Unraveling the Quantum World: Quantum Teleportation, A Fact or Fiction?

This is the first in a series of "Unraveling the Quantum World" with simple introductions on Quantum Science & Technology. The other three are on Max Planck & His Constant, Schrodinger's Cat Thought Experiment and Quantum Cryptography.

Zircon: Oh yes, sir. Snotty beamed me twice last night. It was wonderful.

Skroob: All right, I'll take a shot at it. What the hell, it works on Star Trek.

-The phrase “𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑐𝑒” here meant teleportation, a catchphrase from 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑟 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑘 which was used as a command to be teleported back to the Starship Enterprise from a far-off location.

Using quantum entanglement, which happens when the characteristics of one quantum particle influence those of another particle that is located somewhere else, scientists and researchers have recently been able to transfer particles on the subatomic level. According to the National Science Foundation, this is made possible by a third particle that "instantaneously 'teleports' its state to the two entangled particles."

Yet, just because researchers have been able to transport subatomic particles doesn't always suggest that humans could do the same. In this situation, no actual information is being transmitted. Several experts think that teleporting a person may never be conceivable since it would probably require an enormous amount of data that is difficult to gather and repeat precisely. Human teleportation will thus remain a matter of science fiction and not a science fact.