Teleportation! You’ve seen it in the movies and the books. It seems supernatural, almost a myth, maybe. But, this teleportation idea doesn’t seem that unbelievable anymore. A concept called quantum entanglement is directly related to teleportation.  Quantum entanglement, simply put, is like a connection between two particles far away from each other. Though it is not teleportation, we can use this idea for teleportation in the future, solving many of our world’s problems.

Quantum entanglement first requires a connection between two particles. This means when one particle is being conversed about/used, the second particle must be directly influenced in precisely the same way, as they are entangled with one another. This gives these particles the connection we are talking about. Let us say that we turn one particle 180 degrees clockwise. Another particle, which is quantum entangled with the first particle will also turn 180 degrees clockwise. Pretty freaky, right? Even when two entangled particles are separated by long distances, they are still entangled, letting them “communicate” across fairly long distances, maybe even infinite. To clarify, we do not know yet how far quantum entanglement can occur. It can be across a stretch of light years, galaxies even, as we haven’t found any limit to this idea.

Quantum entanglement can easily solve many of the worlds problems. Most importantly, quantum entanglement can help us discover teleportation. With teleportation, we can solve problems of insufficient medical supplies, slow emergency vehicles, insufficient clean water, and even poverty, to name a few. For insufficient clean water, we can send these countries water from countries which have sufficient water, such as the U.S. and England. The U.S. can even ship medical supplies to third-world countries. This quantum entanglement can also help our expansion in space. We can send fresh food to astronauts, which can slow the deterioration cycle of being in space. Lots of problems can be solved using teleportation coming from quantum entanglement, but there is still a ways to go before this happens.

Though we may not be too far in the art of teleportation, scientists across the world have made many recent developments in quantum entanglement. According to a recent study,

In 2016 physicists Ryo Okamoto and Shigeki Takeuchi of Kyoto University verified Aharonov and Vaidman’s predictions experimentally using a light-carrying circuit in which the shutter photon is created using a quantum router, a device that lets one photon control the route taken by another.

Another instance is where a group of Chinese scientists packed 18 qubits—the most basic units of quantum computing—into just six weirdly connected photons using quantum entanglement.

The most thrilling situation, however, is where another group of Chinese scientists broke a record by sending a packet of information from Tibet to a satellite in orbit, up to 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface, using quantum entanglement. These discoveries show much promise, but there are still some unanswered questions surrounding them.

The problem with these experiments is we don’t know if it is the same photon on the other side. If you teleport an object, there is doubt whether it is the same object after being teleported–is it actually the original or just a convincing copy? So, instead of teleporting, we could just be copying molecules from one place to another. Today, scientists are still working on what really goes on during teleportation and quantum entanglement.

As you can see, teleportation doesn’t seem an impossible idea anymore. We are already advancing into the use of quantum entanglement, and finding the key to quantum entanglement allows us to go even farther with the idea of teleportation. This idea can help everyone, as supplies all around the world can be sent so much faster than modern transportation, along with many other benefits to our society. But, there is still a lot of mystery to solve for scientists as what exactly happens to the particles during quantum entanglement. So, there may be awhile before we get into the idea of teleporting humans from LA to Tokyo, but are closer than ever, and quantum entanglement is the way to reaching that goal.