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Physicist discovers how to teleport energy
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 First, they teleported photons, then atoms and ions. Now one physicist has worked out how to do it with energy, a technique that has profound implications for the future of physics.
In 1993, Charlie Bennett at IBM's Watson Research Center in New York State and a few pals showed how to transmit quantum information from one point in space to another without traversing the intervening space.
The technique relies on the strange quantum phenomenon called entanglement, in which two particles share the same existence. This deep connection means that a measurement on one particle immediately influences the other, even though they are light-years apart. Bennett and company worked out how to exploit this to send information. (The influence between the particles may be immediate, but the process does not violate relativity because some informatiom has to be sent classically at the speed of light.) They called the technique teleportation.
That's not really an overstatement of its potential. Since quantum particles are indistinguishable but for the information they carry, there is no need to transmit them themselves. A much simpler idea is to send the information they contain instead and ensure that there is a ready supply of particles at the other end to take on their identity. Since then, physicists have used these ideas to actually teleport photons, atoms, and ions. And it's not too hard to imagine that molecules and perhaps even viruses could be teleported in the not-too-distant future.
But Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University in Japan has come up with a much more exotic idea. Why not use the same quantum principles to teleport energy?
Today, building on a number of papers published in the last year, Hotta outlines his idea and its implications. The process of teleportation involves making a measurement on each one an entangled pair of particles. He points out that the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system. He then shows that by carefully choosing the measurement to do on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy.
All this is possible because there are always quantum fluctuations in the energy of any particle. The teleportation process allows you to inject quantum energy at one point in the universe and then exploit quantum energy fluctuations to extract it from another point. Of course, the energy of the system as whole is unchanged.
He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton's balls. Measuring the state of the first ion injects energy into the system in the form of a phonon, a quantum of oscillation. Hotta says that performing the right kind of measurement on the last ion extracts this energy. Since this can be done at the speed of light (in principle), the phonon doesn't travel across the intermediate ions so there is no heating of these ions. The energy has been transmitted without traveling across the intervening space. That's teleportation.
Just how we might exploit the ability to teleport energy isn't clear yet. Post your suggestions in the comments section if you have any.
But the really exciting stuff is the implications this has for the foundations of physics. Hotta says that his approach gives physicists a way of exploring the relationship between quantum information and quantum energy for the first time.
There is a growing sense that the properties of the universe are best described not by the laws that govern matter but by the laws that govern information. This appears to be true for the quantum world, is certainly true for special relativity, and is currently being explored for general relativity. Having a way to handle energy on the same footing may help to draw these diverse strands together.
Interesting stuff. There's no telling where this kind of thinking might lead.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1002.0200: Energy-Entanglement Relation for Quantum Energy Teleportation
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24759/
/``-_-´´
2010-02-23 06:00
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Cool
Beam me up scotty:)
/Jman
(2010-02-25 01:56)
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Re: Re: Free Power.
I don`t think the "men of vision" are missing, I think they`re all employed by the computer industry rather than exercising their intellect in major engineering projects.
From what i`ve seen on the TV, the "men in sheds" research is still going on, but there`s nothing unconventional or really innovative about it. The "Space Elevator" I`m sure was a science fiction idea (don`t know who by, but probably Arthur Clarke or Asimov or one of the other great writers of that era), but the scientists and men in sheds who are researching it and trying to make it a reality have not tried to change the original concept - a single, immensely strong cable used to support and guide the payload that crawls up it. The research effort should go into anti-gravity, or whatever, used to support a series of platforms, each of which supports a much shorter length of cable made from already known materials, which could support their own weight over perhaps a couple of miles of D R O P. Given a suitable power source (anti-gravity or teleported energy) a huge payload could be hauled into space using the cables as guides rather than supports.
That`s thinking differently.
More folks need to do this.
If part of what you want to achieve is impossible, adapt the concept until it becomes possible and work from there.
Simples!
/Astus Rodinga, Astus Rodinga., Owfa Pitissake
(2010-02-23 17:38)
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Re: Free power.
You sure are a man of vision, hehhe... but I don`t think we can have enough of such people really. Humanity needs vision and dreams in order to be able to push the progress of our species forward. Nothing is impossible as long we have the dream.
Sadly, I think a large population of humanity have lost their dream. We are missing Asimovs` of our age.
/``-_-´´
(2010-02-23 13:07)
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Free power.
Place the transmitters close to the sun.
Adapt a simple internal combustion engine to induct air only.
Place a receiver in the top of each cylinder in the modified engine.
Pulse the reception of energy to coincide with the top of the compression stroke of the engine.
Voila! Engine runs on fresh air.
OK, I know it`s not that simple, but you asked for ideas.
Perhaps it would be easier and cheaper to put the transmitters in the hot bit of a nuclear reactor (or any common or garden furnace).
The technology could be used to cut out some of the waste/inefficiency in, for instance, power generation where a furnace of some sort is used. Transmit the energy of combustion directly to the "after" side of the final heat exchange point, cutting out numerous heat exchange steps and removing the need for lossy lengths of pipework carrying hot water or steam.
But the ultimate use has to be for space travel...
...first of all the "Space elevator" - no need for a cable that can support itself, and a load of freight, over a D R O P of 60,000 miles. Shorter lengths of currently available cable, used simply as guidance for the elevators (not supports), hanging from numerous platforms held up by energy teleported to them, with elevators gliding smoothly up and down using energy teleported to them too.
Then the ability to teleport the energy, required to move a spaceship, directly to the engine nozzles from a high energy source (nuclear reactor, sun`s atmosphere, etc.), would allow space ships of immense size to go wherever they wished at immense velocity. It takes only about a year, at 1g acceleration, to get very close to the speed of light. With almost limitless energy available for teleportation, this would be a simple matter of scale not feasibility, whatever the size of the space ship. For interstellar travel, the space ship could carry transmitters around with it, ready to D R O P into a convenient passing star, to provide power locally.
So we have the scenario where it would be easy to get the materials and manpower into orbit to build fast scouting ships, initially, to find inhabitable planets and then to build huge, self sufficient, transports to go inhabit said planets.
Am I a man of vision or what?
OK, some of the finer points need sorting out, but we have techy types to do that, huh?
You heard the principles here first and don`t you forget it.
/Astus Rodinga, Astus Rodinga., Owfa Pitissake
(2010-02-23 12:40)
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