"Quantum Internet"

[Count Casimir]

As the least scientifically informed person on the forum, I thought this was cool despite only really understanding one word in seven.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 124214.htm

Would one of you awesome folks care to translate the science going on here?

[Absalom]

As I parse it:

Someone figured out how to shine light on "quantum bits" in such a way that a beam of light sharing some properties of a laser beam is generated. This resulting beam should allow data encoded in quantum bits to be transported for longer distances, since single photons traveling down fiber optics can often get as far as fifty miles before you start to worry about problems, while you'll be lucky to get quantum bits an inch before they "evaporate".

Several data encoding schemes that assume this technology have already been developed, and are also applicable to other light-emitting technologies.

This will hopefully allow quantum bits to be converted to light pulses, which can then be transported through fiber-optics and used to encode data into other quantum bits at the destination of the light.

[Dragoon]

It's an interesting development..being able to "cheaply, and reliably take advantage of quantum bits would be a major advancement in computing , and data storage.


the article was definitely written for technophiles and people with a lot better edumakation than I have though

[Mr Bojangles]

Absalom has the gist of it. That said, this is both impressive and exciting.

[Dragoon]

oh no doubt this is going to be a major step in computing, and communications.

I'm curious though...if the process simply passes on the properties of the quantum bit.....or creating an entangled pair of quantum bits.

while just creating an identical quantum bit would be impressive, the benefits of cheaply creating entangled pairs of bits would make for something truly extraordinary.

[Charlie]

Entangled pairs of Quantum bits would mean lag free communications at any distance would it not? An Ansible.

[Durabys]

Entangled pairs of Quantum bits would mean lag free communications at any distance would it not? An Ansible.

..and completely broke the GURP's and Outsider's Technological Levels system.

Tech Level 12: Spacetime Mastery: reactionless drive, ansible, hyperspace metrics.

Science and Computing. Surpassing your wildest dreams and breaking your predictions of future technological and societal development since..well..EVER.

[Grayhome]

We already have jet packs and a few other things that the TL system says are higher lvl, so I think GURPS is good and broke.

[Arioch]

We do NOT have functional personal jetpacks. That contraption you see demonstrated at events with 30 seconds of fuel and no backup (so you die if it fails) is not a viable means of transportation and is not even close to becoming one.

[Charlie]

Slightly off base, but, what is the TCA`s position on cybernetics? What percentage of the population has micro chips inside of them?

[Dragoon]

We do NOT have functional personal jet packs. That contraption you see demonstrated at events with 30 seconds of fuel and no backup (so you die if it fails) is not a viable means of transportation and is not even close to becoming one.

Actually the last version of the Jet/rocket belt could fly up to twenty to thirty minutes. It use a compact gas turbine engine instead of a hydrogen peroxide rocket. Bell Dropped the project more from a lack of interest than anything else....after all they had just won a huge contract to build Huey helicopters.

but they have a modern personal flight pack that supposed ot be available tot he public with a year or two.
http://www.eaa.org/news/2011/2011-06-02_jetpack.asp



Back to quantum stuff..the fact that scientists can manipulate the quantum state of matter at this level of advancement is a bit beyond any Tech Level Scheme. If I remember right there was an experiment ( successful) that allowed a device to create quantum changes in a macro scale object...The object was smaller than a human hair but it was well outside the molecular or atomic scale range.

[Mr Bojangles]

Entangled pairs of Quantum bits would mean lag free communications at any distance would it not? An Ansible.

Nope. Unfortunately, quantum entanglement can't transmit information any faster than light. Why? The exact state of a particle can't be controlled. Before measurement, you only know that the particle is in a superposition of possible states. The measurement will collapse those positions down to one, but you can't say which one until the measurement is complete; it's random. By that token, you can't put its entangled partner into a given state. Thus, you don't have FTL communication, because you can't send any meaningful information.

Another consideration is the measurement itself. You can't know the state of a particle until it has been measured, and the way you measure it will affect the final state of the particle (though you can't say exactly how). Furthermore, any measurement destroys the entanglement. What that means is that if two people measure two entangled particles some distance apart from one another, they would have to agree beforehand what measurement to perform (and that agreement could only be at subluminal speeds, thanks to relativity). Only in this way would one person be able to infer, not communicate, the complementary state of the other's particle.

[Absalom]

To translate again:

Detecting a change in a particle's superposition requires interacting with that particle. Interacting with a particle automatically knocks it out of superposition.

You have no way to tell if it was or was not in superposition when you interacted with it. You have no way to change what the state the far side enters when it leaves superposition, though you can change the state of the near side AFTER it leaves superposition.

