Teleportation — Fact and Fiction

jcatcw writes "Earlier this week actor Hayden Christensen, of Star Wars fame, and director Doug Liman discussed teleportation with MIT professors to compare the reality to the special effects version in the upcoming movie, Jumper. Edward Farhi, director of the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT, said, 'It's a little less exotic than what you see in the movie. Teleportation has been done, moving a single proton over two miles. [But] teleporting a person? That is pretty far down the line. The quantum state of a living creature is pretty formidable. That is just not in the foreseeable future.'"

Comments

Shock

[Bongfish]

This article is a complete waste of time.

Re:Shock

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean space.

Re:Shock

[Laebshade]

So is reading your comment.

And so is reading this one.

Re:Shock

[smittyoneeach]

You forgot to mention resources, you insensitive clod.

wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[Some_Llama]

if you could get a computation to figure out the mass and molecular composition of an object, disassembly of the mass>turn into energy>transmit energy>translate into mass>re-assemble.

Theoretically it should be doable although highly intensive energy wise (not worth it). BUT i would think at that point it would just be easier (and possible) to create the object from stored mass by just using a molecular blueprint that could be transmitted. (replicators?)

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[calebt3]

(replicators?) Star Trek or Stargate?
Jokes aside, in the mythology of Star Trek, weren't transporter originally (pre-TOS) pad-to-pad only?

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[petermgreen]

Well in enterprise they certainly had pad to site and site to pad, i'm not sure when site to site transport came in.

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[Alaria Phrozen]

Hello there. I think you've forgotten that when you can go from A->B and from B->C it's almost like you can go from A->C! Transitivity... that's a funny word, it sounds like you're going somewhere. I really liked Enterprise because the tractor beam was a grappling hook. It's just so dirty! I love it. Too bad there were nipples in that first episode. Nipples ruin everything.

More on topic, from all the work that's being done and with the scanning technology required, I think it would be easier to just upload a person's consciousness into machines and transmit them that way. Once we have live biological transportation, do we even need all the meat anyway?

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[Anonymous Coward]

No disassemble!

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[glitch23]

if you could get a computation to figure out the mass and molecular composition of an object, disassembly of the mass>turn into energy>transmit energy>translate into mass>re-assemble.

Actually, what happens when "teleporting" a particle is that physicists just measure all the properties of particle A and make particle B take on those properties. Now, in so doing particle A is modified and you end up with particle A that used to be particle B. I don't consider that teleporting (at least not what I expected it to be) and that's why I put teleporting in quotes initially. So if you were to scale that up you would have to have a computer capable of measuring every atom that makes up a person and to store all that data (spin, velocity, location, etc.) and then have another whole set of particles on which to apply those properties and of course you have to get it just right because the old set of particles will be modified and not exist the same as they originally did. So you don't have to disassemble the mass assuming all atoms can be measured without doing that. The ease of teleportation really comes down to size, not whether the object is alive or not, although if you get it wrong that's when you better hope you were experimenting on something inanimate.

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[Hucko]

There was an episode where Scotty...

Seriously I vaguely remember Scotty rigging up something to make it work site to site for one story line. I'm not a good trekky.

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[Anonymous Coward]

quoteTheoretically it should be doable although highly intensive energy wise/quote. What theory are you talking about here?

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[mastermemorex]

if you could get a computation to figure out the mass and molecular composition of an object, disassembly of the mass>turn into energy>transmit energy>translate into mass>re-assemble. Theoretically it should be doable although highly intensive energy wise (not worth it). BUT i would think at that point it would just be easier (and possible) to create the object from stored mass by just using a molecular blueprint that could be transmitted. (replicators?)

Well not exactly. There is some extrange property at quatum level that is related with the correlation.
Somehow, particles has some information about other particles that has been interacted. This is related with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epr_paradox
If you do what yo suggest, the correlation is destroyed and the particle is never the same.
It is almost imposible to reproduce the correlation, because you will need a quantum computer with 2^100 q-bits to calculate the correlation for just 100 elemental particles.
So, there is not enought universe to create a quantum computer that reproduce all the quantum possible states for something like you and me.

