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Improvements in Teleportation
assaultriflesforfree writes "Here's a little update on quantum entanglement and teleportation from The New York Times (free registration, yay): 'Employing a facet of quantum mechanics that Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance," scientists have taken particles of light, destroyed them and then resurrected copies more than a mile away.' I am a little skeptical about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle statements, though. Is this really a form of Star Trek's Heisenberg Compensator?"
How do they know it's the same electron? What distinctive marks are they basing this on? If it's just one electron that disappears and another one that reappears, the applications would be rather more limited. I mean, if I step into a teleportation machine, I would quite like me rather than someone who looks just like me to step out a mile away.
Virtually serving coffee
Obligatory Spacegirl quote.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
two particles of the same type and with the same properties are completely indistinguishable.
Yes, they are equal. Are they the same particle?
This means that a human being destroyed, but replicated exactly somewhere else, will have the exact same properties
Now, suppose you replicate exactly someone, but do not destroy the original. Again I ask, Are they the same person?
Many human cells are constantly dying and get replaced. Not many of the cells in the human body existed when the human was born. This means that your existing body/cells have been destroyed and recreated already - you simply didn't know.
Now this is a really interesting argument. Suppose you have some kind of degenerative disease and you need a prostetic leg. Later you need an arm, eben later you need a new heart. Suppose that the disease destroys even your brain cells and you need some kind of artificial storage to yield your conscience.
When do you stop being alive? When do you stop being yourself?. Dang if I know
Kilroy was here!
please dont post anymore news from the NYT (not hard to find another source if it is really newsworthy). when i click the link i get a huge registration page asking for date of birth, income, detailed employment info. on top of that there is a lot of opt in crap for yummy spam.
the reason i read webbased news sites and groups in the first place is to get away from biased, orverpriced, overrated, and generally slow newspapers.
A name you can trust.