heres the passage from the book:
“In order to distinguish this new method from quantum teleportation,
Dr. Bradley has called his method “classical teleportation.” (This
is a bit misleading, since his method also depends heavily on the quantum
theory, but not on entanglement.)
The key to this novel type of teleportation is a new state of matter
called a “Bose Einstein condensate,” or BEC, which is one of the coldest
substances in the entire universe. In nature the coldest temperature
is found in outer space; it is 3 K above absolute zero. (This is due to
residual heat left over from the big bang, which still fills up the universe.)
But a BEC is a millionth to a billionth of a degree above absolute
zero, a temperature that can be found only in the laboratory.
When certain forms of matter are cooled down to near absolute
zero, their atoms all tumble down to the lowest energy state, so that all
their atoms vibrate in unison, becoming coherent. The wave functions
of all the atoms overlap, so that, in some sense, a BEC is like a gigantic
“super atom,” with all the individual atoms vibrating in unison.
This bizarre state of matter was predicted by Einstein and Satyendranath
Bose in 1925, but it would be another seventy years, not until
1995, before a BEC was finally created in the lab at MIT and the University
of Colorado.
Here’s how Bradley and company’s teleportation device works.
First they start with a collection of supercold rubidium atoms in a BEC
state. They then apply a beam of matter to the BEC (also made of rubidium
atoms). These atoms in the beam also want to tumble down to
the lowest energy state, so they shed their excess energy in the form of
a pulse of light. This light beam is then sent down a fiber-optic cable.
Remarkably the light beam contains all the quantum information necessary
to describe the original matter beam (e.g., the location and velocity
of all its atoms). Then the light beam hits another BEC, which
then converts the light beam into the original matter beam.
This new teleportation method has tremendous promise, since it
doesn’t involve the entanglement of atoms. But this method also has its
problems. It depends crucially on the properties of BECs, which are
difficult to create in the laboratory. Furthermore, the properties of
BECs are quite peculiar, because they behave as if they were one
gigantic atom. In principle, bizarre quantum effects that we see only at
the atomic level can be seen with the naked eye with a BEC. This was
once thought to be impossible.” – From the book: Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku ISBN-9780385520690