Chapter One
Light Readings



It was a low-key affair: no television cameras or reporters were on hand. No audience of millions was hanging breathlessly on the mission's success. In a small, darkened room at the University of Innsbruck in 1997, on a lab bench strewn with cables and electro-optical gear, scientists destroyed a few bits of light in one place and made perfect replicas about a meter away. True, it lacked the drama and visceral appeal of Armstrong and Aldrin's exploits on the moon. But in the long run it was no less important. The first teleportation in history had just taken place.

Nothing is more familiar than light. It's the moon reflected on a calm ocean, a sparkling diamond, a rainbow, a glowing ember. We take it for granted because it's all around us. But behind everyday appearances lies the question of what light really is-what it's made of, how it behaves, and how on Earth it's possible to make it vanish in one place and then reappear, an instant later, somewhere else. To understand the s ... read full excerpt from Teleportation: The Impossible Leap ebook