The SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY News Thread

[C.A.]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I'm not a physics major either, but I'm pretty sure that's not how entanglement works. Let's say - for simplicity's sake more than accuracy - that you have an entangled pair of Na and an entangled pair of Cl. One half of the pairs is at A, the other at B. You're at A, you want to make some table salt, so you stick the Na with the Cl. I'm pretty sure it won't make salt at B. For one thing, your manipulations to bring the Na and Cl together? Chances are it'll break the entanglement. For another, sticking two atoms together would be asking for more work than I think quantum entanglement is capable. (And what if instead of both being at B, one was at B and the other at C? Do you think they'd meet halfway?)

Yea, we're all not physicists lol, but any discussion of science is always good.

From what I understand and from the article I linked, it is stated that they can teleport atom to atom with perfect accuracy in information and their chance of success at this point is 90%.

This would mean that they are able to completely replicate every single property of a particle in an entanglement. If an atom is bonded, it would probably entangle with the information of the bond. In this case its possible to entangle whole molecules.

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

As you can deduct from the photon entanglement experiment, doing that imposes the same state onto both photons making them perfect copies at the moment of measuring one of them.
But if you would entangle say a Proton with a Neutron, how should that work out? How can one ever become a copy of the other/exist in the same state, as they are fundamentally different?

Entanglement always takes place between 2 particles of the same type, so you can't entangle a proton with neutron.

That's why Ithekro and I are saying we have an assorted storage or pile of particles ready to be entangled anytime into the object we want to 'teleport'.

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

I guess that makes modern art very 'geekish' in a way. Some guy experimenting and trying to find out what is possible, with a focus on the process of creation, not on the endproduct.

I can see why someone who is searching for a new painting to hang on his bedroom wall would not understand how this makes sense.

But some people just don't understand why you would go out of your way to create your own (often useless) gadgets, when you can get more refined ones on the shelves, either.

Well, art has always been a process of experimenting and self evaluating. Da Vinci for example, his work has always been trying to observe and understanding nature, at the same time trying to understand himself.

To quote him: "One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself."

And Van Gogh, famous for his Starry Night, he is actually obsessed with the colour blue, later some yellow, along with spirals.

Art is Form and Content, what the general audience normally sees is the Form, its aesthetics and shape, Content is why the artist did it and can be hard to identify. Alot of times artists are simply experimenting and challenging perspectives, it usually results in weirdness that makes people think art is rubbish. These usually are some kind of expression, obsession or self indulgence of the artist and only when they die do people understand the impact of their work.

And the pieces that usually sell are those with a nice Form and aesthetics, many times these pieces are made to earn some money to survive. Only when someone is an art enthusiast will they seek out the weird pieces with some kind of deeper context. Of course great masters could always create pieces with great form and content.

[Vena]

This thread is filled with the same misconception on entanglement that has permeated popular culture. It is not teleportation and the only information it transfers is a vague and usually useless detail about state.

Here is a simple way of looking at quantum entanglement:
I take two electrons, force them into alignment at spin down, and entangle them (A & B). I then separate them by a distance of thousands of kilometers. If I apply a magnetic field to electron A causing its spin to flip, say into down in the x-coordinate basis, then the electron B, some thousands of kilometers away, will also now be in the spin down state along the x-coordinate. You can upscale this to molecules, if you are god and have powers to override the ever more present chaos as you increase in complexity, but you are never making anything teleport nor are you transferring information (in the common sense of the word). I make changes appear on either end because entangled pairs remain identical. (These changes occur at thousands of times the speed of light.)

