of real world applications of this amazing technology, as [highlight color=#ff0000 ]we will be able to achieve faster communication[/highlight] as till now we are limited to the speed of radio waves. The information will be able to reproduce itself at its destination without even crossing the physical medium in between.
Another but most breathtaking application of this might be in [highlight color=#ff0000 ]Time Travelling[/highlight] about which I will write in one of my upcoming article.
