By Patricia Daukantas

Time magazine is announcing to the world this week: “Teleportation is real.” The type of teleportation it’s talking about, though, isn’t likely to satisfy folks who dream of “beaming up” to other worlds.

Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (University of Maryland, University of Michigan) managed to teleport information between two ionized ytterbium atoms – separated by a full 1 m of distance – through their entanglement with photons.

The team’s report appeared in the January 23^rd issue of Science, and subscribers to that journal can find the full report here. Other scientists, unaffiliated with the Maryland-Michigan team, put the teleportation experiment in its larger context (also for Science subscribers).

Quantum-computing technology is difficult for some people to wrap their heads around, but it could have a real impact someday on data encryption and ever-tinier computers. It’s encouraging when the subject makes its way out of the technical journals and into the mainstream media.

2009-01 January