This is the very simple explanation for this. Currently, it is not believed that any information can be transmitted this way. (Naturally, matter cannot be transmitted in this way either.) And the only way to make this transfer *codes* that you can then turn into information at super-luminal speeds would require you to travel great distances first at less than super speeds, making the entire en devour relatively pointless and over such a long time that your quantum states would probably decohere or your particles decay. Effectively, what you could make, is a very complicated and fast telegraph but in order to use the telegraph to its maximum efficiency you must first walk it to Mars. The basis of the information holding meaning must first travel, as per GR rules, at less than the speed of light. (LHC neutrinos not withstanding.) (I'm of the impression that many people are confusing Quantum Teleportation with real Teleportation. Quantum Teleportation does not move the original target nor does it *create* a copy. It forces the entangled pair to take on the value of the original that was changed. This is what I said above, you can look it up on the wiki.)

Building anything out of this remotely would be nigh impossibly hard. I cannot just push molecules together and expect their distant counterparts to also come together because if it worked that way I would never have been able to separate the particles to begin with. You are also not transmitting the stimulating force (say my hand pushing) but only the end result on the state of the system. State changes aren't going to build you anything. It is chemical reactions or physical interactions that build things but that, in and of itself, may not force a state to change in anything more than its physical location. (And again, if physical location were that tied, I would never have been able to separate the particles. We're talking the teleportion of, generally, purely quantum mechanical variables such as spin, and so you cannot think of this classically. Spin does not generally build anything.)

As for time travel, all I've seen thus far is people discussing the Twin Paradox. This is not time travel, this is simply one twin accelerating/decelerating to/from incredible speeds, causing time-dilation to occur as per very basic Lorentzian and Special Relativity rules. There is no time travel in the sense that I'm going back to kill my grandfather (Grandfather Paradox) but just that one person is moving so fast that time has a different rate of change than for someone on Earth. This only goes one way for all of those involved and is not genuine time travel. If you want time travel then you have to face the issues of causality and of light cones (leading into the Grandfather's Paradox). This is not something I study regularly but I can look into it if people are interested.

Right, good. Physics.
And yes, I am Physics Graduate Student. (But I can get things wrong too!)

On an aside, I stopped believing in anything IBM dreamt up when they fell into the Hard AI pithole. Humans aren't special but a linear processor is even less so...

[Anh_Minh]

Thanks. That was a lot clearer and more definite than I was managing.

Originally Posted by Vena

This thread is filled with the same misconception on entanglement that has permeated popular culture. It is not teleportation and the only information it transfers is a vague and usually useless detail about state.

Here is a simple way of looking at quantum entanglement:
I take two electrons, force them into alignment at spin down, and entangle them (A & B). I then separate them by a distance of thousands of kilometers. If I apply a magnetic field to electron A causing its spin to flip, say into down in the x-coordinate basis, then the electron B, some thousands of kilometers away, will also now be in the spin down state along the x-coordinate. You can upscale this to molecules, if you are god and have powers to override the ever more present chaos as you increase in complexity, but you are never making anything teleport nor are you transferring information (in the common sense of the word). I make changes appear on either end because entangled pairs remain identical. (These changes occur at thousands of times the speed of light.)

This is the very simple explanation for this. Currently, it is not believed that any information can be transmitted this way.

Add two synchronous clocks, and you've just described a way to transmit a bit.

(Naturally, matter cannot be transmitted in this way either.) And the only way to make this transfer *codes* that you can then turn into information at super-luminal speeds would require you to travel great distances first at less than super speeds, making the entire en devour relatively pointless and over such a long time that your quantum states would probably decohere or your particles decay. Effectively, what you could make, is a very complicated and fast telegraph but in order to use the telegraph to its maximum efficiency you must first walk it to Mars. The basis of the information holding meaning must first travel, as per GR rules, at less than the speed of light. (LHC neutrinos not withstanding.) (I'm of the impression that many people are confusing Quantum Teleportation with real Teleportation. Quantum Teleportation does not move the original target nor does it *create* a copy. It forces the entangled pair to take on the value of the original that was changed. This is what I said above, you can look it up on the wiki.)

Even staying on Earth and traveling at relatively slow speeds, I can think of at least one use for a 0-lag, wireless transmission: remote surgery. I'm sure there are others, if we ever get enough bandwidth and data volume with it.

