this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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It is teleportation, but the thing being teleported is information about a quantum state.
The particles that carry this information are in a quantum superposition, like Shrodinger's Cat. Because of quantum physics, the information they carry doesn't exist until you open the box and measure it.
They call it "teleportation" because it allows us to copy quantum information from one place to another without ever opening the box and collapsing the superposition at any point inbetween.
As confusing as it seems, they're correct. A physical medium is still necessary to enable the two parties to interact with each other, but the information that travels through it doesn't exist until it is received.
The photons that carry the information are Shrodinger's Cat, both alive and dead until the box is opened. It's impossible to know one way or another without checking, so the information about the contents of the box doesn't physically exist until then.
This has been proven via the double-slit experiment. Shining a beam of light at a card with two slits in it causes the resulting shadow to show a diffraction pattern. This is caused by the photons interacting with themselves as they pass through both slits simultaneously. However, if you put a photon detector in front of one slit to try and measure which slit the photon passes through, the diffraction pattern dissapears because the act of measuring it collapses the quantum uncertainty and prevents the photon from passing through both slits and interacting with itself. The information about which slit the photon actually passed through simply does not exist, and can't be measured without destroying the quantum diffraction pattern.