Australia beats the world to it

Quantum superstars

Australians are known as good sportspeople - we beat others who think they're the best and we love it. But science?

Yes, we've beaten the world to yet another breakthrough, but this time its not cricket, swimming or speed skating - rather Quantum Physics. Albert Einstein, arguably one of the brightest minds in history, said it couldn't be done. Well, a group of Australians has done it.

Quite remarkably, the end result doesn't sound that impressive, yet this discovery is likely to be looked back upon in history as one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs.

Call it teleportation, if you like, a team from the Australian National University in Canberra has, in laymans terms, taken a beam of light (laser) and made it disappear in one place, then reappear a metre away in about one nanosecond (30 billionths of one second).

Many news agencies are getting giddy with reports of ideas for Star Trek-like teleporters and, while in theory, it would be possible to deconstruct a human and then make them reappear half way across the globe, it would be a long time before something like this could be proven to work, if at all.

Additionaly, it could be quite dangerous, as the original human intended for teleportation would be destroyed, only to be reconstructed somewhere else - in theory. Dr. Lam, one of the scientists heading up the research in Canberra said: "I think teleporting of that kind is very, very far away. We don't know how to do that with a single atom yet."

About 40 teams of whitecoats across the globe have been trying to put the teleportation theory into practice, confirmed to be possible in 1998 by the Californian Institute of Technology.

Also known as 'quantum entanglement', the theory does have a number of more likely and practical uses, such as encryption for use with computers. "The applications of teleportation for computers and communications over the next decade are very exciting," said Dr. Ping Koy Lam, leader of the 12-strong team of scientists.

"It should be possible to construct a perfect cryptography system. When two parties want to communicate with one another, we can enable the secrecy of the communication to be absolutely perfect."

Perhaps one day there'll be no need for 'Drive Thru' take-away service - you just dial up the food outlet and one nano-second later - bang! There's your happy meal. Maybe.

So, there you have it - quantum engtanglement with an Aussie flavour.