Experiments generate quantum entanglement over optical fibres across three real cities, marking progress towards networks that could have revolutionary applications.

  • @DudeDudenson
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    487 months ago

    It pisses me off that they’re calling quantum data transmission quantum entanglement, it’s not the same thing and it’s misleading as fuck.

    Quantum entanglement is about two quantum particles sharing the same state which if implemented somehow would allow for universal communication with no time lag. Sending quantum state communication through fiber optic, while an achievement for distributed quantum computing, is not quantum entanglement!!

    • @fed0sine@lemm.ee
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      107 months ago

      Man, reading the title I thought quantum entanglement had finally arrived and I clicked that shit so fast 😂

    • VindictiveJudge
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      87 months ago

      Quantum entanglement communications also have fundamental problems that will likely render them effectively unusable. You need a key to decrypt anything you send, and the key has to travel no faster than c. It’s impossible to tell the data from the noise without the key. Attempting to read the data or to change the data being sent also collapses the effect, which can only be fixed by bringing the two systems together. In short, you can only send a single packet of data and you can’t use it without a key transmitted using traditional methods.

      • Toes♀
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        17 months ago

        Can that be scaled? c is still better than rotting cables.

        • VindictiveJudge
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          47 months ago

          The limit is c because you have to use cables, radio, or other traditional methods to send the key. The data in the entangled pair would also have to be set at the time the two devices are constructed, so that’s not super useful. It might be useful for single use authentication, but that’s about it.

          Don’t think of entanglement as being like one object in two spots. Think of it like identical twins. One twin getting a hair cut does nothing to the other twin’s hair. Similarly, altering a property of one entangled particle does nothing to the other and actually means they are no longer entangled or identical.

          • Toes♀
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            27 months ago

            Oh that’s really helpful thanks for the clarification

            • VindictiveJudge
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              27 months ago

              No problem. I was pretty disappointed when I learned all the sci-fi writers were getting it wrong. Though, to be fair, it really should be called something else.

              • Toes♀
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                37 months ago

                Yeah that’s exactly what I was comparing it too.

      • @DudeDudenson
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        17 months ago

        But artificial intelligence has always been a murky definition and we’ve been using it for similar stuff (emulating seemingly sentient behaviors) for decades