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Sunday, February 08, 2009

Scientists teleport matter across a meter distance!

(Okay, for us stubborn Americans we're inclined to say "yard" instead of "meter" but since this is dealing with physics I'm going to use the metric system out of principle!)

Teleportation of matter has been achieved over a distance of one meter, scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute of the University of Maryland along with colleagues at the University of Michigan have announced. 'Course, the matter in question was a single atom, but to transmit the information of its quantum state from one location to another - via that spooky "entangling" thingy - is still a huge milestone to have achieved. And if you read the Fox News story, it does sound suspiciously like the "beaming" used in the Star Trek franchise, right down to the "Heisenberg Compensators".

But if I were an editor on the Fox News website, I would have chosen a better picture to accompany this story...

...they actually used a still of the "transporter malfunction" scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture - the most violent teleportation accident ever depicted on screen - to go with the article.

That is not a particularly encouraging juxtaposition :-P

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, Chris, that shot is from when Admiral Kirk beams over to the orbital station to tour the exterior of the Enterprise with Scotty.

Chris Knight said...

Drew, I like you a lot... but that you would know that, worries me :-P

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but I'm a huge Trekkie, and I've watched TMP tons of times when I was little. And I can tell that that is William Shatner.