Two Small Steps Closer to Star Trek...
If you hang around geeks often enough -- and no surprise, but I do, usually at gatherings involving blowing up rockets, or at least fireworks -- Star Trek gets mentioned at least a couple of times. All geeks, myself included, have a love-hate relationship with that show. And you've got to admit, the technology of that show is really cool: phasers ... warp drives ... cloaking devices ... teleporters ... micro-mini skirts.
Sadly, with the exception of micro-mini skirts, most of that technology is just pie-in-the-sky. But this week, two small (very small) steps were taken forward ... to boldly go where no man has gone before.
The Cloaking Device: Scientists have been able to "cloak" (make invisible) a copper cylinder, a la a "Romulan Cloaking Device" or Harry Potter's cloak, if you prefer that fantasy. The scientists are able to create an artificial mirage so that when you look at the cylinder, it's not there ... it's invisible.
Cloaking used special materials to deflect radar or light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream. It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.
I find this part interesting: "We did this work very quickly ... and that led to a cloak that is not optimal," said co-author David R. Smith, also of Duke. "We know how to make a much better one."
In this experiment the scientists used microwaves to try and detect the cylinder. Like light and radar waves, microwaves bounce off objects making them visible and creating a shadow, though it has to be detected with instruments.If you can hide something from microwaves, you can hide it from radar — and the potential of that will fascinate the military.
Teleportation: Okay, it's not really teleportation. But physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter, bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.
As the story says: "The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further."
Note, this quantum communication is a long way from transporting the 64,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 particles in the human body.
And it's not Star-Trek type teleportation anyway. It's more of a cheat. See, normally information is tranmitted from matter to light wave (energy) to light wave to matter. This process just skips one of the steps, going directly from light waves to matter.
It's really a boon for cyptographers -- people who encode information. Any attempt to measure a quantum state destroys it. Therefore, no one will be able to copy your information without ruining it.
It may also solve the "speed limit" of electrons. See, one of the problems that physicists wrestle with is the physical "speed limit" of electrons through a conductor or semi-conductor. Electrons are very fast. Near light speed, but not quite. And passing from one semi-conductor junction to another is an astronomical distance, from a quantum standpoint, for an electron. Nothing is faster than light.
This quantum method shortens distances and brings the transfer of pulses (if you can call speed, distances and pulses that at a quantum level) up to light speed and virtually no quantum distance at all. I think.
On Star Trek, they turn matter (human bodies) into energy, which somehow contains the information of an entire human body, and transmit it, then rebuild a new body on the other end. There's great episode of the New Outer Limits about this, by the way (is that geeky enough for ya?). What this Danish experiment proves is that we can teleport information (which is what the matter would be turned into) from light to matter.
Putting it another way, they have used light to make atoms in one location enter the same quantum state as atoms in another location. These two packages of atoms are then identical. They can keep moving apart, and they will stay identical. And what you do to one will happen to the other. Freaky, eh?
What does it all mean? Somewhere on the outskirts of Copenhagen there now lives a half-man/half fly.
Also, this may be the last link in the chain that SkyNet needs to take over the world (the previous link was Arnold Schwarzenegger being elected the Governator of California). The Terminator Revolution will be televised.
Just kidding there, folks.
Sadly, with the exception of micro-mini skirts, most of that technology is just pie-in-the-sky. But this week, two small (very small) steps were taken forward ... to boldly go where no man has gone before.
The Cloaking Device: Scientists have been able to "cloak" (make invisible) a copper cylinder, a la a "Romulan Cloaking Device" or Harry Potter's cloak, if you prefer that fantasy. The scientists are able to create an artificial mirage so that when you look at the cylinder, it's not there ... it's invisible.
Cloaking used special materials to deflect radar or light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream. It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.
I find this part interesting: "We did this work very quickly ... and that led to a cloak that is not optimal," said co-author David R. Smith, also of Duke. "We know how to make a much better one."
In this experiment the scientists used microwaves to try and detect the cylinder. Like light and radar waves, microwaves bounce off objects making them visible and creating a shadow, though it has to be detected with instruments.If you can hide something from microwaves, you can hide it from radar — and the potential of that will fascinate the military.
Teleportation: Okay, it's not really teleportation. But physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter, bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.
As the story says: "The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further."
Note, this quantum communication is a long way from transporting the 64,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 particles in the human body.
And it's not Star-Trek type teleportation anyway. It's more of a cheat. See, normally information is tranmitted from matter to light wave (energy) to light wave to matter. This process just skips one of the steps, going directly from light waves to matter.
It's really a boon for cyptographers -- people who encode information. Any attempt to measure a quantum state destroys it. Therefore, no one will be able to copy your information without ruining it.
It may also solve the "speed limit" of electrons. See, one of the problems that physicists wrestle with is the physical "speed limit" of electrons through a conductor or semi-conductor. Electrons are very fast. Near light speed, but not quite. And passing from one semi-conductor junction to another is an astronomical distance, from a quantum standpoint, for an electron. Nothing is faster than light.
This quantum method shortens distances and brings the transfer of pulses (if you can call speed, distances and pulses that at a quantum level) up to light speed and virtually no quantum distance at all. I think.
On Star Trek, they turn matter (human bodies) into energy, which somehow contains the information of an entire human body, and transmit it, then rebuild a new body on the other end. There's great episode of the New Outer Limits about this, by the way (is that geeky enough for ya?). What this Danish experiment proves is that we can teleport information (which is what the matter would be turned into) from light to matter.
Putting it another way, they have used light to make atoms in one location enter the same quantum state as atoms in another location. These two packages of atoms are then identical. They can keep moving apart, and they will stay identical. And what you do to one will happen to the other. Freaky, eh?
What does it all mean? Somewhere on the outskirts of Copenhagen there now lives a half-man/half fly.
Also, this may be the last link in the chain that SkyNet needs to take over the world (the previous link was Arnold Schwarzenegger being elected the Governator of California). The Terminator Revolution will be televised.
Just kidding there, folks.
Check out my new gold and energy blog at MoneyAndMarkets.com
posted by Sean Brodrick @ 10:09 PM
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