Therefor, superposition and "spooky action at a distance" are unable to be used to communicate, because you're unable to figure out if you did or did not knock a particle out of superposition, and you also are unable to effect what state it falls INTO from superposition.

I have often found the quantum mechanics use of the word "measurement" misleading, because (as personal experience tells me) it isn't automatically associated with the work "interact", and thus is missing an important piece of the puzzle (sure, people might wonder how you do the measurement, but that won't immediately lead them to interaction either: "The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." - Mark Twain, 10/15/1888).

[Mr Bojangles]

I have often found the quantum mechanics use of the word "measurement" misleading, because (as personal experience tells me) it isn't automatically associated with the work "interact", and thus is missing an important piece of the puzzle (sure, people might wonder how you do the measurement, but that won't immediately lead them to interaction either: "The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." - Mark Twain, 10/15/1888).

I can see your point, and I agree. I have a background in physics, so I automatically see "measurement" as "interaction," and vice versa. Semantics is often overlooked, and it's really no wonder that everyone seems to be talking at cross-purposes...

[Dragoon]

Thanks for the translations....

The whole you cant measure an object without changing an object concept is a bit hard to wrap you head around.

I'm sure that the process of exploiting quantum states would be a LOT more complicated than i imagine. Then again if I could accurately imagine, and describe the process I'd be rehearsing my NOBEL acceptance speech

It does seem that the process would make for a fairly effective means of communications and data storage, even with the inherent difficulties. But considering radio communications went from spark gap transmitters to worldwide interlinked networks, in 100 years or so, the future of quantum communications data storage looks pretty promising.

[Absalom]

The whole you cant measure an object without changing an object concept is a bit hard to wrap you head around.

If you imagine that you're measuring a piece of really soft cheese with some hard metal calipers then the thought "it leaves a dent" can help, but I think that you really have to wrestle with it for a while (even years, maybe?) before it actually clicks.

[Mayhem]

The whole you cant measure an object without changing an object concept is a bit hard to wrap you head around.

If you imagine that you're measuring a piece of really soft cheese with some hard metal calipers then the thought "it leaves a dent" can help, but I think that you really have to wrestle with it for a while (even years, maybe?) before it actually clicks.

Snooker might be a useful metaphor.

On the human scale we often observe things simply by shining light on them - books, walls, other people - and measuring the light that reaches our eyes (using our eyes).

On the quantum scale, the cue is our light source, the white ball our photon and table edge our detector.
To detect the position of the coloured balls we fire our white ball (photon) across the table at varying angles (and from varying start positions) and note when it doesn't hit the detector in a straight line.

It is easy to understand (I assume) that we have changed the position and motion of the coloured balls by measuring them in this fashion.

The intellectual "jump" is understand that all observation, all measurement, is on some level smacking a white ball ("gauge boson") into an object and seeing what happens.

[Dragoon]

Snooker might be a useful metaphor.

Congratulations you just managed to break it down to where I can understand it without a headache.

the very basic portions of quantum and atomic theory I can manage but then the technical details are a bit hard to follow...I can even follow the more abstract portions of the theories in very general terms...but most articles start using principles and technical terms I cant put into a frame of reference.

I only started reading up on it to try and learn just enough to keep from making obvious errors in my Sci-fi RPGS...now I'm fascinated by the various competing theories

in all honesty at time quantum, and subatomic physics starts to sound like magic rather than science...at least to a layman like myself.

[Mr Bojangles]

Snooker might be a useful metaphor.

Congratulations you just managed to break it down to where I can understand it without a headache.

the very basic portions of quantum and atomic theory I can manage but then the technical details are a bit hard to follow...I can even follow the more abstract portions of the theories in very general terms...but most articles start using principles and technical terms I cant put into a frame of reference.

I only started reading up on it to try and learn just enough to keep from making obvious errors in my Sci-fi RPGS...now I'm fascinated by the various competing theories

in all honesty at time quantum, and subatomic physics starts to sound like magic rather than science...at least to a layman like myself.

Well, Dragoon, to further the spirit of honesty, no one really gets quantum mechanics. Sure, it's a cogent theory with incredible predictive power; it's right up there with relativity. However, thanks to uncertainty, that inherent fuzziness of nature, the observations are quite open to interpretation. There are many, many, many schools of thought on how to map quantum mechanics to our understanding of reality. Check out this link for several interpretations: Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics.

So, don't feel bad about not getting quantum mechanics. Physicists that base their whole careers on this science scratch their heads more often than not.

[fredgiblet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGINaRUEkU