Teleportation - For Real

[Laurel]

It's not quite as cool as Star Trek, yet.

http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47191,00.html

Scientists have made the hard part of teleportation happen ­-- not on next week's episode of the new Star Trek series, but in a real-life lab in Denmark.

**

The idea is that if quantum particles -- electrons, ions, atoms and the like ­-- have exactly the same properties, then they're essentially the same. So if the properties of the quantum particles making up an object are reproduced in another particle group, there would be a precise duplicate of the original object.

Therefore, all that needs to be transmitted is the information about the particles' properties, not the particles themselves.

"A teleportation machine would be like a fax machine, except that it would work on three-dimensional objects as well as documents. It would produce an exact copy rather than an approximate facsimile, and it would destroy the original in the process of scanning it," wrote quantum teleportation pioneer Charles Bennett on an IBM Research website.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Cool, though I'm not crazy about the whole "destroys the original" thing. If they can scan you, destroy you, then tell another far remote particle group to take on all the databased information about your body, thereby creating a new you, exactly the same -- would you still be you?

 

[sexy-girl]

puts on her geek thinking cap


theres some law that you can never predict the direction and position of a particle ... you can either predict its direction or its position but not both at the same time ... that is meant to make teleportation impossible



i havent explained that very well sorry

 

[Calamity Jane]

Have you read the Michael Crichton book Timeline? It's based around this theory of teleportation... and of course, the theory of parallel times as opposed to an actual past and present.

 

[Angel]

puts on her geek thinking cap


theres some law that you can never predict the direction and position of a particle ... you can either predict its direction or its position but not both at the same time ... that is meant to make teleportation impossible



i havent explained that very well sorry

Uh, yes but did you READ the article? There are apparently ways to get around this. Such as duplicating the particles where they're being teleported to, and destroying the originals where they were being teleported from.

Er, I guess I accidentally deleted part of my post. So Edited to rewrite:

Then again could that even be called teleporting? You're not physically teleporting anything. You're COPYING and making a new one.

 

[sexy-girl]

havent read that one pagancowgirl

but has anyone read stephen king short story jaunt very creepy about teleportation

 

[Angel]

Cool, though I'm not crazy about the whole "destroys the original" thing. If they can scan you, destroy you, then tell another far remote particle group to take on all the databased information about your body, thereby creating a new you, exactly the same -- would you still be you?

Could it duplicate your brain? To the last detail? Is that at ALL possible? If it were possible to create an entire new you, could you imagine the possibilities? You could then alter one small bit of information so upon creation of the *New You* you could have a different hair type, eye color, bigger tits?

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

That's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, SG, but I don't know enough physics to say exactly how relevant it would be to this issue.

If we somehow had the ability to perfectly make recreate a human being from its constituent matter, why should we settle for reproducing ourselves exactly as we were before? Why not make some improvements? For example, you could reproduce yourself as you had been when you were young. If you had a disease you could recreate yourself without it and thus be instantly healed. We could be immortal.

To answer Dixon's question, I imagine we would be "ourselves" if we were physically reconstituted perfectly (although like SG, I question whether this could ever be done). Physical continuity doesn't seem to be a precondition for identity. During every nanosecond that passes our bodies are remaking themselves, conducting millions of simultaneous chemical reactions, transforming one molecule to another, releasing energy, moving molecules from here to there. Hume made this point with his analogy of the boat - if you change any part of a whole, a new whole is created. Nevertheless, despite the fact that we're never the person we were just a moment ago, we've somehow evolved a mechanism to provide us the illusion of continuity of identity. Our memories define us.

I think I'm gonna go read some philosophy.

 

[sexy-girl]

Uh, yes but did you READ the article? There are apparently ways to get around this. Such as duplicating the particles where they're being teleported to, and destroying the originals where they were being teleported from.

i did read it and i understood "most" of it


the problem is they could teleport a square box to a different place and it would be made of the same material but the position and direction of all the particles wouldnt be the same as the original square box ... so you'd get a square box but it would be different


damn i wish i knew what this law was called i'll try and find out


found it


Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

"The more precisely
the POSITION is determined,
the less precisely
the MOMENTUM is known"

That's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, SG, but I don't know enough physics to say exactly how relevant it would be to this issue.

damn i didnt see your post till i posted mine ... you beat me

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

It happens, SG.

I thought I was having an original thought then after I'd posted, I read Angel had the same thought. lol

Perhaps we all have exact replicas of the same brain?

 

[OUTSIDER]

It's not quite as cool as Star Trek, yet.

http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47191,00.html

Scientists have made the hard part of teleportation happen ­-- not on next week's episode of the new Star Trek series, but in a real-life lab in Denmark.

