Beam me up Scotty.

http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/beam-me-up-teleportation-a-possibility/story-e6frfkui-1226936816355

STAR Trek-style "beaming up" of people through space could become a reality sometime in the far future, the leader of a landmark teleportation experiment says.

Nothing in the laws of physics fundamentally forbids the teleportation of large objects, including humans, Professor Ronald Hanson says.

In contrast, it is physically impossible for anything to travel faster than light.

"What we are teleporting is the state of a particle," Prof Hanson, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, said.

"If you believe we are nothing more than a collection of atoms strung together in a particular way, then in principle it should be possible to teleport ourselves from one place to another.

"In practice it's extremely unlikely, but to say it can never work is very dangerous.

"I would not rule it out because there's no fundamental law of physics preventing it.

"If it ever does happen it will be far in the future."

Prof Hanson's team showed for the first time that it was possible to teleport information encoded into sub-atomic particles between two points three metres apart with 100 per cent reliability.

Cheers.

Michio Kaku, if i remember correctly, touches on teleportation in his book Physics of the Impossible. Again, if i remember correctly (been years since i read that book), one of the biggest problems is mapping the position (in relation to it's neighboors), spin, etc. of every particle in the body. It would be an immense amount of data to collect and transmit. Then you also run into some metaphysical issues; since you are destroying this body to collect all that info would the new, teleported body that was reconstructed have a soul (if we actually have souls)? Or put another way; would the reconstructed "you" have the same level of consciousness that the original you did?
I think Stephen Baxter had something to say about that in one of his Manifold Trilogy novels. Something about a degradation of the mind and body after too many copies. I'll have to look that up to and see if i'm recalling that correctly (although i usually donate books when i'm done with them, i still have that book). Teleportation brings up a variety of interesting problems and questions.

Time to moderate, perhaps?

NO!

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Time to moderate, perhaps?

NO!

Unless it's Message 1522872. :-D

Cheers.

I think that in time to come there will be the possibility of Star Trek type transportation. Basically it would mean recording the original distribution of the atoms that make up an object, scrambling those into a certain state, then electronically transmitting that state to another physical location, and then unscrambling the atoms back into the original object, with reference back to the original distribution.

Just imagine how easy it would have been to rescue the 33 trapped miners from the 2010 Chilean mining accident if we had one of those systems!

In contrast, it is physically impossible for anything to travel faster than light

Einstein said that as an object approaches the speed of light, the mass of it becomes infinite, and the amount of energy required to move it also becomes infinite. Hence the inbuilt limitation. However, if an object had zero or negative mass, then that limitation should not apply. Perhaps we might find a way to make a starship "appear" to have zero mass by some sort of electromagnetic field around it or similar.

I'm with Dr. McCoy on this one. I wouldn't let anyone break up and scatter my molecules. I'll take the shuttle every time.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

If you think about it; you will conclude that this is impossible-----especially for a human.

Teleportation has to be a system of moving the object to another location. It is not a system of replication.

If, with replication, the object was a live human, what are you going to do with the original?

My point was that the complete state of a human being with all of the voltages, capacities, blood concentrations and so on is pregnantly infinite, not likely to be measured and certainly not deconstructed and then reconstructed. Not now and not in a billion years.

Tis the stuff of fairy tales. It is what dreams are made of !!

Teleportation of voice and video are already here; as are holograms. Best to think of teleportation in this manner.

... Try to think of it the way that Microsoft Word operates...

I try not to! But that is a different thread :-( - Try LibreOffice instead :-)

In the case of teleportation, a copy of the original is beamed down, it is then compared to the original. If it matches, the original is discarded...

But, but, but...

That is murder!

Alternatively, holograms could be constructed of the original human and transported to somewhere else, and behave as the original would. The Holo-deck on Enterprise had lifelike entities that could be interacted with in real time.

That could be a good way of having an 'immersive out of body experience', a bit like the idea of Avatar but 'holographic' rather than biologically symbiotic/telepathic.

You simply cannot say that certain things are impossible in the future, even if they are now.

Very much so. We already have tech which would be considered impossible magic to anyone pre-Victorian...


However, one impossibility for the Star Trek style of teleportation is that you would need to take an instantaneous snapshot of the source object. I'm sure Pauli and Heisenberg would have a few formulae against that happening in our known universe...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

How will you probe every atom in the body to see what it is and what state it is in terms of connections, temperature, compounds, location and so on.

Never in a billion years in my estimation.

How will you probe every atom in the body to see what it is and what state it is in terms of connections, temperature, compounds, location and so on.

Never in a billion years in my estimation.

I agree :)

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Well until the experts work out and understand how to build true quantum computers (this in itself could take forever) any attempt at this will be pretty basic which is why they state that, "If it ever does happen it will be far in the future.", in the article.

Cheers.

In the case of teleportation, a copy of the original is beamed down...

Can we ask for some volunteers from politics to take part in the experiments?...

What?! You want more of them?!


Haven't we got enough corrupt hot air with our present politicians?...


All in our only one world,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

@ Wiggo

Well until the experts work out and understand how to build true quantum computers (this in itself could take forever)

It seems they may have done already.

D-Wave

Sorry Chris, but many academics, engineers and scientists still do not regard it as a proper quantum computer as yet and think that it still has a long way to go to get there. ATM it's just regarded as the 1st step towards being 1, but there are many more steps to go before we actually have a true 1.

Cheers.

...you also run into some metaphysical issues; since you are destroying this body to collect all that info would the new, teleported body that was reconstructed have a soul (if we actually have souls)? Or put another way; would the reconstructed "you" have the same level of consciousness that the original you did?

I agree with the metaphysical questions. I don't think everything in the human body can be broken down into ones and zeroes.

I think Stephen Baxter had something to say about that in one of his Manifold Trilogy novels. Something about a degradation of the mind and body after too many copies. I'll have to look that up to and see if i'm recalling that correctly (although i usually donate books when i'm done with them, i still have that book). Teleportation brings up a variety of interesting problems and questions.

Reminds me of the movie, "Multiplicity". ;~}

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I think the transporting the physical body may be possible in the future, but what about the soul, or the essence of personality that a person has that makes them unique? Is it a certain arrangement of atoms in the brain or not? If not can that be copied? Maybe the way forward might be to make a copy of the physical body and transport it somewhere else as some sort of working hologram. You the original, stay behind in stasis.

But, there is a dire warning about all this messing around with nature and atoms. Remember the 1985 film "The Fly"?

Yeah, imagine getting to the other end thinking that you were the opposite sex. :-O

Cheers.

I think the transporting the physical body may be possible in the future, but what about the soul, or the essence of personality that a person has that makes them unique? Is it a certain arrangement of atoms in the brain or not? If not can that be copied? Maybe the way forward might be to make a copy of the physical body and transport it somewhere else as some sort of working hologram. You the original, stay behind in stasis.

But, there is a dire warning about all this messing around with nature and atoms. Remember the 1985 film "The Fly"?

The original was much better

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This whole thread makes me think of that movie The Fly... brrr, imagine if your DNA gets mixed up with that of an insect or other creature during teleportation... I think teleportation is just pie in the sky though.

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rOZZ
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I'll go out on a limb here and bet that we find a way around the speed of light before we find a way to teleport ourselves.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I'll go out on a limb here and bet that we find a way around the speed of light before we find a way to teleport ourselves.

I'm on the same limb.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place