The erase of quantum states by measurement

[Allojubrious]

I was reading this article, http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090122/full/news.2009.50.html, and it was talking about how they 'teleported' a Ytterbium ion (Yb+) and mid-way through the article it said that they had to destroy the quantum state of the original Ytterbium ion and they did that by simply measuring its quantum state. Now my question is why? Why was the quantum state erased by simply measuring it??

 

[Naty1]

The answer is in the preceding paragraph:

A quantum bit, on the other hand, lives in a fuzzy state of one and zero simultaneously. Worse still, measuring that bit directly will destroy its fuzziness, so quantum teleportation requires researchers to move the data without reading them first.

When you MEASURE [interact with] an entangled particle, you force it to assume some state. WHY this happens and exactly what it means are the subject of much debate; one thing for sure, it is not classically 'logical'...so it does not make 'sense'...

Read the first several posts here for a good discussion:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=4035881&posted=1#post4035881

 

[Allojubrious]

Oh alright thanks, the fact that it doesn't make 'sense' I can understand because I have seen a lot of things in quantum mechanics that are...shall we say... 'spooky'
However, I thank you for that link its very helpful!

Thanks,
Al