First, they teleported photons, then atoms and ions. Now one physicist has worked out how to do it with energy, a technique that has profound implications for the future of physics.

In 1993, Charlie Bennett at IBM’s Watson Research Center in New York State and a few pals showed how to transmit quantum information from one point in space to another without traversing the intervening space.

The technique relies on the strange quantum phenomenon called entanglement, in which two particles share the same existence. This deep connection means that a measurement on one particle immediately influences the other, even though they are light-years apart. Bennett and company worked out how to exploit this to send information. (The influence between the particles may be immediate, but the process does not violate relativity because some informatiom has to be sent classically at the speed of light.) They called the technique teleportation.

That’s not really an overstatement of its potential. Since quantum particles are indistinguishable but for the information they carry, there is no need to transmit them themselves. A much simpler idea is to send the information they contain instead and ensure that there is a ready supply of particles at the other end to take on their identity. Since then, physicists have used these ideas to actually teleport photons, atoms, and ions. And it’s not too hard to imagine that molecules and perhaps even viruses could be teleported in the not-too-distant future.

But Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University in Japan has come up with a much more exotic idea. Why not use the same quantum principles to teleport energy?

Today, building on a number of papers published in the last year, Hotta outlines his idea and its implications. The process of teleportation involves making a measurement on each one an entangled pair of particles. He points out that the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system. He then shows that by carefully choosing the measurement to do on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy.

All this is possible because there are always quantum fluctuations in the energy of any particle. The teleportation process allows you to inject quantum energy at one point in the universe and then exploit quantum energy fluctuations to extract it from another point. Of course, the energy of the system as whole is unchanged.

He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton’s balls. Measuring the state of the first ion injects energy into the system in the form of a phonon, a quantum of oscillation. Hotta says that performing the right kind of measurement on the last ion extracts this energy. Since this can be done at the speed of light (in principle), the phonon doesn’t travel across the intermediate ions so there is no heating of these ions. The energy has been transmitted without traveling across the intervening space. That’s teleportation.

Just how we might exploit the ability to teleport energy isn’t clear yet. Post your suggestions in the comments section if you have any.

But the really exciting stuff is the implications this has for the foundations of physics. Hotta says that his approach gives physicists a way of exploring the relationship between quantum information and quantum energy for the first time.

There is a growing sense that the properties of the universe are best described not by the laws that govern matter but by the laws that govern information. This appears to be true for the quantum world, is certainly true for special relativity, and is currently being explored for general relativity. Having a way to handle energy on the same footing may help to draw these diverse strands together.

Interesting stuff. There’s no telling where this kind of thinking might lead.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1002.0200: Energy-Entanglement Relation for Quantum Energy Teleportation.

[via: technologyreview.com] ]]> http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/08/physicist-discovers-how-to-teleport-energy/feed/ 0 http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/08/telescope-in-new-search-of-extraterrestrial-life/ http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/08/telescope-in-new-search-of-extraterrestrial-life/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:52:13 +0000 fergusmcshane http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/?p=3113 Astronomers have developed a technique to probe the atmospheres of distant planets which could help to identify signs of extraterrestrial life.

Using a small telescope in Hawaii, the international team were able to detect the presence of methane in the atmosphere of a hot planet the size of Jupiter which is 63 light years away.

Dr Giovanna Tinetti, an astrophysicist at University College London, said: “The final goal is to observe the atmosphere of a planet with the capability to support life. We are not there yet, but the possibility to use ground-based telescopes in combination with space-based observatories will speed up the work of studying exoplanet atmospheres.”

On Earth, excluding anthropogenic emissions, the dominant source of methane is from anaerobic bacteria, which inhabit wetlands and oceanic sediments. The planet being studied, named HD 189733b, is too hot to be considered a candidate for life and the methane is likely to arise from radiation fields in the atmosphere. A goal will be to find ways to distinguish between the two sources of methane.

The first exta-solar planet was observed 15 years ago and since then about 400 others have been detected.

[via: timesonline.co.uk by Hannah Devlin]

Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University says the first microbes were deposited on Earth 3,800m years ago.

The astrobiologist has helped developed the panspermia theory which suggests an extra-terrestrial origin for life.

He argues for a cycle of life as microbes find their way into comets and “multiply and seed other planets”.

In the article, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, Monday, he argues humans and indeed all life on Earth is of alien origin, brought onto the planet by comets hitting the planet.

Prof Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University’s centre for astrobiology, says there is a cyclical transfer process of life from planet to planet.

He believes comets hit planets and push living organic matter out into space, some of which survives and in turn gets transferred to developing planetary systems over a timescale of millions and millions of years, seeding life on the newly formed planets.

