Inside Quantum Technology

Quantum Teleportation & ‘Traditional’ Teleportation Are Two Very Different Things

(BigThink) Quantum teleportation and “traditional” teleportation are two very different things. There’s still no tech on the horizon for beaming ourselves anywhere. Which is not to say that quantum teleportation is not amazing in its own right. The quantum variety of teleportation involves entanglement; the other kind is even more problematic.
Quantum teleportation involves the measurement of the state of one entangled particle and the transfer of that state to an entangled partner, which then assumes that state. The latest developments have to do with extending the complexity of quantum teleportation via the development of “qutrits.” Where a qubit can collapse into a zero or a one, a qutrit can be a zero, one, or a two, thus radically expanding the complexity of information it can carry.
When Star Trek first brought old-fashioned, traditional teleportation into the popular lexicon in the 1960s, it wasn’t too clear what it actually was but there were two main possibilities: 1) the disassembly of a person’s molecules and atoms for instant transmission to somewhere else and reassembly; and 2) the transmission of a description of a traveler that would allow their reconstruction in a new location using atoms and molecules found there. This method would require a grisly bit of cleanup: The original object or person would have to be destroyed at the start of teleportation to avoid the existence of duplicates.

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