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Researchers at the University of Calgary have beamed up a quantum breakthrough that could herald a new age of secure and speedy communications.

The team of physicists led by Wolfgang Tittel have managed to teleport a photon (a light particle) some six kilometres at the speed of light along fibre-optic lines in Calgary, a new distance record that landed them in the prestigious science journal Nature Photonics alongside a simultaneous study by researchers in China.

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The mind-bending experiment essentially transfers the quantum state of the photon — along with any information encoded within it — to a different location using the scientific principle of entanglement, a theory even Albert Einstein struggled with, calling it “spooky action at a distance.”

In the experiment, a photon was sent to City Hall, while also generating at a third location in the city, where it travelled downtown to meet the entangled photon.