A physics professor at the University of Vienna, Professor Anton Zeilinger is perhaps best known as Mr. Beam. The moniker, which plays on the name of the popular British comedy program Mr. Bean, alludes to the fanciful application of one of Zeilinger’s discoveries regarding subatomic particles.

More than 30 years since ”Star Trek“ first aired on television, the transporter room, along with the expression ”Beam me up, Scotty,“ still belongs to the realm of science fiction.

All smiles. The Viennese professor and his wife celebrated the award with admiring colleagues and friends at the gala dinner in the Hofburg.

However, Prof Zeilinger has made an important step in creating the kind of teleportation depicted on the popular TV series.

Implicit in the quantum theory of physics is teleportation – the idea that a particle, or a full quantum description of a particle – can be sent instantly over an indefinite distance. Albert Einstein predicted teleportation before rejecting it as excessively counterintuitive. In 1997, Zeilinger and a group of colleagues confirmed this aspect of the quantum theory when they managed to teleport light particles over several kilometers. Zeilinger’s research is sufficently impressive that his colleagues regard him as a strong contender for the Nobel Prize.

As keenly interested in the humanities as the sciences, Zeilinger – a bassplaying jazz afficionado – hardly fits the stereotype of the coolly detached researcher in a white coat. Scientists are looking seriously at more immediate implications of Zeilinger’s work for technology and research. These include a new theory of quantum mechanics, according to London’s New Scientist.