On Thursday, a team of Chinese scientists released findings from a breakthrough study that makes China the indisputable leader in the field of quantum communication, an achievement that could be of immense strategic importance.
The study, led by Pan Jianwei and published in Science magazine, successfully demonstrated the ability to distribute entangled photons across unprecedented distances, from space to earth, opening the door for the practical application of cutting-edge, ultra-secure communication.
In the wake of China’s milestone, some in the scientific community outside of China are eager for their own governments to play catch up in the quantum space race.
Anton Zeilinger, a physicist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, has pushed his government to launch a quantum satellite of its own, telling Science that this test “shows that China is making the right decisions, […] I’m personally convinced that the internet of the future will be based on these quantum principles.”
Until now, entanglement distribution has only been achieved across a physical separation of less than 100 km, limited by the photon loss in channels such as optical fibers, which increases exponentially with the length of the channel. This test, set in motion when China launched a specialized quantum satellite dubbed Micius last year, was able to distribute the entanglement photons across a distance of more than 1,200 km.
The space-based approach offers a key advantage in achieving the longer distance transmission as most of the photons’ path is through the vacuum of space, with turbulence largely occurring only within the lower 10 km of the atmosphere. In order to exploit this advantage, the scientists used a laser-based entangled-photon source especially resistant to disturbance.
This achievement is a huge step towards the practical application on a global scale of a theoretically unhackable encryption method called quantum key distribution.
Encryption methods used today are nearly, but not completely, impossible to hack, but with more advanced computing power the forms of encoding that protect information sent online will become more and more vulnerable. Quantum key distribution, however, is unique in that any measurement of the transmission by an eavesdropper disturbs the transmission, thereby alerting the parties sending information.
It will take a while to go from what this team of scientists accomplished to the widespread practical application, but they are moving at a fast pace in the right direction. According to Pan, the lead physicist on the study, China’s National Space Science Center will launch additional satellites with stronger and cleaner laser beams detectable even when the sun is shining.
“In the next five years we plan to launch some really practical quantum satellites,” Pan said, speaking to Science.
The US neoFascist will now have to ban all high technology exports to the Xi dude to slow down his Quantum lead.
This must be FAKE NEWS!
It can NOT be true!
The whole world knows …
‘The Chinese CAN’T INNOVATE’
Next will be the Transporter.
dsfdsf
You must be still living in stone age, don’t know who China really is and capable of…….
KS Teoh LOL. Don’t you understand sarcasm? I was mocking frequent reports from mainstream western media with exact headlines like what I quoated.
No, this is not fake news. This is based on Quantum Mechanics principles which stipulate among other things, that an outside observer can determine or change a physical outcome soley based on optical observation or mesurment and had the observer not effectuated the observation the system in question would have behaved totally different. Schrödinger’s cat is a good example of QM and its metrics, if you’re familiar with the thesis of Schrödinger or the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment. Also, part of QM, one cannot observe a particle’s position in space and also know its spin. If one knows its spin can’t know its position and viceversa and entagled particles seem to know which way does the particle’s twin spin and how far it is, suggesting or even proving that faster-than-light-velocity or messaging traveling back in time does exist, meaning a superposition of states and the colapse of the wave function – which is the nonlocality principle.
Mike Campino Thanks for the explanation. Though I am no physicist, I am a retired electrical engineer who had one lession or two in quantum physics while I was in college. I am gald I can still understand half of whwat was described in a more scientific article.
A police state with unbreakable encryption, ying and yang indeed.
Remarkable discovery. China could be the next leading country of communication technology. The application could also include space travel! Or worst, new weapon technology!! Anyway, congratulation.