Building anything out of this remotely would be nigh impossibly hard. I cannot just push molecules together and expect their distant counterparts to also come together because if it worked that way I would never have been able to separate the particles to begin with. You are also not transmitting the stimulating force (say my hand pushing) but only the end result on the state of the system. State changes aren't going to build you anything. It is chemical reactions or physical interactions that build things but that, in and of itself, may not force a state to change in anything more than its physical location. (And again, if physical location were that tied, I would never have been able to separate the particles. We're talking the teleportion of, generally, purely quantum mechanical variables such as spin, and so you cannot think of this classically. Spin does not generally build anything.)

As for time travel, all I've seen thus far is people discussing the Twin Paradox. This is not time travel, this is simply one twin accelerating/decelerating to/from incredible speeds, causing time-dilation to occur as per very basic Lorentzian and Special Relativity rules. There is no time travel in the sense that I'm going back to kill my grandfather (Grandfather Paradox) but just that one person is moving so fast that time has a different rate of change than for someone on Earth. This only goes one way for all of those involved and is not genuine time travel. If you want time travel then you have to face the issues of causality and of light cones (leading into the Grandfather's Paradox). This is not something I study regularly but I can look into it if people are interested.

Well, yes. It was just a matter of stretching the definition of "time travel" far enough to say Heinlein was wrong. I don't think it's completely illegitimate, once you get to a point where the differences between the "twins" are really significant (not that I think we're anywhere close). Time travel doesn't have to be toward the past.

[Vena]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Add two synchronous clocks, and you've just described a way to transmit a bit.

Right, you can do this and this is a part of quantum computing. The limiting factor is the initial transportation of the key (giving the bit some sort of meaning) and the clocks. (And chaos, decoherence times... but those are too complicated for even the top scientists in the field at the time.)

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Even staying on Earth and traveling at relatively slow speeds, I can think of at least one use for a 0-lag, wireless transmission: remote surgery. I'm sure there are others, if we ever get enough bandwidth and data volume with it.

Quantum Computing, that which would use this sort of data relay, hasn't made much progress in the last several years. Its hit several painful road blocks in attempting to control effects on the quantum level. Currently it cannot actually do much of anything and, frankly, given the nature of QM I wouldn't want it doing surgery.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Well, yes. It was just a matter of stretching the definition of "time travel" far enough to say Heinlein was wrong. I don't think it's completely illegitimate, once you get to a point where the differences between the "twins" are really significant (not that I think we're anywhere close). Time travel doesn't have to be toward the past.

I consider time travel going forward/back but that's personal definition.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Vena

Quantum Computing, that which would use this sort of data relay, hasn't made much progress in the last several years. Its hit several painful road blocks in attempting to control effects on the quantum level. Currently it cannot actually do much of anything and, frankly, given the nature of QM I wouldn't want it doing surgery.

Why? Once we get sufficient bandwidth and data volume (assuming we ever do), there's no reason we can't make a transmission protocol that's as safe as anything else we have today, even if, say, there's a 25% error rate at the bit level.

[Dhomochevsky]

Quantum surgery.
You may be missing an organ, or maybe not. You won't know until you check.

[Vena]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Why? Once we get sufficient bandwidth and data volume (assuming we ever do), there's no reason we can't make a transmission protocol that's as safe as anything else we have today, even if, say, there's a 25% error rate at the bit level.

The issues with QC aren't really to do with bandwidth or data volume, but the very nature of the quantum world (then again, raising the complexity of a QC by orders of magnitude becomes orders of magnitude less likely to work or harder to make work). There is a lot of jumping through hoops to make even a single, very simple calculation within the limited decoherence time. We've got to first figure that out, then figure out how to make it suitable for a process as extensive and long as a surgery (like I said, its going to get very hard to make something this complicated).

That really has nothing to do with my not wanting a QM system doing surgery for any valid/scientific reasons though... It's really that, if you think about it, QM is driven by randomness and having it do something so delicate seems to be counter intuitive.

