Teleportation possible?

[Soxy]

Also: Scientists watch too much Star Trek

 

Teleportation: Express Lane Space Travel

 

Leonard David

Senior Space Writer

SPACE.com Fri Jul 8,12:06 PM ET

 

Think Star Trek: You are here. You want to go there. It's just a matter of teleportation.

 

Thanks to lab experiments, there is growth in the number of "beam me up" believers, but there is an equal amount of disbelief, too.

 

Over the last few years, however, researchers have successfully teleported beams of light across a laboratory bench. Also, the quantum state of a trapped calcium ion to another calcium ion has been teleported in a controlled way.

 

These and other experiments all make for heady and heavy reading in scientific journals. The reports would have surely found a spot on Einstein's night table. For the most part, it's an exotic amalgam of things like quantum this and quantum that, wave function, qubits and polarization, as well as uncertainty principle, excited states and entanglement.

 

Seemingly, milking all this highbrow physics to flesh out point-to-point human teleportation is a long, long way off.

 

Well, maybe...maybe not.

 

A trillion trillion atoms

 

In his new book, Teleportation - The Impossible Leap, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., writer David Darling contends that ""One way or another, teleportation is going to play a major role in all our futures. It will be a fundamental process at the heart of quantum computers, which will themselves radically change the world."

 

Darling suggests that some form of classical teleportation and replication for inanimate objects also seems inevitable. But whether humans can make the leap, well, that remains to be seen.

 

Teleporting a person would require a machine that isolates, appraises, and keeps track of over a trillion trillion atoms that constitute the human body, then sends that data to another locale for reassembly--and hopefully without mussing up your physical and mental makeup.

 

"One thing is certain: if that impossible leap turns out to be merely difficult--a question of simply overcoming technical challenges--it will someday be accomplished," Darling predicts.

 

In this regard, Darling writes that the quantum computer "is the joker in the deck, the factor that changes the rules of what is and isn't possible."

 

Just last month, in fact, scientists at Hewlett Packard announced that they've hammered out a new tactic for a creating a quantum computer—using switches of light beams rather than today's run of the mill, transistor-laden devices. What's in the offing is hardware capable of making calculations billions of times faster than any silicon-based computer.

 

Given quantum computers and the networking of these devices, Darling senses the day may not be far off for routine teleportation of individual atoms and molecules. That would lead to teleportation of macromolecules and microbeswith, perhaps, human teleportation to follow.

 

Space teleportation

 

What could teleportation do for future space endeavors?

 

"We can see the first glimmerings of teleportation in space exploration today," said Darling, responding to questions sent via e-mail by SPACE.com to his home office near Dundee, Scotland.

 

"Strictly speaking, teleportation is about getting from A to B without passing through the points between A and B. In other words, something dematerializes in one place, then simply rematerializes somewhere else," Darling said.

 

Darling pointed out that the Spirit and Opportunity rovers had to get to Mars by conventional means. However, their mission and actions are controlled by commands sent from Earth.

 

"So by beaming up instructions, we effectively complete the configuration of the spacecraft. Also, the camera eyes and other equipment of the rovers serve as vicarious extensions of our own senses. So you might say the effect is as if we had personally teleported to the Martian surface," Darling said.

 

Spooky action at a distance

 

In the future it might be possible to assemble spacecraft "on-the-spot" using local materials. "That would be a further step along the road to true teleportation," Darling added.

 

To take this idea to its logical endpoint, Darling continued, that's when nanotechnology enters the scene.

 

When nanotechnology is mature, an automated assembly unit could be sent to a destination. On arrival, it would build the required robot explorer from the molecular level up.

 

"Bona fide quantum teleportation, as applied to space travel, would mean sending a supply of entangled particles to the target world then use what Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance' to make these particles assume the exact state of another collection of entangled particles back on Earth," Darling speculated.

 

Doing so opens the prospect for genuinely teleporting a robot vehicle--or even an entire human crew--across interplanetary or, in the long run, across interstellar distances, Darling said.

 

"Certainly, if it becomes possible to teleport humans," Darling said, "you can envisage people hopping to the Moon or to other parts of the solar system, as quickly and as easily as we move data around the Internet today."

 

UFO connection?

 

If indeed we are to become a space teleporting civilization, what about other advanced civilizations circling distant stars? Perhaps they have already mastered mass transportation via teleportation?

 

One might even be drawn to consider that mode of travel in connection with purported UFO visitation of Earth.

 

"Any strange comings and goings are candidates for teleportation, although you would obviously have to eliminate all mundane explanations first," Darling responded. "According to reports, some UFOs do appear and disappear quite abruptly, which would fit in with the basic idea of teleportation," he said.

 

Darling said that interstellar teleportation would be one way to circumvent the light barrier, "although, as we understand the process now, you would need to make a sub-light trip first to set up the teleportation receiver and assembler at the destination."

