Scientists at TU Delft in Netherland have reported in a recent issue of journal Science that they could achieve teleportation of data between two unconnected computers. When scientists mention about a teleportation, of course, that does not simply mean a kind of wireless communication. Teleportation in this case is referred to a 'quantum teleportation'.
  Quantum physics has long been considered as extremely difficult or occasionally mystic subject due to many bizarre behaviors different from our everyday-life expectations. The subject has provided artistic inspirations to many artists and writers. One of impressive sci-fi scene in many Star Trek episodes is a 'transporter' which is a teleportation machine. The machine 'dematerializes' (converts) an object or even a person into an energy pattern and then beam it to a target where 'rematerialization' for reconversion into matter happens. Terriffic but you may think this is too unreal. Surprisingly, however, a part of the scene could be real in principle. It has well known in quantum physics that there exists a phenomenon of 'quantum entanglement'. Entangled quantum state, for instance, with a pair of particles generated in a way that each particle cannot be described independently, should be considered as a whole. Although the idea of quantum entanglement brought Einstein and several other scientists into confusion, the phenomenon is proved to be real by many experiments. The 2012 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Serge Haroche and David Wineland for finding ways to manipulate those quantum states without destroying them. Through the entanglement, quantum teleportation allows an information can be sent and received instantaneously. The world record of the quantum teleportation by the longest distance for the light is 143 km. Scientists are working hard to realize sort of dematerialization and rematerialization. The report from the TU Delft group provides another stepping stone for future research and eventually for possible application of quantum teleportation technology in a real life. Very inspiring. Isn't it ?