Article text since no one should be giving this drivel pageviews…

A breakthrough in quantum physics could pave the way to achieving a quantum Internet.

Noa Leach Published: December 20, 2024 at 4:00 pm

In a breakthrough for human communication, scientists have achieved the impossible: quantum teleportation. But before you shout “Beam me up, Scotty,” this new technology is not designed for teleporting people or things, but information.

Specifically, scientists have worked out how to teleport information almost instantly and over any distance – without needing any future technology. Instead, they think they can make quantum teleportation possible through existing networks.

“This is incredibly exciting because nobody thought it was possible,” said Prof Prem Kumar of Northwestern University in the US, who led the study.

“Our work shows a path towards next-generation quantum and classical networks sharing a unified fibre optic infrastructure. Basically, it opens the door to pushing quantum communications to the next level.”

Optical communications, meaning any communication method that converts signals into light to transmit information, are central to most telecommunications systems (fibre optics are a type of optical communication).

Published in the journal Optica, the new research proposes that the breakthrough could make these communications super secure and nearly instantaneous – limited only by the speed of light. ‘Like a bicycle on a busy highway’

So how does it work? Quantum teleportation relies on a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, where two particles are linked regardless of how far apart they are, and don’t need to physically travel to exchange information.

While classical communications are made of millions of light particles, quantum communications only use pairs of single photons (light particles). Previously, researchers thought these individual photons wouldn’t be able to make it through the busy highway of classical communication particles – like a wobbly bicycle trying to weave around massive trucks in an underground tunnel.

But the Northwestern team, funded by the US Department of Energy, found a way to guide the delicate photons through. First, they studied how light scatters within fibre optic cables. Light consists of various wavelengths, and the team identified a specific wavelength that faces less interference from other signals, making it easier for photons to pass through. They placed the photon on this wavelength, and also added special filters to reduce noise from regular Internet traffic.

To test this, they then set up a 30km (18.6 mile)-long fibre optic cable with a photon at either end and then sent both regular Internet traffic and quantum information through it.

To their surprise, the test was successful: despite the busy Internet traffic whizzing through at the same time, the quality of quantum information at the receiving end was good. A huge breakthrough

“With 2025 designated by the UN as the International Year of Quantum Technology, this research is very timely,” Prof Jim Al-Khalili, who was not involved in the study, told BBC Science Focus.

“Quantum teleportation has been demonstrated before, but only under very careful laboratory conditions. The problem is that quantum-entangled particles used to teleport information quickly become entangled with everything else along their path.

“The entirety of telecommunications technology (and indeed the internet) relies on transmitting light (photons) through optical fibres. This work is the first demonstration of quantum teleportation of entangled photons through busy optical fibres carrying conventional telecommunications traffic.”

But why is it so important that this teleportation works over conventional networks? Surely the whole point of teleportation is that you don’t need cables. True – but this breakthrough takes away the need for new infrastructure, bringing its use in our daily lives considerably closer.

“Many people have long assumed that nobody would build specialised infrastructure to send particles of light,” Kumar said. “If we choose the wavelengths properly, we won’t have to build new infrastructure. Classical communications and quantum communications can coexist.”

Al-Khalili added: “Being able to make use of quantum teleportation in our existing infrastructure of optical fibre networks would be a huge breakthrough in achieving quantum networks. It will have many applications, from quantum cryptography and quantum sensing to quantum computing, and potentially even a new quantum Internet.”

Next, Kumar plans to test quantum teleportation over longer distances, as well as trying two pairs of entangled photons rather than one. This would achieve another milestone in quantum teleportation: entanglement swapping – when two particles that have never interacted before become entangled – which is important for improving the quality and security of a transmission.

After that, the team will test everything in real-life inground cables – the last step before it can become fully integrated into our communications networks.

About our expert

Jim Al-Khalili CBE FRS is a theoretical physicist who is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Physics at the University of Surrey. He also presents The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4 and has written numerous books, including The Joy of Science, The World According to Physics and Sunfall.

It’s not teleportation, it’s clickbait nonsense

The first two that spring to mind that committed acts of terrorism had at least some “logic”. Anders Berivik attacked government building and a political youth camp to punish the Labour Party which he blamed for immigration. Thomas Meir killed Jo Cox because she was pro immigration. Etc. I’m struggling to think of an act of right wing terrorism as nonsensical as what’s just happened in Germany…

In a while bot denial

It does seem strange a refugee from Saudi would suddenly be so passionately pro German he kills innocent people to… protect them from Islam. I mean… maybe? If it turned out to be a false flag that would also be strange. Weird and tragic either way tbh…

Specifically, scientists have worked out how to teleport information almost instantly and over any distance – without needing any future technology

Either this is a world changing discovery that breaks everything that I’m hearing about only in… checks… the BBC Science Magazine

Or… it’s complete wank clickbait nonsense

OH WHICH IS IT GOING TO BE?!

