Teleportation, or the ability to instantly move people and objects from one place to another, can easily change the direction of development of civilization and the whole world in general. For example, teleportation would once and for all change the principles of warfare, make all means of transportation unnecessary, and the best part: vacations would no longer be a problem. Who doesn't want to have their own personal teleport at home?
Probably, it is for this reason that this ability is the most desirable among humanity. Of course, sooner or later it will be physics that will have to make this dream come true. Well, let's see what humanity already has in our time?
I would like to start with a quote from a famous scientist:
It is wonderful that we are faced with a paradox. Now we can hope to move forward.
Niels Bohr
Teleportation according to Newton
In the framework of Newton's theory, teleportation is simply impossible. Newton's laws are based on the idea that matter is made up of tiny hard billiard balls. Objects do not move unless they are pushed; objects do not disappear or reappear elsewhere. But in quantum theory, particles are capable of doing just such tricks.
Newtonian mechanics lasted 250 years and was overthrown in 1925 when Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and their colleagues developed quantum theory. In general, if teleportation will ever be realized, it will be thanks to the Quantum theory. Therefore, let's look at it in more detail.
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Quantum theory
One of the most important equations in teleportation is the Schrödinger wave equation (see photo). Perhaps there is a place to talk about how it appeared. Erwin once gave a lecture about an interesting phenomenon in which it was said that electrons behave in the same way as waves. Peter Debye, one of the physicist colleagues present in the hall, asked the question: "If an electron can be described as a wave, then what does its wave equation look like?"
By that time, thanks to Newton, everyone already knew differential calculus, physicists described any wave in the language of differential. equations. Therefore, Schrödinger took this question as a challenge and decided to develop a similar equation for the electron. And he did it, as Maxwell once derived his equations for the Faraday fields, Schrödinger derived the equation for the de Broglie wave (the so-called electron wave).
A slight deviation from the topic: Historians of science have spent a lot of effort trying to figure out where Schrödinger was and what he was doing when he discovered his famous equation. It turned out that he was a supporter of free love and often went on vacation with his mistresses. He even kept a detailed diary, in which he entered all his mistresses and marked each meeting with a complex code. It is believed that the weekend when the equation was discovered, Schrödinger spent in the Alps, at the Villa Herwig, with one of his girlfriends. So women can sometimes help stimulate mental activity;)
But it's not that simple. If the electron is described as a wave, then what vibrates in it? The answer is currently believed to be the following Max Born thesis: These waves are nothing more than waves of probability. That is, an electron is a particle, but the probability of detecting this particle is set by the de Broglie wave. It turns out that suddenly in the very center of physics - a science that used to give us accurate predictions and detailed trajectories of any objects, from planets and comets to cannonballs - there were the concepts of chance and probability! Hence the Heisenberg uncertainty principle appeared: it is impossible to know the exact speed, the exact position of the electron and its energy at the same moment. At the quantum level, electrons can do completely unimaginable things: disappear, then reappear, be in two places at the same time. Well, now let's move on directly to teleportation.
Teleportation and quantum theory
When people are asked: "How do you imagine the process of teleportation?", Most say that they must sit in some special cabin, similar to an elevator, which will take them to another place. But some imagine it differently: they collect information from us about the position of atoms, electrons, etc. in our body, all this information is transferred to another place, where, using this information, they collect you again, but in a different place. This option is perhaps impossible due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: we will not be able to find out the exact location of electrons in an atom. However, this principle can be overcome due to an interesting property of two electrons: if two electrons initially vibrate in unison (this state is called coherent), then they are able to maintain wave synchronization even at a large distance from each other. Even if these electrons are light years away. If something happens to the first electron, then information about this will be immediately transmitted to the other electron. This phenomenon is called quantum entanglement. Taking advantage of this phenomenon, physicists over the past years have been able to teleport whole atoms of cesium, and soon they may be able to teleport DNA molecules and viruses. By the way, it was possible to prove the fundamental possibility of teleportation mathematically in 1993. scientists from IBM under the leadership of Charles Bennett. So they not only know how to make processors, if someone did not know:)Taking advantage of this phenomenon, physicists over the past years have been able to teleport whole atoms of cesium, and soon they may be able to teleport DNA molecules and viruses. By the way, it was possible to prove the fundamental possibility of teleportation mathematically in 1993. scientists from IBM under the leadership of Charles Bennett. So they not only know how to make processors, if someone did not know:)Taking advantage of this phenomenon, physicists over the past years have been able to teleport whole atoms of cesium, and soon they may be able to teleport DNA molecules and viruses. By the way, it was possible to prove the fundamental possibility of teleportation mathematically in 1993. scientists from IBM under the leadership of Charles Bennett. So they not only know how to make processors, if someone did not know:)
In 2004, physicists at the University of Vienna were able to teleport light particles at a distance of 600m under the Danube River via fiber-optic cable, thus setting a new distance record. In 2006, a macroscopic object was used for the first time in such experiments. Physicists from the Niels Bohr Institute and the Max Planck Institute managed to entangle a beam of light and a gas made up of cesium atoms. Many trillions of atoms participated in this event!
Unfortunately, using this method to teleport solid and relatively large objects is terribly inconvenient, so teleportation without entanglement is likely to develop faster. Let's analyze it below.
Teleportation without entanglement
Research in this area is rapidly gaining momentum. In 2007, an important discovery was made. Physicists have proposed a method of teleportation that does not require entanglement. After all, this is the most complex element of quantum teleportation, and if you manage not to use it, you will be able to avoid many related problems. So here's the gist of this method: Scientists take a beam of rubidium atoms, translate all of its information into a beam of light, send that beam down a fiber optic cable, and then recreate the original beam of atoms elsewhere. Responsible for this study, Dr. Aston Bradley, called this method classic teleportation.
But why is this method possible? It is possible due to the recently discovered state of matter "Bose-Einstein condensate", or KBE (In the image on the left, it is untwisted in an ellipsoid trap). It is one of the coldest substances in the entire universe. In nature, the lowest temperature can be found in space: 3 Kelvin, i.e. three degrees above absolute zero. This is due to the residual heat of the Big Bang, which still fills the universe. But CBE exists from one millionth to one billionth of a degree above absolute zero. This temperature can only be obtained in a laboratory.
When the substance is cooled to the state of CBE, all the atoms fall to the lowest energy level and begin to vibrate in unison (become coherent). The wave functions of all these atoms overlap, so in a sense, the CBE resembles a giant "superatom". The existence of this substance was predicted by Einstein and Schatiendranath Bose in 1925, but this condensate was discovered only in 1995 in the laboratories of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Colorado.
So, now let's consider the very principle of teleportation with the participation of KBE. First, a supercold substance is collected from rubidium atoms in the CBE state. Then ordinary rubidium atoms are sent to this BEC, the electrons of which also begin to fall to the lowest energy level, while emitting light quanta, which in turn are transmitted through the fiber optic cable. Moreover, this beam contains all the necessary information to describe the initial beam of matter. Having passed through the cable, the light beam enters another BEC, which turns it into the initial flow of matter.
Scientists find this method extremely promising, but there are problems of its own. For example, CBE is very difficult to obtain even in a laboratory.
Output
With all that has been achieved so far, can we say when we ourselves will receive this amazing ability? In the coming years, physicists hope to teleport complex molecules. After that, it will probably take several decades to develop a way to teleport DNA, or maybe some kind of virus. However, the technical challenges that will need to be overcome on the way to such an achievement are amazing. It is likely that many centuries will pass before we can teleport ordinary objects, if at all possible.
Material used: Michio Kaku "Physics of the Impossible"