Short version: forces applied to solid objects move at the speed of sound in that object.

Lets say your stick is made of steel. The speed of sound in steel is about 19,000 feet/second. Assuming you could push hard enough for the force to be felt on the other end, it'd take over 18 hours for your partner on Earth to feel your push from the moon.

No problem! I love getting into the comments under articles on quantum stuff 'cuz the topic is weirdly unintuitive from the classical perspective and a lot of folks share some common misconceptions about jargon like "teleportation" and "entanglement". Please do ask if you've got any other questions! 😄

It's real, but the jargon is unintuitive.

"Teleportation" in the field of quantum mechanics refers to the process by which a quantum state can be copied from one place to another.

This process is like Shrodinger's Cat, both alive and dead until you open the box to check. Quantum information simply does not exist until a measurement collapses it into back into classical information, so copying a quantum state literally involves teleporting the information about it from sender to receiver without allowing the box to be opened during the transition.

I think they were making a joke about the bluetooth protocol rather than literally describing the electromagnetic field.

Yes. Information is what's being teleported. The photons that carry the information still have to travel from sender to recipient but the information they contain doesn't exist until it is received. Like how Shrodinger's Cat is both alive and dead until you open the box to check.

Nah, this technique is more like having a Shrodinger's Cat that's in two places at once. It won't collapse the tyrrany of space, but it will allow us to build bigger and better quantum computers.

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.

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.

Correct. The speed of light is the speed limit of information in the universe.

Entanglement is neat because it allows us to transmit a quantum superposition to two places at once.

It's like an identical pair of Shrodinger's Cats. You can't know if the cat is alive or dead until you open the box, but you do know that the other box will show the same result as yours regardless of where it ends up.

The new thing they've figured out in this article is how to entangle qubits between separate quantum computers, essentially creating a single Shrodingers' Cat that exists in two computers simultaneously which allows them to do the quantum equivalent of parallel processing.

Allow me to oversimplify for the sake of understanding:

Quantum entanglement is a process where the measurable properties of two particles become linked. For example, an entangled pair of photons might share the same polarization, so that when you measure one, you'd also learn the polarization of the other without having to measure it.

That's quantum teleportation in a nutshell, send out an entangled pair of photons and each of the recipients will know what the other got without having to ask. They call it 'teleportation' because the information about who got what doesn't exist until the photons are measured, and can't be intercepted in transit because the act of measuring an entangled particle breaks the entanglement. You physically cannot tap or eavesdrop on a QE link. To do so successfully you would have to be able to capture a photon on the line and transmit an identical copy in its place simultaneously, but the act of measuring takes a non-zero amount of time and even a nanosecond of delay would be obvious to the intended recipient.

Entangled photons are like a pair of identical Shrodinger's Cats, you can't know if they are alive or dead until you open the box, but you do know that both boxes will show the same result regardless of where they end up.

What's new in this article is that they've managed to entangle entire qubits between separate computers, like a single Shrodinger's Cat that exists in two places at once. They'll be able to use this technique to develop the quantum equivalent of parallel processing.

Time for a deep cut:

Mitch McConnell? More like Tumbles the Stair Dragon.

The single most domesticated culture on the planet..