**

The idea is that if quantum particles -- electrons, ions, atoms and the like ­-- have exactly the same properties, then they're essentially the same. So if the properties of the quantum particles making up an object are reproduced in another particle group, there would be a precise duplicate of the original object.

Therefore, all that needs to be transmitted is the information about the particles' properties, not the particles themselves.

"A teleportation machine would be like a fax machine, except that it would work on three-dimensional objects as well as documents. It would produce an exact copy rather than an approximate facsimile, and it would destroy the original in the process of scanning it," wrote quantum teleportation pioneer Charles Bennett on an IBM Research website.

Sorry but I remember the first fax machines and how often they fucked up.......no way are you ever gonna get me in one of those thing's.

 

[Angel]

i did read it and i understood "most" of it


the problem is they could teleport a square box to a different place and it would be made of the same material but the position and direction of all the particles wouldnt be the same as the original square box ... so you'd get a square box but it would be different


damn i wish i knew what this law was called i'll try and find out

I see what you meant now.

 

[Angel]

It happens, SG.

I thought I was having an original thought then after I'd posted, I read Angel had the same thought. lol

Perhaps we all have exact replicas of the same brain?

Maybe, although my thinking was more along the lines of cosmetic alteration while yours was more along the lines of health alterations.

Although both would have both good and bad results.

 

[sexy-girl]

I see what you meant now.

it often takes me two or three times to explain something

 

[Laurel]

From what I understand from reading the article, the teleportation technology they describe wouldn't be useful for transporting people. It WOULD, however, be extremely useful for transporting goods.

Think of all the time, money, and equipment that goes into getting the mail from one side of the country to another - from the US to Europe and vice versa. Imagine if it didn't take days to transport a package from NY to London - if instead it only took minutes or even seconds. Imagine "faxing" a gift to a friend, the way you'd fax a letter.

It's not as exciting as teleporting people, btu the practical implications of being able to move products from point A to point B are staggering.

 

[Guest]

scientists do not believe in telepathy, but I do!

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

You know he's got a point there.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Even if they get it past the single particle stage (there are huge technical obstacles there that may never be overcome due to the amount of bandwitdh and data storage needed) I don't think I would ever use such a device if it has to destroy the original to make a copy.

Of course there are some theorists that in a way say we are currently being constantly "teleported" from instant of time to another just by the nature of the time-space continuum, but I think that is a bit of sophistry.

Personally, I think it may be more likely that we devise some form of folding space or using wormholes to move from one point in space to another seemingly faster than the speed of light. Theoretically it is also possible to travel in time using wormholes.

The problems are similar to teleportation though; you still have to place the wormhole at your intended destination from what I understand - although our understanding of the nature of the universe may change to the point where we could overcome even that problem.

Right now what they are doing may not mean teleportation ala Star Trek for some hundreds of years, but it may make possible other very interesting applications; if you can manipulate the quantum state of one particle and have a "linked" particle somewhere else change state too, it would be possible to have faster than light communications - and what's more, they would probably be secure in that you are not broadcasting via some medium and the communication could not only not be intercepted, it could not be detected at all.

Also, there would probably be huge bandwidth increases allowing almost instantaneous transmission of very large amounts of data. Imagine downloading a weeks worth of super high resolution holographic video in about 5 seconds and being able to watch it at your leisure!

They are already working on tech that could get us this in a few decades.

Can you imagine what kind of impact this would have on society? Private high bandwidth communications that are not only secure, but not detectable? You could talk to anybody you wanted and share anything you wanted without fear of the government even knowing you talked to them, much less what you said.

 

[Angel]

It's not as exciting as teleporting people, btu the practical implications of being able to move products from point A to point B are staggering.

There go my dreams of painlessly perfect vision, perky tits and cockloads of vanilla ice cream appearing bedside on a daily basis.

Ah well.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Sounds like next week's episode of "Sex in the City."

 

[Angel]

Double Post

 

[Angel]

Yeah, my next job will be writing scripts for a new paycable series.

Wanna be the male lead?


(I think KR1 said once I look like Sarah Jessica Parker, does that count)

 

[Guest]

Did anyone else notice that yayati was talking about telepathy rather than teleportation? And why hasn't that freak of nature been banned yet?

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Yeah, but it was on purpose -- a reference to an old thread. Yo-yo isn't a moron, just a dope having fun with the "e" key.

 

[OUTSIDER]

Yeah, but it was on purpose -- a reference to an old thread. Yo-yo isn't a moron, just a dope having fun with the "e" key.

He's like Gnufi Poppet's pyschotic twin brother.