I’ve got to say, even Islamic terrorism makes more sense as an ideology than whatever this guy is on about… Terrorising your fellow citizens else Islam will get them. How does that even make sense?

“liberal democracy wrings its hands”. Liberal democracy does not take seriously the fact that a lot of its population prefer either far far slower cultural integration or a more homogenous culture. Or both.

The rise of Christian nationalist terrorism is the result.

Global trade is preferred by capitalists, governments and urban elites. So the struggle takes on a class quality. It’s the working class who place a different degree of value on what they perceived to be their culture. And it’s the working class that tend to be on the receiving end of immigrations less pleasant side effects.

(That’s not meant to imply immigration is a bad thing, I don’t think it is, done properly)

The result is the resurgence of fascism.

I don’t think there should be! At all. Also, fuck the Chinese government.

I’m just pedantically interested in exactly how the law works in that area.

For example, you characterise it as “infringing on a nations sovereignty”. But as far as I know nothing this guy was doing was affecting the rights of American citizens. That might just be the shortcomings of the article, which is why I said I assume there was more to it. I assume he was up to bad stuff. And acting like a gangster on behalf of another government is plainly wrong. It’s just that the article says he wasn’t physically intimidating anyone. Nor does it mention he’s sharing state secrets or personal info (from, say, a government job). Apparently he was passing publicly available information to the Chinese government and I was just surprised that that crossed a line.

Legally speaking there would have to be some ill intent (and perhaps that’s what all his communications show) because sending public info abroad in itself doesn’t strike me as illegal. (If someone were, say, sending info to the British government it doesn’t seem it would be automatically illegal. I assume there was some evidence that he was planning for harm to come from what he was doing)

“a bit flabby and immensely strong”

“bear like hulk”

“a portly frame composed mostly of muscle”

“round and devastatingly strong”

“It’s not your fault” - Good Will Hunting

The West absolutely has a fascist white Christian terrorist problem, that doesn’t change anything I said

You’re right, Taleb A. from Saudi Arabia sounds like your regular run of the mill European cultural christian…

Library democracy wrings its hands and lets extremist ideologies fester, both through being too weak and placating to act at home and too weak to rein in abuses against Muslim nations abroad. The result is fascism in one form or another is elected to cut out the cancer. Sadly this is often done by cutting deep into the moderate communities tangentially related to terrorist extremists. Ugly the whole thing.

16th October: international draw Muhammad day

Thank you. Sadly people seem increasingly unable to cope with the fact that someone they disagree with is not a troll just a regular person trying to figure things out. I blame twitter… reddit too… all of them actually. It’s worse by an order of magnitude than 10 / 15 years ago.

But it’s the “with intention to cause you damages” bit that makes it illegal (I believe).

Saying you saw so-and-so down at the shops is obviously not illegal. Saying that to their ex-partner so they go and beat them up is. (Even then a prosecutor would have to prove you incited or intend harm to come, just the sharing of info itself isn’t a crime per se)

That’s what I wasn’t understanding from the article. Are there very specific limits on first amendment so that what would ordinarily be communication of public information becomes illegal just because the recipient is a foreign government. Or was it illegal because the public information was shared with the known intent of causing physical harm.

The article sounded like the former, which surprised me. I think the latter is probably the actual circumstances though I could be wrong.

That would be hilarious

I live in some hope that he renames his holding company “XCOM” so that it can join the likes of Skynet in making our childhoods real…

Being facetious is being not serious about something, or just to being trivial. I’m doing the opposite, trying to specifically understand how the law works. I was surprised that communicating public information elsewhere could be illegal. No-one’s cited the law so far on specifically how this guy passing information was illegal. Like I said, if he was going around bullying and intimidating like a mobster it would be perfectly understandable. I was just surprised that this is apparently a limit on the first amendment because it didn’t seem clear exactly where the line is.

Thanks, that makes some things a lot clearer.

But just play along with me for a second…

We’re in court and that law gets cited and the defence attorney says "surveillance was happening, yes, but that in itself wasn’t illegal. In order to break that particular law one has to prove it was being done with the intention that it result in “a well founded fear of death or serious bodily injury”'. And where is the proof that was the intention or the result?

So if this guy’s going around like a mobster on behalf of the Chinese government and threatening people on their doorstep I’d get it.

But, reading the law closely, just sending information to another country does not, in itself, seem to be illegal. That’s why I was making the point about free speech. The first amendment is literally about communicating legal information freely without persecution from the government, even if that’s with people the government doesn’t like.

I’m not saying the guy didn’t do anything wrong, I just mean I assume there’s more to it than the article is describing…