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Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

Posted June 08, 2007 4:19 PM

From Coolest Gadgets:

Beam me up, Scotty. It's a famous line from an even more famous TV show. And this month, that line came closer to reality as a team of European scientists successfully teleported a block of data nearly 90 miles using a theory called quantum entanglement� What makes this noteworthy is not only that it makes using a Star Trek like transporter one step closer to reality, but also that the theory used also has Trek origins. Quantum entanglement is rather heady stuff for the average person to get their head around, but essentially, it involves of teleporting the so-called "state of matter" rather than matter itself. So far, scientists have only been able to move photons of light and small packets of data between telescopes in a line of sight fashion, but hopes are high that this new technique will allow for the transporting of encrypted data packages from space. Sadly, man is lightyears away from being able to utter the word "energize" in real life. It seems that all the computer memory in the entire world couldn't hold the information necessary to beam one atom of the human physiology, much less and entire body. But as of today, the ability to transport data, and perhaps more is one step closer to that goal.

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Anonymous Poster
#1

Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/08/2007 7:35 PM

but seriously folks!

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#2

Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/09/2007 3:48 PM

WOW

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#3

Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/10/2007 3:43 PM

Has anyone noticed that the "Latest Engineering News" section isn't. I have known about this for about a year (they have been working on this for at least 10 years now). Seems that although you cannot transport a person from one place to another, it is possible to transport data (1's and 0's) in a serial format (one after the other) from one place to another over a wire. Due to the unusual properties of Quantum physics, the data goes in one end and instantaneously comes out the other in 0 time (I believe it is due to the ability of the particle to be both a 1 and a 0 simultaneously in two different dimensions). This is irrespective of wire length, for example if the wire were 20,000 light years long (a bit impractical I know) it would still take 0 time to travel 20,000 light years. Did it break the limiting law of the speed of light, well actually it didn't because it never traveled thru the line.

Hooray, I just realised that technology has just gone full-circle (wired serial cable, to serial broadband fibre-optic, to wireless broadband, to wired serial cable again).

Quantum physics and mechanics are the areas to dabble in and develop if you want to bend or bypass the laws of the universe, not free energy generators using fridge magnets.

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Anonymous Poster
#4

Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/11/2007 3:24 AM

HI !

MABY IF YOU DID not store the info & sent it directly the storage problems could be solved & the engineers could concentrate on sending the info directly and use a compression routine to reduce the info that is sent by a factor of 1000 for every million bits sent. today with super computers one could send a gig-a-bit a minute & that could be super compressed to a higher density of transmission speed. IBM engineers might be able to help set up a super fast transmission for this problem.

I used to work there & they have marvelous engineers to help with these problems.

THANKS

goldrushnugget999

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#5

Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/11/2007 5:48 AM

I seem to remember a slightly less famous line used when testing the transporter,

It was something like - 'Your garbage has died'

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#6

Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/11/2007 11:37 AM

'Sadly, man is lightyears away from being able to utter the word "energize" in real life.'

Sadly, reporters are still using the term "lightyear" incorrectly as a unit of time. One light-year is the distance that light will travel during one year of time.

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#7
In reply to #6

Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/12/2007 2:50 AM

Or are they that distance away from the solution?

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#8
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Re: Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists make breakthrough with Trek Transporter Theory

06/12/2007 8:48 AM

I think you are on to something there. I should probably measure the length of my workday in miles or kilometers (or parsecs?).

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