Pentagon in QuEST for quantum-teleport spooky IT
Well, some crypto-cracking hardware anyway
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US military boffinry bureau DARPA*, which sees the bleeding edge as a blunt instrument, is getting into quantum effects. The Pentagon mad-science profs have offered government funding for researchers who can help them obtain Quantum Entanglement Science and Technology (QuEST).
Initially, the DARPA chaps are fairly non-specific about what they actually want at the end of the quest for QuEST. They merely say the aim is to "investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in the fundamental understanding of quantum information science".
Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which properties of two different atoms can be linked together despite the atoms being separated. In theory it doesn't matter how widely separated: one atom could be on Earth, and the other at Jupiter, or even light years away. The properties of the two will still be related instantaneously.
This can give rise to so-called "quantum teleportation", or - as Einstein put it - "spooky action at a distance", in which effects and correlations can occur at once between entangled atoms.
These rather promising phrases would seem to suggest that DARPA is after some kind of matter transmitter teleportation device - or at the very least a theory-shattering instantaneous communications link. In fact, entanglement theory calls for a normal, sub-light speed communication as well as the miracle quantum one; so this seems unlikely.
That said, one should never underestimate the wackiness of thought processes at DARPA. The body that funded the man cannon is quite capable of embarking on at least a small search for StarGate type instellar portal technology, no matter that the theory doesn't seem to offer any potential for it.
In fact, however, the likelihood is more that DARPA is thinking of so-called "quantum computing", which is reckoned by some boffins to offer ways of cracking hitherto unbreakable crypto. The Pentagon scientists emphasise that they're mainly interested in IT systems which might be good to go in the foreseeable future:
Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in the fundamental understanding of quantum information science related to "small" quantum systems. In this context, "small" refers to quantum systems with minimal quantum resources (e.g. number of coherent qubits, entanglement, quantum memory, etc). Results of such research are expected to lead to revolutionary advances in quantum information science and technology.
That sounds more like a crypto-smasher quanto-puter to us, rather than an interstellar portal or instantaneous subether radio. Disappointingly enough.
Read the full announcement here (pdf).®
*Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency
COMMENTS
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
The post above by Greg Fleming is erroneous. No one suggets that by measuring, or attempting to measure, the position of atomic or sub-atomic particles, that their position "magically" changes. Very simply, the "light" (electromagnetic radiation) used to view the particles actually pushes the particles out of position. For him to refer to this simple fact of physics as a "well-trotted out explanation" is petulant and preposterous.
Furthermore, this is not a quantum effect of any kind. It is simply action-reaction.
I don't know what "phenomenon" Mr Fleming refers to as "spooky action at a distance." That is not a scientific reference with which I am familiar.
Quantum entanglement has nothing to do with one particle "acting" upon its twin partner. It is, rather, our observation that twin particles are communicant instantaneously and certainly hyperluminally.
The "Planck effect" is not relevant to quantum physics. It is based upon newtonian/einsteinian physics which are not relevant to the consideration and evaluation of quantum phenomena.
Mr. Fleming suggest a species evolution is required before we can "grasp the granularity" of quantum physics. He advances his belief that "we" have no "mind or senses", nor "language" capable of "treating these phenomena objectively."
I suggest that anyone keen on this subject read Fritjof Capra's excellent book, written many years ago, "The Dao of Physics". It discusses quantum physics elegantly and succinctly.
Perhaps Mr. Capra, that book's author, is of a more advanced species.
The Yin of Faith is the Yang of Science ......?
"I have such FAITH in science that I am vulnerable to disillusionment in the name of orthodoXy." ..... By george abney Posted Tuesday 1st April 2008 08:21 GMT
Golly Gosh, george, that is no vulnerability to disillusionment, it is an executable for enlightenment ...... although undeniably XXXXCentric/far from orthodoXy.
'infallible' cipher key generation - over copper
Crypto or anyone - familiar with Unkenholz's cipher generation scheme?
Three copper wires, say black, blue, red, connect the remote terminals; the two operators randomly and independently connect either the blue wire to the black or the black to the red. Where the operators' choices DO NOT COINCIDE the three wires forma a single open-ended conductor - there's no circuit, no energy transmission, and they can each add a secure bit to their cipher key.
I can't find anything about it onlinle dated after around 1984
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