Quantum computing just got one step closer. Well, actually just about 20 miles closer, but the point stands.
A group of researchers in Germany published a new study earlier this week in the journal Nature. The team described how they broke the distance record for entangling two atoms that were 20.5 miles apart, meaning that one of the biggest requirements for quantum computing and safe data transfer is just a little more concrete.
Quantum entangled atoms are pretty special. They create a kind of communication or transfer ability that happens instantaneously — faster than light. While scientists understand quantum mechanics we haven’t yet put it to every use we can. Quantum entangled atoms allow you to measure the state of one and automatically know how the other is doing no matter how far apart they are, so the latest development means faster information transfer times and higher computing security could be coming soon.
“What is special about our experiment is that we really do entangle two stationary particles, i.e. atoms that act as quantum memories,” study co-author Tim van Leent said in a press statement the Ludwig Maximilian University published Thursday. “This is much more difficult than entanglement of photons, but it opens up many more possible applications.”
Only decades ago, Albert Einstein maintained that quantum mechanics was more like “spooky action at a distance,” and said that theoretically it would mean two objects could affect each other’s states or behavior instantly across immeasurable distance.
In the 1970s, two researchers published a book called the “Secret Life of Plants” that claimed plants react to human compassion and care (such as fertilization and watering) through electric pulses. They said that with enough of a connection, a plant would emit those same pulses when “their” human was in trouble or excited, even when miles and miles away.
The experiments were controversial, but they could’ve been just another stepping stone we may have missed along the way on our journey to making quantum computing a reality. Were the plants and humans just somehow quantum entangled?
Studies like the one published this week may actually put some of Einstein’s, and other researcher’s, theories to rights at long last.
More on hard science: Large Hadron Collider Discovers Strange New Particles
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