Ignore me.

[C.A.]

@Vena

Great to hear from an actual physicist, are you going to be an experimental or theoretical physicist? What is your area of research?

Do you think teleportation and time traveling will ever be possible?

We're in an era where the rate of scientific discovery is faster than ever before, with neutrinos that seem to travel faster than light and the Higgs boson on the verge of discovery, I think its a good time to explore the possibility of science fiction.

I always think that time traveling is exactly what it means, traveling through the dimension of time. If there's a difference in the amount of time experienced between two individuals, to me there is time traveling involved, though the amount of significance is another thing.

We already know that speed affects time and even gravity can distort time, these two are commonly brought up as possible solutions to time travel and can be worked out in mathematics. If one can time travel, they can also teleport since they will be moving around space-time in a non conventional way, appearing and disappearing abruptly.

[Vena]

Originally Posted by C.A.

@Vena

Great to hear from an actual physicist, are you going to be an experimental or theoretical physicist? What is your area of research?

Do you think teleportation and time traveling will ever be possible?

I work in experimental & theoretical Optical(Classical/Quantum)/Biological Physics (the two overlap extensively though I am considerably more of an optical physicist). Time traveling, if you define it by the ability to simply dilate time extensively, has been semi-possible for a long time but never brought to fruition. The little know Project Orion (specifically the section I linked in regards to space travel), can accomplish this with the use of thermonuclear propulsion. If you can achieve matter/anti-matter interactions in a large enough quantity to reach the 50% of c, you'd be experiencing pretty heavy time dilation (someone going at .5c will experience 0.85 amount of the time as someone at rest (assuming I can do math this early in the morning)). Remember, though, that this is technology from 60 years ago, imagine what we could do today if people actually cared about space anymore.

As for teleportation, it depends on your definition. Quantum Teleportation (read: not physical movement of something but a teleportation of a quantum mechanical state) has been possible for the last ten years. Physical teleportation is something I'm not too keen on as in I don't know enough to give a real opinion and/or evaluation. But, I'll give you this link on which you can CNTRL+F the word *impossible* to see what I think of *impossible*: Look up impossible.

Originally Posted by C.A.

We're in an era where the rate of scientific discovery is faster than ever before, with neutrinos that seem to travel faster than light and the Higgs boson on the verge of discovery, I think its a good time to explore the possibility of science fiction.

To be honest, this era of physics is more stifling than any other before. Good/novel/revolutionary ideas are lost in an archaic and flooded peer review system, and without good publicity (see: CERN neutrino claims, which was a publicity stunt to get the news out because otherwise it would have been buried because almost no one likes the idea of neutrinos breaking Einstein's Holy Grail and shredding parts of SR and GR that have for the last 50 years stood as definitive truths (I am not one of those people, the sooner we overturn Einstein's limits to our knowledge the sooner we can start to learn more than what our bias informs)) they would have a hard time ever seeing the light of day within a reasonable amount of time.

There's also no money in the field to explore much of anything sci-fi, a real shame. People don't give a damn about theoretical (or even experimental) physics when all they want is the next iPad or iPhone or iFlyswatter to distract them at every waking moment of their lives. (As an off hand example, our physics classes have been shrinking every year and, this year, is almost non existent.)

[MrTerrorist]

Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011

[Endless Soul]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011

That's a pretty neat list. Most I've heard about. Some I haven't.

Endless "Nanogenerator" Soul

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Vena

As for teleportation, it depends on your definition. Quantum Teleportation (read: not physical movement of something but a teleportation of a quantum mechanical state) has been possible for the last ten years. Physical teleportation is something I'm not too keen on as in I don't know enough to give a real opinion and/or evaluation. But, I'll give you this link on which you can CNTRL+F the word *impossible* to see what I think of *impossible*: Look up impossible.

... (As an off hand example, our physics classes have been shrinking every year and, this year, is almost non existent.)