He accepts this model still does not explain how life actually began in the first place, but says there is no hard evidence to support the theory that life only began in a “primordial soup” on Earth, or other places.

Over the past three decades research has shown that large swathes of the Milky Way are strewn with gigantic dust clouds full of organic molecules, which some people have argued shows life emerging independently from new in these clouds.

In his paper, he says recent interpretation of spectra readings from the organic molecules found in interstellar clouds has indicated that they are in fact the remains of bacteria which has been broken down, rather than being built up.

“Interstellar clouds appear to be the graveyard of life not its cradle,” he said.

“Each time a new planetary system forms a few surviving microbes find their way into comets. These then multiply and seed other planets,” he said.

He adds: “We are thus part of a connected chain of being that extends over a large volume of the cosmos. Evidence is pointing inexorably in this direction.”

The professor and his late colleague Sir Fred Hoyle championed the panspermia theory from the 1960s.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]

Most of the pictures are from Indonesia but there have been similar sighting in Moscow, Romania, Florida and elsewhere in 2009.

Possible theories circulating include aliens, secret military experiments or natural consequences of climate change.

In the film ‘Independence Day’, extraterrestrial spaceships hid behind odd round clouds. UFO expert and author Hartwig Hausdorf said: “This film idea is based on reports that we have from an uncountable number of eyewitnesses.”

Weather forecaster Karsten Brandt looked at the photos. Her opinion is that they are “not fakes but explainable natural phenomenon”.

In Indonesia a very high thundercloud could have been filmed in the sunlight, almost at the edge of the atmosphere.

The Moscow photos looked to him like two layers of clouds lying on top of one another, where the upper cloud was illuminated.

And in Romania he said that the air could have fallen into a circular shape around a middle layer of cloud, like a slow twirl.

And experts warn that competing radio transmissions could be confusing to aliens and are little more than space spam, AFP reported.

The messages – which include images of genitals and appeals for money – may even be deemed as a threat by aliens.

European Space Agency (ESA) astrophysicist Malcolm Fridlund advised caution about drawing attention to ourselves.

“I’m not lying awake at night worrying about the overlords of the galaxy or anything like that,” he told AFP, “but when you don’t know of anything that’s out there, you should maybe be a little careful, you should know something about the (star) system first.”

His comments echo those made at a conference on alien life at the Royal Society in London this week.

“A lot of the stuff is very responsible, but I do wonder about some of the other stuff that’s being transmitted,” Albert Harrison, a professor of social psychology at the University of California at Davis, said at the meeting.

“There’s pictures of celebrities, of two political candidates – one identified as good, the other identified as evil – snack-food commercials, love letters to rock stars and so on.”

He added: “When you start broadcasting and drawing attention to yourself, you have to be very cautious about the image you give. We might appear as a threat to them.

The thirst for contact with alien civilizations has a long history.

The US probes Pioneer 10 and 11, launched in 1972 and 1973, bear plaques of a naked man and woman and symbols seeking to convey the positions of the Earth and the Sun.

Voyager 1 and 2, launched in 1977 and now on the outer fringes of the Solar System, each carry a gold-plated copper phonogram disk with recordings of sounds and images on Earth.

But it will take around 40,000 years for Voyager 1, the most distant man-made object in space, to get anywhere close to a star.

Space enthusiasts have since discovered active SETI, which uses active powerful radio astronomy transmitters to beam out messages to interesting stars or extrasolar planets. The transmitters are operated by space agencies or institutions, which in some cases are paid for the service.

Messages range from the earnest and the philosophical to the cerebral, such as an “Interstellar Rosetta Stone” of symbols that give information about Earth and Homo sapiens.

The missives include the jokey: “Please send money. Any kind of money. Universal money is OK. Alien currency OK. Meteorites are good. Gold, Moon rocks, space junk also good. Send to: Maura, Planet Earth.”

And there is the political: an image of George W. Bush as the personification of evil, juxtaposed against Barack Obama as the embodiment of good, sent out by X-Files actress Gillian Anderson.

Any life forms at Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti, meanwhile, will receive recordings of the vaginal contractions of ballerinas with the Boston Ballet, a renegade 1980s art project aimed at giving the galaxy an idea of human conception.

Fridlund said that in the absence of any evidence so far that extraterrestrial life exists of any kind, active SETI may well be a waste of time – but still recommends a cautious approach to dealing with the unknown.

Those who share his concern include the British cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who suggests “we should keep our heads low,” given any possibility of encountering a hostile, technologically superior civilization.”

[via: dailytelegraph.com.au]

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