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Communicating faster than the speed of light!
ULTRAVIOLET light, along with all other forms of electromagnetic radiation comes in discrete energy packets called “photons.” The strangest property of a photon is its ability to communicate faster than its own speed, the speed of light. Much emphasis has been laid on the fact that this extraordinary particle has not been put to task the way it should have been, until now that is. In Austria, scientists claim that they can create so-called “entangled photon pairs” that can, without more ado influence one another no matter how far apart they are.
It is a fact that earth-bound data moves at the speed of light, about 300,000km/s. That can be considered fast but not fast enough to satisfy critical negotiations between impatient, hyper-intelligent beings from planets 30 light years apart. One may wonder as to why we will be having critical negotiations in the first place. The idea sounds like like science fiction. But we just might need some mode of communication in case crises strikes and far-flung inter-galactic Federation ambassadors need to impart information back and forth as fast as their diplomatic counterparts on Earth.
Take the Star Ship Enterprise’s computer, for instance, which by 2264 probably would be a quantum-mechanical wonder. It makes one think that futuristic communications satellites based on the same principles may one day move information instantly over vast distances, making a conversation across 30 light years seems like a phone call between London and Maldives.
By choosing the peculiar properties of Quanta-basic, sub-atomic units of mass and energy, quantum comsats could well “overcome the principle limitations of Earth-bound technology,” claims Markus Aspelmeyer, a physicist at the University of Vienna’s Institut für Experimental physic (Institute for Experimental Physics), in Austria.
The limitations are, “the narrow range of some 100km provided by optical fibre and terrestrial free-space links,” Aspelmeyer adds. “The use of satellites to distribute entangled photon pairs (and single photons) provides a unique solution for long-distance quantum-communication networks.”
So with that incredible thought, earthlings just might not need to bring to fruition the fantastic visions of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek: The Next Generation before setting up quantum satellites.
“Our work demonstrates for the first time, that experiments for entanglement-based quantum-communication schemes based on satellites are feasible with current technology,” Aspelmeyer claims.
It was said above that these so-called “entangled photon pairs” have the amazing ability to instantaneously influence one another no matter how far apart they are. It has been found that measuring the state of one member of the pair, for instance, automatically determines the other member’s state.
Quantum communications researchers want to utilize this paradoxical advantage in future generations of satellites.
It is also a known fact that photons, electrons and other subatomic particles exist in two supposed “spin states,” spin up and spin down, similar to left and rightward rotation. Quantum computation fundamentally swaps spin up and spin down for the zeroes and ones of the binary codes. Likewise, these two states are the quantum analogs of Morse code dots and dashes in quantum-communication schemes.
Measuring the spin state of one photon in an entangled pair instantly reveals the state of the other, spin up for the first instantly means spin down for the second, whether they are 30 metres apart or 30 light years separate. They can never exist in the same spin state at the same time.
By using satellites to separate entangled photons and taking advantage of their unusual properties may lead to long distance, faster-than-light-speed communication, Aspelmeyer claims.
“For performing quantum-communication experiments, the following minimum hardware is required,” Aspelmeyer says, “a transmitter terminal to generate and transmit the entangled particles and one or more receiver terminals suited for single-photon manipulation and detection.”
In a three-photon set-up, a researcher in the US might measure spin up or a Morse dot for the first photon, which means the satellite-bound photon, is spin down. A photon in France that is also entangled with the satellite bound group, then instantly reads spin up, a dot delivered faster than Morse or Einstein could have ever imagined.
“The use of entangled photons for quantum cryptography was shown experimentally by different groups for long distances using optical fibres,” University of Geneva’s physicist Ivan Marcikic declared. “By using satellites, this distance becomes several orders of magnitude longer. It is thus a new approach to increase the distance between two entangled photons.”
Aspelmeyer believes that scientists are working already on quantum-communication protocols over several kilometres. Extending those distances with satellites to create “communication networks that include several communicating parties on a global scale” is the primary long-term goal of Aspelmeyer’s research.
This first paper may be considered a successful viability study, explains Marcikic, whose own innovative work has itemised ways to increase the distance between entangled quantum particles.
“They have shown that by using standard quantum technologies it is feasible to perform quantum communication with satellites,” says Marcikic. However, “using entangled photons will demand a lot of technical effort to be implemented in space communication with satellites. Naturally, the resources for this purpose are extremely high.”
On the same ground the future of telecommunications may also hinge on a clever new version of a device from its past, claim physicists. They are of the idea that what the Bell telephone is to communication across town or overseas, the Bell telegraph may become to communication across the solar system or even the Milky Way. The Bell telegraph was named after a British physicist J.S. Bell.
“A device that transmits information faster than light speed has always been possible, at least in theory,” telecommunications engineering professor and former Bell Laboratories director Ira Jacobs claims.
Although Einstein’s special theory of relativity strictly forbids anything from traveling faster than the speed of light. A quantum mechanical Bell telegraph, however, may defy this prohibition with a twist.
Even this has to do with the spin states of photons as they would substitute for telegraphic dots and dashes. In theory, a Bell telegraph could send an instant signal from a particle on Earth entangled with a second particle on a planet, light years away, a special configuration called a “Bell state.”
Spin “up down up” measurements on the earthbound particle instantly become spin “down up down” readings on the distant particle. Assigning dots to “spin up” and dashes to “spin down” leads to a “dash dot dash” with another amazing twist, the dots and dashes appear instantly to a receiver, no matter how far away.
Both these concepts are very similar and provide earthlings with a platform to interact with beings several light years away from Earth. Thus what Gene Roddenberry conceptualized in the past just might become reality in the near future when we get a chance to interrelate with people or objects from our neighbouring planets in the solar system.
The writer contributes regularly to Dawn ScienceDotcom on science related issues.
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