Quantum Internet
A team in China has taken a major step forward in developed a quantum internet. They have succeeded in using quantum teleportation on a macroscopic scale to more “data” from one atom to another over a distance of 150m. This is another step in the direction of using quantum entanglement for communication.
Now, I’m no physicist. so my understanding of this technique could be completely off base, but from what I think I understand, quantum entanglement would allow two things to communicate irrelevant of distance. So if two devices were linked via quantum entanglement, because a change in one causes a change in the other over any distance we’ve been able to test, this could potentially allow instant communication across light years. This would make the communication problems in Aristeia seem quaint.
It boggles the mind to think about. Two things being “entangled” and affecting each other without contact. I don’t know how much physicists understand about it, whether they understand why it does this or merely know that it does. It feels like magic to us unschooled.
3 Comments
Jason Kristopher · November 16, 2012 at 9:41 am
I’m sure you know this already, but Orson Scott Card used this development for communication in his Ender books. He got the idea from Ursula K. LeGuin.
Wayne · November 16, 2012 at 9:55 am
I thought I had read about it in some sci-fi book but couldn’t remember where. That’s it.
JediRabbit · November 16, 2012 at 4:54 pm
In the Ender books, he called it an ansible. The Mass Effect games specifically mention quantum entanglement as the way that some things are communicated, specifically Shepard/ SR2 and the Illusive Man.
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