 

Quantum teleportation, Darling pointed out is the kind we can do at the subatomic level in the lab today. And that requires equipment at both ends to be able to work.

 

"Extraterrestrial intelligence that is thousands or millions of years ahead of us will certainly be teleportation experts," Darling advised, "if the technology can be implemented at the macroscopic biological level."

 

What possible outcome, then, from ET successfully tinkering with teleportation?

 

"We might expect advanced aliens to be occasionally beaming in to check on our progress as a species," Darling concluded.

 

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[GoodAsGould]

teleportation while it looks cool on TV and everything man that would be kind of scary if you think of whats all involved in doing it. You would think it would basicly turn you into pure energy.

[JUGGERNAUT]

Darling surprises me. Teleportation might look & sound cool but it's essentially useless & wasteful. I surprise he doesn't say this.

 

Teleportation is a 2 phase process: disintegration & replication.

You step on, it records all information it needs to replicate you at the other end, & then it disintegrates you. At the other end it replicates you.

 

So a real scientist would ask the question why bother with the expense of disintegrating you in the first place? There's no reason to.

 

There is no value in converting matter into energy. The value lies in converting energy into matter. That's where the ability to replicate is driven by the ability to create energy & the universe is filled with vast & seemingly endless supply's of energy.

 

So forget about teleportation. When you read about it think replication.

Of course that will radically change everything we know today. Our economics is still essentially based on supply & demand. Replication technology will give us an endless supply so design will be what drives demand. But the ability to profit from that design will be next to impossible as there will be little means to prevent unauthorized replication.

 

Hence technology is destined to drive us to a communistic form of economics whether we like it or not.

[knightni]

Just remember The Fly when you think about teleportation.

[EvilJester99]

Reminds me of Spaceballs.."Have Snotty beam you over" "Does that thing work?" "Snotty beamed me twice lastnight and it was great"..I love that movie...

[GoodAsGould]

Jugg I think you are a little off. The process of teleportation like you said is basicly taking you all apart and than putting you back together in another place. You cant put something together if you dont have the parts to do it though.

[JUGGERNAUT]

No. I never said that. You do not need to take something apart. You only need to scan it with a scope that is at least molecular level. After you have collected that information you just need energy to matter technology to replicate that thing on the other side.

 

Realistically speaking teleportation is a meaningless thing.

 

Molecular or sub-atomic scanning technology is probable. That will definitely be available by 2050. Energy to matter conversion is still an unknown. Theoretically

it's possible but whether it's feasible in a realistic time frame remains unknown.

 

Let's say somehow energy to matter conversion becomes a reality. There is still a major complex problem to deal with: energy being converted to matter which contains energy.

 

In theory replicating a car is reasonable, As is the gasoline to run it, but what about the charge in the battery? Or consider a human. Jumpstarting a human being occurs in the womb via the umbilical cord. How do you jumpstart an adult-sized replicant? These are things that remain beyond the theoretical stage.

 

There is another possibility though. Freezing. What if we put you in frozen sleep before replicating you? If that is possible then in theory we can put you in that state, scan all we need, & then replicate you in a kind of incubator designed to revive you from that state.

 

Even though energy to matter conversion in a universe with a seemingly endless supply of energy makes all resource issues obsolete there is still a spacial limit to contend with. My guess is that the rich people would have the opportunity to basically replicate themselves any where they want but the common person would

be transformed into a renewable energy source once their replicant was confirmed to be alive & kickign on the destination planet. Real estate will still have considerable value in the future

[GoodAsGould]

I think the process of teleportation is so complicated it would be impossible for humans to understand it. I mean all that is involved with the process you would need 10 Einsteins just to get a start on it.

[Wise Master Buehrle]

That'd be cool. I'd go to Japan like every day.

 

But then we'd have terrorists visiting us all the time. Woop. Time to live in the ground or in the sky.

[Kid Gleason]

I don't know about meaningless or useless. If you can find me some way of travel that does not include automobiles, planes, trains, boats, or anything else of the sort, and can get me there in the matter of second? Rock the f*** on my friend! I detest driving, and I have a fear of flying, but I really want to get around the country, and I would LOVE to see the UK and Japan. This stuff will never happen in my lifetime, and if it does the research will have been so minor that there is no way I will ever do it, but somewhere down the road, I don't see how this could possibly be a meaningless endevor.

 

I bet it would hurt like hell though.

[JUGGERNAUT]

I bet it would hurt like hell though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's why I think your body would be placed in a frozen state before being scanned.

So that when you are replicated on the other side it won't hurt. You'll be replicated in that same state & then some kind of incubator for that body would revive you painlessly.

 

It also makes it easier to destroy the old version of your body so we don't proliferate the planet or the universe with garbage. Though I think the rich people would get a pass on that. Imagine a world universe where Gates in the richest man on every planet. Uggh.