 March 20, 2013 - 4:49am | When I first heard of quantum entanglement I thought it might be the answer for communicaiton over interstellar distances. However, lots of power has to be invested to maintain linked particles. But low and behold they discovered a way to quantumly link diamonds on the macro scale Some possibilities are matter transmission (transporters and bap bins) a quantum telegraph (but with enough linked items we begin to have bandwith and thus audio and visual communication) beamed power might also be possible. quantum computers I rather like the idea of a quantum telegraph. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 21, 2013 - 2:14pm | I remember watching a cartoon years ago with a heavy focus on quantum physics, called Cosmic Quantum Ray. (It used to be on Discovery Kids before it was bought-out by Hasbro to make way for The Hub.) It was a neat little show, but suffered story and character wise from the fact that the writers were all physicists. Although the show exaggerated things to make them dangerous and/or adventurous (e.g. a p-brane was made into a mind-swopping monster), but they did good work explaining the scientific concepts at the end segments. I'm not a physicist, and such concepts usually goes over my head, but it is nice to have something that explains things so simply, even if it is meant for kids. They explained what a quantum computer is - a computer that can process information all at once - then they compared a 'bit' to a light bulb, and a 'qubit' to a disco ball. In another episode, they explained how quantum entanglement can be used make a "quantum radio" that can communicate instantaneously, regardless of the distance. Such devices, if made real, would have a huge impact on our world! Talk about all the wonders you can have with quantum physics, #6 on this list would be most useful to us.  |
 March 23, 2013 - 7:16pm | In reality, quantum entanglement won't allow for the transmission of information - it breaks the laws of thermodynamics by allowing the alteration of the levels of entropy in a system with no corresponding energy change. G. |
March 23, 2013 - 8:07pm | If you have two items that have been entangled, like the diamonds in recent experiments where laser light was passed through one and readings on the other one were detecting effects to prove the quantum entanglement then you'd only have to revert to morse code where the laser would be used to "transmit". Transmission of information happens because observers of each entangled diamond will have an agreed apon code and will simply use the laser to manipulate the entangled diamonds using the appropriate dots and dashes so that the message can be read. Transmission time will be much like that of the telegraph not because the of a limitation of the technology but because human operators will need it to slow down. No doubt a computer program could do it faster than a human operator. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 24, 2013 - 8:56am | No, you can't, because detecting the changes to the entangled particles requires that you be able have a common set of baselines at the point of measurement. Therefore to be able to communicate using QE, you need an FTL communication method to transmit the baseline information. |
 March 24, 2013 - 5:36pm | Since the entanglement occurs with the objects physically interacting devise a protocol (and a computer to monitor the state on both sides) when the one device gets shipped light years away. Best to have two channels, one inbound, one outbound, each with it's own entangled diamond. |
March 24, 2013 - 6:05pm | Since the entanglement occurs with the objects physically interacting devise a protocol (and a computer to monitor the state on both sides) when the one device gets shipped light years away. Best to have two channels, one inbound, one outbound, each with it's own entangled diamond. That's what I was thinking because its suppose to work regardless of distance. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 27, 2013 - 8:26pm | Since the entanglement occurs with the objects physically interacting devise a protocol (and a computer to monitor the state on both sides) when the one device gets shipped light years away. Best to have two channels, one inbound, one outbound, each with it's own entangled diamond. That's what I was thinking because its suppose to work regardless of distance. Yes, it might work regardless of distance, but the entanglement is extremely expensive and getting the diamonds (or other entangled item) and associated computer hardware takes transport time. The expense would trickle down to the message sender and might create a network of relay stations where messages bounce from planet to relay to planet to lessen costs but increase the time. Computers to encode/decode messages would also be large. The relays would, of course, end up strategically placed and contain 'communication nodes' to several destinations. Messages would not be "instant" except for the most expensive direct government or corporate systems, but would be faster than a courier ship. It's sort of like the Ansible system in Moon's "Vatta's War" series in the strategic value/how it functions. |
March 28, 2013 - 2:17pm | Since this is a western in space the image of a telegraph operator watching a quantum telegraph and transcribing a message then running to deliver it across town sort of works. Its communication in the realm of FTL though not technically and would simply be a competing tech with subspace radios. Perhaps its the precursor to subspace radios. Subspace radios are desirerable because the can potentially broadcast to anywhere yet the quantum telegraph has certain advantages that will keep it in use along side the subspace radio. On another note the PCs find that the outpost only has a quantum telegraph and this means they can only communication with one location or entity and this could be come a plot device in an adventure. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 31, 2013 - 7:02pm | I think a lot of sci-fi has the "western in space" feel. Kind of brings up images of Serenity with the "Mr Universe" nexus that records all transmissions...maybe it can do that because it is a central relay. So an adventure where a rival corp or gov't hires the characters to go to the relay, hack into it, and reprogram the AI/Expert System "telegraph operator" and use it for strategic purpose would fit into a larger campaign; it feels a little grand scale for a SF adventure, but kinda fun. Characters on a controlled world where all communication is monitored because it can only go one place. Very interesting plot device. |
March 31, 2013 - 8:16pm | I think a lot of sci-fi has the "western in space" feel. Kind of brings up images of Serenity with the "Mr Universe" nexus that records all transmissions...maybe it can do that because it is a central relay. So an adventure where a rival corp or gov't hires the characters to go to the relay, hack into it, and reprogram the AI/Expert System "telegraph operator" and use it for strategic purpose would fit into a larger campaign; it feels a little grand scale for a SF adventure, but kinda fun. Characters on a controlled world where all communication is monitored because it can only go one place. Very interesting plot device. Your comments remind me of the point that rattraveller made in his excellent analysis of the various mega corps. That the NET corporation which has an unknown CEO was actually begging for you to use an AI as the CEO. Maybe work in the GalacticpediaNET article I wrote for the SFman where NET hosts this wikipedia like encyclopedia and that the information being disseminated is being shaded and edited because of an aggenda- stuff like information about politicians running for office is shaded to help the right candidate and hurt the wrong one from the point of view of NET. Of course a computer AI of this sort would need to have god like powers and the hinderances that come at the PCs during the adventure would have to be numerous and aggressive- even though they properly registered their star ship three months ago the computer records now show that they didn't and the ship has been impounded till they fix the paper work and pay fines and etc. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 31, 2013 - 11:11pm | Terl, GJD, an immense amount of energy may be required to vibrate the diamond, but couldn't they use an alternative form of effect on the diamond? Like bombarding it with radiation of some kind that affects the diamond's atomic structure without destroying the diamond, at least for a while? So atomic microbursts would stand in for vibrations and require less energy in the end than vibrating a normal diamond. The energy released by the diamond would be detected on the other end, at least with sensitive enough equipment, would it not? How sensitive would such equipment have to be? Or, at least, how much energy would have to be released by the diamond for the decay to be detectable? View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