There is the argument that 'a difference which makes no difference is no difference' with quantum teleportation. I'm not sure its answerable whether a conscious entity could be teleported at the quantum level - if you eliminate the original quantum state... have you just killed it? The new copy will have all the memories and attributes of the original.... (the ethics brigade can charge in now ).

But yeah... not just physics, ALL the sciences, mathematics, etc. are experiencing shrinkage. Part of the reason isn't disinterest so much as knowing the overlords aren't hiring for R&D, applications, etc. anywhere near as much as they used to. So, bust mental ass for 4-7 yrs, incur huge debt and end up with no job anyway (you're overqualified for flipping fries). That's if you want to stay in the US... I advise all science/engineering students to 1-have a passport 2- spend at least a semester or summer intern/research session overseas. 3- Know more than one language. 4-always read the job section in the back of Nature to see whats bustling on the entire planet.

[Vena]

Originally Posted by Vexx

There is the argument that 'a difference which makes no difference is no difference' with quantum teleportation. I'm not sure its answerable whether a conscious entity could be teleported at the quantum level - if you eliminate the original quantum state... have you just killed it? The new copy will have all the memories and attributes of the original.... (the ethics brigade can charge in now ).

This discussion delves deep into philosophy as current science cannot answer the questions about consciousness and the identity of *I*. There's physicalism, materialism, dualism, religious opinion, and even the idea that consciousness is a basic component of the universe that is as abstract in its origin as energy. (Where did energy come from? Where did consciousness come from? Similar questions. No real answer.) If you ask someone in AI, they'll tell you that a person is just a very (linear/parallel) advanced computer, those same people also told us (30 years ago) that we'd have Hard AI 20 years ago... so, for instance, I have a hard time believe them at this point. But, at the same time, calling consciousness a fundamental component of the universe also seems a little baffling. Does that make our brains antenna that simply tap into and trap X-amounts of consciousness and give it form? (Similar to turning a non-descriptive thing like energy into a distinct/descriptive thing like a ball of matter.)

If you want to look at the brain and consciousness through quantum mechanics (at the very least its clear that human brains are not simply classical, linear systems) then you run into No Cloning Theorem & Quantum Cloning. Unless these ideas change (or people and their identities turn out to be nothing more than very fancy PCs), I do not think you can pass on the original person at all but a snapshot of them at one single point in time (the point in time at which you make the observation to copy them), meaning you lose (as per quantum mechanics and uncertainty) all other information about the original person (specifically, their identity beyond a single instance in time*). This similarly precludes many of the ideas of "uploading" your brain/consciousness to computers talk that circles the internet.

*Think of it, if you will, as an electron traveling through spacetime without anyone observing it. It has undefined position and momentum and spin, these three terms (for simplicity) define the unknown state of the system of the electron. If I then went to make a clone of that state, I would first have to observe the electron forcing it to either occupy a position, losing all information about its momentum, and knowing its spin. I have lost 1/3 of all of the information about the electron, I know where it is but I have no idea where or how fast it was going somewhere and, once I clone it, I have no way of getting that information back. (Assuming that the electron cannot be its own observer just as much as a human cannot be his own observer beyond internal consistency.)
^Now upscale this to a system the size of a person. You take a snapshot of their mental state at some point in time. You've gained a bunch of information about them, let's call it their position, but you cannot reconstruct from that information their momentum (ie. how they will change). In fact, your original will change immediately after you take the snapshot but the snapshot that you clone will remain unchanging or (given an input) will change in an entirely different way. So in the end and through this very bastardized explanation through QM, you've create two entirely different people.

Originally Posted by Vexx

But yeah... not just physics, ALL the sciences, mathematics, etc. are experiencing shrinkage. Part of the reason isn't disinterest so much as knowing the overlords aren't hiring for R&D, applications, etc. anywhere near as much as they used to. So, bust mental ass for 4-7 yrs, incur huge debt and end up with no job anyway (you're overqualified for flipping fries). That's if you want to stay in the US... I advise all science/engineering students to 1-have a passport 2- spend at least a semester or summer intern/research session overseas. 3- Know more than one language. 4-always read the job section in the back of Nature to see whats bustling on the entire planet.

