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From: XianneKei <XianneKei@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 15:12:44 EST
Fwd Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 23:50:00 -0500
Subject: Science Achieve Star Trekish Feat

Science Achieve Star Trekish Feat

c The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - Scientists have pulled off a startling trick that
looks like the ``Beam-me-up-Scotty'' technology of science
fiction.

In an Austrian laboratory, scientists destroyed bits of light in
one place and made perfect replicas appear about three feet away.

They did that by transferring information about a crucial
physical characteristic of the original light bits, called
photons. The information was picked up by other photons, which
took on that characteristic and so became replicas of the
originals.

The phenomenon that made it happen is so bizarre that even Albert
Einstein didn't believe in it. He called it spooky.

In addition to raising the rather fantastic notion of a new means
of transportation, the trick could lead to ultra-fast computers.

The experiment is reported in Thursday's issue of the journal
Nature by Anton Zeilinger and colleagues at the University of
Innsbruck in Austria. Another research team, based in Rome, has
done similar work and submitted its report to another journal.

The work is the first to demonstrate ``quantum teleportation,'' a
bizarre shifting of physical characteristics between nature's
tiniest particles, no matter how far apart they are.

Scientists might be able to achieve teleportation between atoms
within a few years and molecules within a decade or so, Zeilinger
said.

The underlying principle is fundamentally different from the
``Star Trek'' process of beaming people around, but could
teleportation be used on people? Could scientists extract
information from every tiny particle in a person, transfer it to
a bunch of particles elsewhere, and assemble those particles into
an exact replica of the person?

There's no theoretical problem with that, several experts said.
But get real.

``I think it's quite clear that anything approximating
teleportation of complex living beings, even bacteria, is so far
away technologically that it's not really worth thinking about
it,'' said IBM physicist Charles H. Bennett. He and other
physicists proposed quantum teleportation in 1993.

There would just be too much information to assemble and
transmit, he and others said. Even if it were possible someday,
it would be so expensive that ``probably it's just as cheap to
send the real person,'' said Benjamin Schumacher of Kenyon
College in Gambier, Ohio.

Besides, Schumacher said, teleportation would ``kill you and take
you apart atom by atom so you could be reassembled at the other
end, one hopes. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me.''

Much more likely, experts said, is using teleportation between
tiny particles to set up quantum computers. These devices would
use teleportation to sling data around, and they could solve
certain complex problems much faster than today's machines.

In the new work, scientists transferred the trait of
``polarization'' between photons. Light behaves like both a
photon particle and as a wave. A light wave has peaks and troughs
like an ocean wave, and polarization refers to the directions in
which these peaks and troughs point. Photons retain this trait.

To transfer the polarization between photons, the researchers
used a phenomenon called entanglement, which a disbelieving
Einstein derided. Since then, however, it's been shown to be
real.

When two photons are entangled, ``they have opposite luck,'' said
IBM's Bennett. Whatever happens to one is the opposite of what
happens to the other. In particular, their polarizations are the
opposite of each other.

Here's how the Austrians took advantage of that:

Call three photons A, B and C, and assume the goal is to transmit
A's polarization to C. The researchers created B and C as
entangled photons. Then they entangled B with A.

That second step destroyed A, but not before B took on the
opposite of A's original state. This change meant B's entangled
partner, C, had to change polarization to remain the opposite of
B's. So C's polarization ended up the same as A's used to be. The
polarization was transmitted.

The process worked only 25 percent of the time because of how the
experiment was set up. It's possible to go to 75 percent and
scientists will shoot for that, Zeilinger said.

If the notion of entanglement leaves your head spinning, don't
feel bad. Zeilinger said he doesn't understand how it works
either.

``And you can quote me on that,'' he said.

AP-NY-12-10-97 1401EST