p2

3.3 Conclusion and Recommendations
Given the incredible advancements that have been made in the entanglement and teleportation of
macroscopic objects the size of 10 12 atoms, we are still very far away from being able to entangle and
teleport human beings (and even simpler biological entities such as cells, etc.) and bulk inanimate objects
(tools, technical equipment, pencils and pens, weapons platforms, communications devices, personal
hygiene supplies, etc.). There still remain four essential problems:
‣ One needs an entangled pair of such bulk objects.
‣ The bulk objects to be entangled and teleported must be in a pure quantum state (as in a
Bose-Einstein condensate, for example). And pure quantum states are very fragile.
‣ The bulk objects to be entangled and teleported must be extremely isolated from the
environment to prevent the onset of decoherence.
‣ The Bell-state measurement of animate or inanimate objects during
entanglement/teleportation will require extracting an amount of information (in bits) that
equals or exceeds the number of atoms contained within the object. This infers that the
computer storage and processing requirements to entangle and teleport a complete bulk object
will be astronomically huge (recall the discussion in Section 3.1).
It is difficult to imagine how we can achieve an extreme level of environmental isolation for an
object, let alone a living being that breathes air and radiates heat. Experiments with atoms and larger
objects must be done in a high vacuum to avoid collisions with molecules. Thermal radiation from the
walls of a teleportation apparatus would easily disturb a tiny amount of matter. At present, decoherence
imposes a fundamental limit on quantum entanglement and teleportation. Decoherence is the primary
reason why we do not routinely see any quantum effects in our everyday world. Research is continuing
on whether decoherence can be reduced, circumvented, or otherwise be eliminated. And some minor
progress has been made in that direction.
In q-Teleportation it is the quantum states of the objects that are destroyed and recreated, and not the
objects themselves. Therefore, q-Teleportation cannot teleport animate or inanimate matter (or energy) in
its physical entirety. However, some experts argue that because an object’s quantum state is its defining
characteristic, teleporting its quantum state is completely equivalent to teleporting the object, even though
the original object’s quantum state (and defining characteristic) was completely destroyed in the process.
This goes to the heart of what is meant by identity. When an object has all the right properties and
features, it will be the same object that one observes whether it was observed now or 24 hours ago.
Quantum physics reinforces the point that objects of the same type in the same quantum state are
indistinguishable from each other. One should, according to this quantum principle, be able to swap all
the atoms in a particular object with the same atoms from a mound of raw materials, and reproduce the
original object’s quantum states exactly with the end result that the new object is identical to the original.
Last, we do not know how to put a human being into a pure quantum state or what doing so would mean
for biological functioning (including brain function), but we do know how to put ≤ 10 12 gas atoms/ions
and a beam of photons into a pure state in practice. Further research will be required to ascertain whether
microbiological and higher-level biological systems, in addition to bulk inanimate matter, can be put into
pure quantum states and entangled/teleported.
To perform a Bell-state measurement on (bulk) animate or inanimate objects, during the
entanglement/teleportation process, to extract and encode its information will require extracting an
amount of information (in bits) that equals or exceeds the number of atoms contained within the object.
An object containing a few grams of matter will require the extraction of > 10 28 bits of data. A simple
virus of ≈ 10 7 atoms would require the extraction of ≥ 10 8 bits of information during the
Approved for public release; distribution unlimited.
46