Physics, of all things, shouldn't be a field to follow for money or expecting a large salary.

I hope that made any sense...

[Vexx]

Actually, I knew all that (my background is in science/engineering) .... my post was meant to be rhetorical shorthand with the "the ethics brigade can charge in now " tagline. But nice post explicitly summarizing the issues.

Physics, of all things, shouldn't be a field to follow for money or expecting a large salary.

Its not so much *expecting* a decent salary (or a job at all), its that the US (in particular) is paying the price for severe under-support for the educational systems, sciences... and we're starting to see "brain drain" as a result of those few who *do* enter the fields. Pick up any jobs listing (e.g. Nature Magazine jobs) and most of the postings for the interesting stuff is overseas. Even if its a so-called US corporation doing R&D, they've offshored in many cases.

[Vena]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Actually, I knew all that (my background is in science/engineering) .... my post was meant to be rhetorical shorthand with the "the ethics brigade can charge in now " tagline. But nice post explicitly summarizing the issues.

Ahh, I missed that. Hopefully someone will enjoy reading it.

Originally Posted by Vexx

Its not so much *expecting* a decent salary (or a job at all), its that the US (in particular) is paying the price for severe under-support for the educational systems, sciences... and we're starting to see "brain drain" as a result of those few who *do* enter the fields. Pick up any jobs listing (e.g. Nature Magazine jobs) and most of the postings for the interesting stuff is overseas. Even if its a so-called US corporation doing R&D, they've offshored in many cases.

I see what you mean, and yes its true, sadly. The US is throwing away its future at this point with its nonsensical politics but what are you to do? The best colleges are still in the US, though, (aside from less than handful of good science schools outside of the US), but the jobs to be found are few and far in between where you either have to be lucky to join a start-up or hope that a professor retires/dies so that you can take their place.

[AnimeFan188]

"Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a prototype
wireless sensor that can be printed on paper or similar material using standard
inkjet technology. The device employs carbon nanotubes and can detect trace
amounts of ammonia, an important ingredient in explosives. The special “inks”
consist of silver nanoparticles in an emulsion that is printed at low temperatures.

Scientists also have been able to print antennas that are required to
communicate information from the sensor so nearby personnel can be alerted
when ammonia is detected. Their work is based on the same inkjet technique
that is used to produce radio frequency components, circuits and antennas."



See:

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...areforWar.aspx

[AnimeFan188]

"Japan has been developing a virus that could track down the source of a cyber
attack and neutralise its programme, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday."

See:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Ja...eport_999.html

[Dhomochevsky]

Oh great, it's gray hats all over again.
The idea of battling virus with counter virus is as old as the first computer virus itself. Certainly older than me.
And we have long before come to the conclusion, that it is a very bad idea.

How they got that funding is beyond me. Maybe this is supposed to be used in a war, where collateral damage is an afterthought?

[MrTerrorist]

Kinect and the Wii Help This Robot Pet a Cat

It's...it's like the entire internet, rolled up into a single story.

A software engineer by the name of Taylor Veltrop has managed to work out a way to get a Nao robot to react to his movements via both Kinect and a Wii Remote.

His setup also includes a treadmill and a head-mounted display: the display shows him what the robot can "see", the treadmill and Kinect propel the little guy while the Nao's arms are moved by both the Wii Remote and Kinect.

With the power of robotics at his fingertips, what does Veltrop do? He pets a cat.

Source

[Dhomochevsky]

Our cats would be terrified, but it is awesome.

Btw. is it wrong that I kinda expected him to remotely grab her boobs? Maybe it's just the engineer in me, thinking of the obviously best use for that besides scaring cats.