Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
eWEEK.com
Search
eWEEK.com
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Cybersecurity
    • Cybersecurity

    Scientists Demonstrate Long Distance Quantum Communication

    By
    WAYNE RASH
    -
    September 24, 2016
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      Quantum Encryption 2

      The theory of quantum entanglement has been around for over half a century, but until recently this very strange property of some subatomic particles has been difficult to prove. Now experiments are showing it’s a very real phenomenon.

      Quantum entanglement is a property that allows those particles to share characteristics, so that when they’re put into close proximity, they become indistinguishable. Two or more particles can become entangled, so that when scientists measure the state of one particle, other particles appear to exhibit the same state.

      When talking about the state of some particle, that means determining some characteristic such as the spin of the particle. Because of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle, you can never know all of the characteristics of a particle, such as its speed and location.

      If you measure its speed, you can’t measure its location and vice versa. But once you measure one characteristic of one particle, the uncertainty of the others collapses and they display the same characteristic.

      What’s important is that change from uncertainty to knowing a specific state of the particle happens instantaneously, without regard to distance. This means that if you were to separate the particles by sending one to Pluto while keeping the other on Earth, the change in state would be detected instantly instead of taking the average 4.5 hours it takes a signal to reach the planet at the speed of light.

      The idea that information could be transmitted faster than the speed of light deeply troubled physicist Albert Einstein, who famously labeled it as “spooky action at a distance.” But in reality, the communication between the entangled particles apparently takes place outside of the bounds of normal time and space as we experience them.

      So does this mean that we’re suddenly able to carry on faster-than-light communications, like the ones you see in movies such as Star Trek? Not exactly. This is because you first must physically take one of the entangled particles to the remote location before the communication can take place.

      Then while the state change of the particle may be instantaneous, you can’t transmit much data. Effectively, you can think of each particle as holding one bit of information, and you must entangle each of them.

      Experiments confirming the ability to transmit information using quantum entanglement were carried out in August in Calgary, Alberta, and Heifi, China. The results were published on Sept. 20, in Nature Photonics here and here. These experiments were successful, but limited. The Chinese team was more successful and was able to transmit 17 entangled photons over a distance of several miles.

      An earlier experiment in the Canary Islands was able to transmit entangled photons over a longer distance of about 80 miles using lasers.

      Scientists Demonstrate Long Distance Quantum Communication

      The August experiments both used fiber optic cables to transmit the entangled photons, solving the problem of how to get them to the remote location. In addition, the researchers were able to test another property of those entangled particles, which is that they can provide powerful, perhaps uncrackable encryption. This is because when the entanglement takes place, it generates what is effectively a key, and the key must be transmitted to the remote site before the results can be read.

      While it’s possible to intercept the entangled particle, doing so without the key is useless. In addition, even if you send the intercepted particle on its way to its intended recipient, the fact that its state was observed cannot be concealed. Ultimately, the recipient will know that the particle was intercepted, revealing the hack attempt.

      While all of this may seem far-fetched, it’s not. The concept of quantum communications is in its early infancy. But it’s promising enough that the Chinese government has already launched its first satellite designed to test whether the signals it transmits cannot be hacked and to test other properties of quantum communications in space. It will be no problem to use that satellite to determine for sure whether faster than light communications are possible.

      Other work needs to be done before the full capabilities of quantum communications can be determined and then turned into real uses. Among other things, the scientists working on the communications problem are also trying to see if there are limits to distances, and how long an entangled particle can be preserved before it’s used.

      Right now the particles are being sent over lengths of fiber that are identical, so that they will appear at the other end at exactly the same time.

      What’s not known is whether this precision is really necessary to send an encryption key to the other end to determine the state of the entangled particle and whether there are other factors that will affect how the entanglement works.

      If some or all of those limitations can be overcome, then quantum communications could revolutionize communications as we know it. Right now, most scientists will say that some limits, such as the need to send a key, cannot be overcome. But as I said, it’s still early and it wasn’t very long ago when this whole area of study was dismissed as impossible.

      The use of quantum encryption is most likely to become available in the near term because it’s effectively become an engineering problem, not a problem of theoretical physics. Beyond that, more research is necessary. Nobody knows how to do it just yet, but researchers are working on the problems.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      CHRIS PREIMESBERGER - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      CHRIS PREIMESBERGER - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      EWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      ZEUS KERRAVALA - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      WAYNE RASH - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Info

      © 2020 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×