Reading Ideas

Teleportation article
This site is about an article of several people actually accomplishing teleportation, but not exactly as we think. They scanned the atoms and put it elsewhere. While the new components of the atoms are being assembled, the old atom components are destroyed.

This is may not be teleportation in the typical sense. Is teleportation possible where atoms are physically transformed into pure energy and back to matter again? There are many theories to suggest that matter is just solidified energy (among which are e=mc^2). Would we be able to do the star trek "beam me up, Scotty" thing? First, not only would teleportation have to be possible, but living tissue would have to stay alive after being destroyed and recreated. So why or why wouldn't this be possible?

I'm curious as to your thoughts.

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done

This post was edited by Hawkeye on Jul 12, 2002.

Well, I beleive changing a person and back again would have the effect of destroying the original. So what comes out the other end would just be a duplicate that thinks he/she is the original.
And that's if we can figure out a way to do that. A star trek type teleportation device isn't possible, I don't think, because of the exactness needed in the copying of the matter. I mean, if you throw a few atoms off, you could transform a person into an atomic bomb mid-transport ^^.
So if it is indeed possible, you not only would need a reception area to reconstruct the matter, but you also need a departure device to copy/transmit the data. All of this would require a tremendous amount of energy. And the farther you move the matter in the transport, the more energy is lost. So if you happen to find solutions to all these other problems, you still have a definite limit for range.

So, short answer, probably not.

!sdrawkcab si erutangis yM

hmmmm read both.........I think we will eventually.....they have teleported a beam of light...granted....with the technology we have today.....not remotely possible really to even get close to the teleportation of something remotely sophisticated.

And those little quarks.....puzzles......but getting closer every day....

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The most suspenseful thing that exists in nature is life. Scientists still wonder what is life and how is it formed. Unless we know the answers to these, teleportation would still remain a remote possibility. But, of course as soon as we have figured out the difference between organic and non-organic susbstances formed by the same composition of elements, teleportation might become a reality. But, still, to teleport a human we are very very far away. If scientists can achieve it for small forms of life it will be a very big achievement.

The logic behind teleportation is to re-create an object at some other place, and destroying the original. Scientists believe that since everything is composed of particles, hence these particles can be recreated anywhere if the right composition is known. Well, we are still 100s of years away from knowing the full composition of a particular human being. And, then there are many mysteries still to be unraveled regarding a human being. We still don't know much about a human brain for example.

So, in short, teleportation is a possibility provided we get to solve some of the mysteries of nature, but still a very remote possibility for a human teleportation.

Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener.

For teleportation to be possible, I think we will need to solve the uncertainty principle, which is a nasty little bit of quantum mechanics that states that both the position and velocity of a particle cannot be measured at the same time with any great deal of accuracy. Quite a few people believe that this cannot be solved, meaning that the movement of certain particles at very small levels will always be impossible to predict. I'm not a physicist though, so I'm probably just spouting off random bits of misinformation.

(Sigh) Damnit Hawkeye, now I have to look into this or it's going to bug me. I swear, always causing me trouble :P

!sdrawkcab si erutangis yM

Well, teleportation wouldn't have to be of life forms. We may find that destroying and recreating life may, in fact, kill the life forms. Even more bizarre is the scenario that if a man teleports somewhere, he is physically KILLED in the spot he starts from and another human being with the exact components is reassembled elsewhere with the same memories he had up until he was killed.

So, in fact, when you teleport, you are just cloning yourself using your old self for the materials needed. That's a crazy concept isn't it? Everybody in the world may say that teleportation is fine, it is safe, but the second you walk in the teleporter, you are at heaven's gates wondering what the heck happened. What might have happened is that you died, and a copy of you lived on earth.

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done

This post was edited by Hawkeye on Jul 12, 2002.

That's exactly what's disturbing me so much. You enter the telepad and die. For everyone else it will seem like you live on, but for yourself it is nothing but suicide. I've yet to hear any reason why your soul should magically move to its newly reconstructed "container". Assuming that there is such a thing as a soul in the first place of course.

Strangely I'm just reading Crichton's Timeline which centers around exactly this topic of "teleportation = destruction + reconstruction". It's a great read, give it a try if you want to hear even more thought provoking twists on that matter.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

This post was edited by Jaz on Jul 15, 2002.

I actually read that! Cool book. Crichton basically said that time travel isn't possible, however, there are many parallel universes existing simultaneously with our own. Some of them still exist in the past? Isn't that how it was?

Anyway, they shrink you down so you can fit through some wormhole and you reappear on the other side. Things kinda went awry though when they did. Interesting book.

And yeah, if teleportation is ever invented, don't use it. Not to sound like some superstitious ninny, but I, for one, am not going travel like that even if it becomes the alternative to airplane flying.

Speaking of which, I imagine every transportation business would pay handsomely to keep that invention hush hush. :)
Kinda makes you wonder if someone invented it already, doesn't it?

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done

Crichton basically said that time travel isn't possible, however, there are many parallel universes existing simultaneously with our own. Some of them still exist in the past? Isn't that how it was?

Yes, he said that there are a quadrizillion of different universes, covering all possibilities fate could have taken. So in one world Hitler won, in one world he didn't. In one world you chose Cornflakes for breakfast, in one world you reached for Cheerios. And when two universes are very similiar to each other, they sometimes interact.

Anyway, they shrink you down so you can fit through some wormhole and you reappear on the other side.

He describes the method like sending a Fax - you step on the platform, every single atom of your body gets scanned, the data is compressed and sent through the wormhole. Then you get reconstructed at the other end.

ONLY THAT THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO RECONSTRUCT SOMEONE AT THE OTHER END

This part was so cool I almost wet my pants. They don't know how to reconstruct people at the other end. It just happens.

So when you enter the pad and arrive at the other universe, it's actually not you who arrives. It's a version of you from another universe. In a universe almost identically to ours, with the single differnece that they know how to reconstruct.

Damn I just wet my pants.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

What do you mean that the other universe knows how to reconstruct? The one they transferred to was in medieval times, and probably had no idea about teleporting whatsoever.

I personally liked the idea of a "laser gun" in congo. The magnitude of the laser has to be so intense to reach the satelite that it could literally burn through most anything. With the diamond, it was focused like a prism and so the magnitude was just that much more intense over a smaller area.

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done