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Unspeakable Transport-What Quantum Teleportation Might be, and What it More Probably is

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Abstract

A Controlled Not variant of the standard quantum teleportation protocol affords a step-by-step analysis of what is, or can be said to be, achieved in the process in either location. Dominant interpretations of what quantum teleportation consists in and implies are reviewed in this light. Being mindful of the statistical significance of the terms and operations involved, as well as awareness of classical analogies, can help sort out what is specifically quantum-mechanical, and what is not, in so-called teleportation. What the latter achieves appears to be the transmission, without the involvement of mysterious channels, of what a quantum state encapsulates: the multitiered probabilistic characterization of a given preparation, which might be all we can possibly know about a physical system in a given experimental situation.

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Notes

  1. Three examples among many: “quantum mechanics may be weird, but it’s correct. Like it or not, we’re stuck with it.” (Hossenfelder 2018: 121); “It’s the most accurate physical theory ever devised, and it is legendary for its weirdness…The behavior it describes is often weird as well.” (Strogatz 2019: 21); and the title of Ball (2018).

  2. Timpson (2006) does not appear to be entirely immune to what he urges to avoid: his writing (at the end of the last paragraph of Sect. 2) that “information has been in some sense disembodied” suggests its possible ‘embodiment’, in plain contradiction with his warnings.

  3. Let it be stressed that this does not amount to reverting to Bohm’s early theory or its later developments (Holland 1993). For one thing, Bohm’s theory is based upon another (time-dependent) equation than that to which Messiah refers. Whilst the latter does not give rise to any perplexing ‘quantum potential’, it features the striking appearance of a Schwarzian derivative. This occurrence, which cannot plausibly be fortuitous, has yet to be elucidated, and there might be a lot to gain in the effort.

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    Jean-Michel Delhôtel

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Delhôtel, JM. Unspeakable Transport-What Quantum Teleportation Might be, and What it More Probably is. Found Sci 27, 527–548 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-021-09779-0

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