[Blunderov]
>From "The Star" Johannesburg 25/06/2002
<snip>
StarTrek could become real
By Shaun Smillie
"Beam me up Scotty" could one day be a reality according to a team of
physicists at the Australian National University who last week announced
that they had successfully teleported light. Project Leader Dr Ping Koy
Lam said that he and his team had successfully "disembodied" a laser
beam and had "rebuilt" at a different location, a metre away.
Lam believes that teleporting solid matter from one location to another
could be a reality in the next five years. But don't sell your car yet,
it will be a while before humans are teleported, according to Lam it
will likely at first be a single atom.
The problem with humans, says Lam, is that they are made up of zillions
of atoms.
On the Science Fiction television series, Star Trek teleportation was a
mode of transport
where humans were vaporised and then rematerialised elsewhere. Lam
believes that it will
be "light years" before humans will be able to take advantage of
teleportation travel. Star Trek fans may be disappointed, but
teleportation does open up possibilities for super fast communications
systems such as quantum computers which will have enormous memories and
will be able to solve problems millions of times faster than
conventional computers.
Lam's research involved teleporting the laser beam through a process
known as quantum entanglement.
Teleportation research currently is the rage amongst physicists, at the
moment over 40 different laboratories involved in research since the
1990's.
<snap>
Maybe a quantum computer could perform the necessary calculations for
humans to teleport?
Warm regards
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