Yup. But you aren't really going to use the "ooh scary big numbers" and "but it's haaaard!" argument, are you? If the last 30 years have taught us anything, it is that big numbers become very small numbers very quickly, and "hard things" are actually easy when you don't get your knickers in a twist and just do the math. (See: Elon Musk.) Sure, I'm being hyperbolic about teleporting a person to Alpha Centauri. But if you read the article, the very first time the Chinese even tried to teleport the info, they did it millions of times. It wasn't ONE photon's superposition. It was millions of them, over time, at different angles and elevations, to test atmospheric interference. And they have not stopped their testing and refining of their technology, while this article was being written. And others will soon have something to show that is an order of magnitude more spiffy than the Chinese one. My guess is within 5 years we will have instant, live communications based on this technology with the ISS. A truly massive data pipe with zero lag. About then the Japanese/Chinese/ESA/Indian program will have landed a man on the Moon again, who will set up the latest Quantum Relay, and we will have instant, off-planet communications, with zero atmospheric interference. Point that at Mars. Launch a comms satellite that live-feeds from Mars to the Moon relay, to Earth, and now all of your communications with ALL of your rovers and pods and data collection devices on Mars are essentially instantaneous. Less lag than a web site loading today. THAT's where I'm excited. But teleporting a human in my lifetime? Eh. Nah. Problems will come up. There will be Issues. (What matter do we make the other You out of, on the other planet? Are they a separate person, or a surrogate "robot" that you are remotely operating?) Etc. I like these kinds of brain-breaking technologies!
About then the Japanese/Chinese/ESA/Indian program will have landed a man on the Moon again, who will set up the latest Quantum Relay, and we will have instant, off-planet communications, with zero atmospheric interference. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Forbes breaks it down pretty well. Physicists are miserable creatures!My guess is within 5 years we will have instant, live communications based on this technology with the ISS. A truly massive data pipe with zero lag.
There's a real danger with extrapolation when it comes to physics. If you look at that graph, you can hypothesize that at some point, we might find a compound that superconducts above 270k. Extrapolation puts it around the year 2100 or so but still. Living in an age of computing certainly encourages this thinking. After all, pretty soon anything will be possible. Unfortunately reality sets in and theory hits 7nm die sizes and all of a sudden stuff starts getting harder because electronics are no longer electronics, they're quantum devices. 5nm was supposed to be out next year; it probably won't be now. And things get even harder beyond there as 5nm means you're dealing with quantum tunneling and your chip isn't acting like it should anymore. Thermodynamics is hard and fast - energy is neither created nor destroyed. That's the first law. Einstein's special relativity gave us causality which was seen as so fundamental they gave it the second law - time is asymmetrical. Instantaneous information transfer violates causality. It invokes symmetrical time. Much like electronics cease to be electronics below 5nm, quantum superposition ceases to be information through the simple act of performing it. No amount of physical refinement will allow you to build a perpetual motion machine, no matter how efficient things get. So it's a lovely dream. But it isn't a "we can solve this if we work harder" problem it's a "everything we know about physics indicates we will never solve this" problem.
No. All I wanted is to point to the scale and the numbers are a good way to get the gist of the difficulty. Note that I never said that it's impossible or not worth doing. It is very exciting, I feel the same way and largely agree with your predictions, even though I see them as rather optimistic. If my pointing out the scale made you think that I'm a wet blanket and a naysayer: I'm sorry. Kinda uncalled for, but I guess that it was a turn of phrase rather than an assumption that I rushed here to basically say "FIRST!". ;) Who doesn't? Actually, don't answer that. I already had a quite depressing evening.Yup. But you aren't really going to use the "ooh scary big numbers" and "but it's haaaard!" argument, are you?
… if you read the article…
I like these kinds of brain-breaking technologies!
My guess is: we won't. The technology will be available, yes, but it will not be present in society in the same way wireless communications are. Commercialization and development/refinement of the tech will take another decade, at least. Which isn't to say I'm not excited. You have to be cautious with technological optimism: it's an exciting outlook, but it falters at predicting actual technological advancement.My guess is within 5 years we will have instant, live communications based on this technology with the ISS.