teleportation made possible | can humans teleport themselves?? | quantum teleportation

Right from the childhood, we have the fantasy to teleport ourselves from one place to another within a blink of eye. This idea came into our mind from Dereamon, who had an anywhere door which could take you anywhere you wish, faster than light. The second contribution of the idea was from Thor, who could go to any place in the whole universe using Bifrost. The big contribution comes from the magicians who teleported the rabbit in one hat to another and many more such acts. There are many mythological books and events dealing with teleportation. There are many movies who planted this bizarre idea into our mind. All these together gave birth to the suicidal idea of teleportation in our mind. (suicidal? You will know later) 

Keeping the movies and fictions aside, can we really teleport ourselves? I won’t answer this now. First let’s go deep into the science of teleportation. 

Teleportation

From our knowledge gathered from movies we can define the term easily. It is the ability to transfer a person or thing from one place to another instantly. This is what fiction or we can say our imagination feels what teleportation should be.

But science is always different from our imagination. Scientifically, teleporting anything or any person means transferring the information inside that thing to another place. Let’s make it simple! According to science, you are teleported to any distant location if all the information contained in you is transferred to that place. Confused? Good, your are Understanding .......

First, we need to know about Quantum Entanglement.

Quantum entanglement

According to quantum theory, there is no individual particle. Every particle is connected to another particle through an invisible connection, just like umbilical cord connecting mother and her child. You can imagine these particles as couples. These particles are dependent on each other, changes in any one also changes the other one, no matter how far they are. Even if the particles are light years (distance travelled by light in a year) away from each other. This means faster than light changes. Doesn’t this violate theory of relativity? The answer is no because the information is random and of no use. 

This concept can be understood by some examples:

1. An electron changes its spin (the direction of rotation) from up to down, we can suddenly know faster than the light speed that its entangled partner changes its spin from down to up. But this information is random and of no use. We know there is change in the spin of entangled electron, but we don’t know which electron it is or where it is. 

2. Suppose you have a friend who wears 2 socs, one blue and another red, at random. You saw that he is wearing blue socs in his one leg, you can know faster that light speed that he is wearing red socs in another leg. But the information is of no use.

How can quantum entanglement teleport? 

The idea and definition of teleportation used by scientist is different from movies. Suppose you have to teleport particle A to a distant place. We need another particle C at that distant place. We also need one more particle B which is entangled with C. We need to bring A in contact with B, A scans B and transfers all its information to B. Now B has all the information of A. next the information about A is transferred to C, as B is already entangled with C. As the quantum information can’t be copied, particle A gets destroyed. 

Hence, the particle A is teleported to that distant place. In other words, all the information contained in A is transferred to that place.This hypothetical experiment also points out that the thing or person to be teleported would be destroyed only the information will be transferred. That’s why I said in the beginning that it would be a suicide. 

Are there any real cases of teleportation??

YES, there are few cases of teleportation. Here are they:

1. In 1997, photons of ultraviolet light were teleported successfully. 

2. In 2004, particles of light were teleported at a distance of 600 meter. 

3.National Institute of Standards and Technology, Washington teleported Beryllium atom using the quantum entanglement.

4. At Neil Bohr institute and at Max Plank institute, Cesium atom was teleported.

5. In 2017, photons were teleported to a satellite (300 miles overhead) from Tibet.

These were few cases where photons as well as atoms were teleported. One thing common with all these cases was that, they all used quantum teleportation as their basic principle. There is another method which do not use quantum teleportation. In order to understand that we need to know what is …

Bose-Einstein condensate 

It is a different state of matter found, theoretically, by Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose in the year 1925. It is one of the coldest substances in the universe. Its temperature is millionth (0.0000001) to billionth (0.0000000001) of a degree more than 0 kelvin. It can only appear in lab and not in nature.

What happens when Bose-Einstein condensate is cooled below 0 kelvin?

The atoms seek to be in low energy state. So, the atoms vibrate in unison, just like the soldiers doing their drill. By doing so they all become coherent (Coherent – having same amplitude, phase, etc. Same Amplitude – vibrating to same height, just like a pendulum. Same Phase – starting at the same time and in same direction) 

In 1995, Bose-Einstein Condensate was created in lab at MIT and at University of Colorado. What it has to do with teleportation? The answer lies in next section…

Teleportation without Entanglement

Entanglement is one of the most difficult things to achieve. So, scientists have found another way to make teleportation possible. 

Method: -

• To convert all the information about the subject to be teleported into the beam of light.

• Next, to send the beam of light through fiber optic cable to the teleportation place.

• Next, to reconstruct the original subject using the information. 

This is the method of teleportation without the use of quantum entanglement.

How does it work? 

• suppose we need to teleport Rubidium atom

• first, we need rubidium atom in supercooled state i.e. in Bose-Einstein  condensate (BEC)

• next, to apply beam of BEC made up of Rubidium atoms

• the rubidium atoms want to be in lowest energy state. So, they shed extra energy in the form of light pulse. 

• The light beam is sent through the Fiber optic cable.

• This light beam contains all the quantum information needed to reconstruct the atom 

• In the final step, the original subject is reconstructed using the information. 

This is the way in which teleportation can be done. It is way different than the teleportation seen in movies. This is the actual teleportation defined by scientists. 

Challenges: -

• This method solely depends on BEC

• The properties of BEC are difficult to create in the Lab

• All the atoms in BEC vibrate in Unison, so BEC seems to be a giant atom. It is difficult to handle.

can we ever be able to teleport just like movies?

Till now we are successful in teleporting photons and few atoms. So, in the near future we would be able to teleport some simple molecules and then DNA and then the next step would be to teleport Virus. But this would take few decades or longer. It is tough to make coherence a reality, which is the basic criteria for teleportation. There are very few labs that can do so. So, for the next few decades it is not possible to teleport like movies. But our physical laws do not prevent us from doing so. 

Can we teleport humans?

The answer is BIG NO. The present methods for teleportation, if applied for teleporting humans, would be like committing suicide. Why? It is because firstly we need to break the complete human into beam of atoms. Next, transfer the beam of atoms to a distant place. Then, to reconstruct the human there using the information. 

Challenges: -

• If we successfully reconstruct the human, then also it is like killing the original one. The original human would die and a new copy of the same human would be created.

• This process can take more than lifetime of the universe to be executed. 

In short, teleporting an human being to a distant place would be like committing suicide. Though it is possible in principle but it is of no practical significance. 

Problems with present day teleportation technology 

There are number of challenges: -

• We can never teleport faster than the speed of light.

• We cannot teleport physical objects.

• We cannot copy the quantum information.

• If we want to transfer lots of information then we would be needing lots of particles. This is because after teleportation entanglement is lost. 

• Reconstruction of large object is difficult and time taking as well. 

Application of Teleportation

There are few applications if the teleportation (according to science) becomes reality. The biggest application would be to use it in quantum computers. Quantum computers are way different from our classical computers. Classical computers use bits (either 0 or 1) and are slow. On the other hand, quantum computers use qubits (0 or 1 at a time) and are faster. The second application is in the security industry. Quantum teleportation can be used to increase the security of data and information transferred. 

Teleportation if became common thing then can do wonders. Even if teleportation of humans is of no practical importance, it can be very helpful in other fields. Scientists are doing research and soon they will find more efficient and better ways for teleportation. This could take time but with the progress of science, it will become common one day just life fax machine or mobile phone.

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