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[dominious]

Why everyone in here thinks of teleportation as a copy/paste method? I have a different concept of teleportation which has nothing to do with copying:

Think of an x dimensional object in a y dimensional world where x smaller than y. For example imagine a 2 dimensional character (a dot on a piece of paper). If we were to fold that piece of paper to make a cylinder, then the east edge of the paper would meet with the west edge. If the dot was moving ( had life) and walked from the east to the west while the paper was folded, then in its own percepts it would seem it had teleported from the east to the west in one step (it wouldn't perceive that the paper(its world) was actually folded, rather it would just perceive that there is a repeating pattern, just like 'asteroids':)
Now, if we were able to manipulate such 'folding' and create paths from one edge to the other in our 3 dimensional space then we would say that we can teleport something from one place to the other.

Re:wouldn't in animate objects be easier then?

[kaiidth]

I think it's probably OK to cite wikipedia when talking about transporter beams so...

'"The six circles on the platform are generally used as targets for the subjects to stand on, but they do not appear to represent any limitation of the hardware to six or fewer people. People have been transported carrying others, in a coffin style transport, and once animals, hay, and other inanimate objects". This is explained in the TOS episode, "The Day of the Dove". Spock and Scotty had said that doing a transport like that could be risky. They could "beam into a deck" or an inanimate object and get stuck there.'

You were probably thinking of "The Day of the Dove", then. I can't believe the amount of space Wikipedia devotes to the Collected Works of Gene Roddenberry.

Heisenberg Compensators! Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously this guy didn't read enough Star Trek technical manuals.

Death and Rebirth

[Sangui]

Whenever I see discussion about teleportation discussed, I think about Ilium and how in reality when they were teleporting, they were being killed and brought back to life at the other end, they were never the same person, made of the same atoms, just an exact copy.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[zaax]

Is that a soul?
I think you need to talk to a person of the cloth

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Tangent128]

Good (if creepy) exploration here: To Be.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[khallow]

Sounds like one of the weaker Dan Simmons novels. After all, we don't stay the same person. Most of our matter gets flushed out over a few years (as I understand it). And it's obvious that we change substantially over the years in other ways. I still teleportation as less of a change than living ten years.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Artraze]

While the concept of replication as a method of teleportation is interesting philosophically, it doesn't really solve the major issue:

> The quantum state of a living creature is pretty formidable.

That's really the difficulty: reading and writing all the states of all the atoms/particles with enough accuracy to keep something alive is quite likely impossible. I would say the best (most likely possible) method of teleportation would be more like warping space so that something ends up in a different location without actually moving.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[v1]

The part that would worry me is the consciousness. Brings up questions like what happens when you die. Does your consciousness cease to exist? probably. So if they replicate you to teleport you, haven't they created a new (but identical at that moment) copy, and then destroy your consciousness? Would your new copy of your consciousness know anything had happened? unlikely.

If sometime in the future teleportation becomes possible, eventually everyone will be using it. By the time a child is old enough to ponder the above, they will have been teleported hundreds of times. At which point either you don't care anymore, or you don't believe your consciousness is destroyed by the teleportation. (since it would not be evident to the latest copy of you) Then you start getting into weirder things, like if someone teleports you, who has never been teleported before, against your will, could they be charged with murder? It's kinda absurd to think your consciousness somehow transfers with the teleportation.

I think this would escalate to a whole new level if you teleported someone and failed to erase the original, and the two got together and were told to argue it out who needs to live and who needs to die. They'd both have the same conscious train of thought and would probably both want to live and would both believe they were "the real one" etc.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[BootNinja]

But you see, every cell in your body is replaced every seven years, so you aren't that exact set of cells. I find it far more feasible to say that what I am is a specific configuration of cells with specific quantum signatures. Therefore if the copy that is created on the far end of the transport has an identical quantum signature to the original you could say that the copy has an identity with the original.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

If the only thing which distinguishes one particle or system from the next is its state, then identical states cannot be considered separate or different.

Teleportation does not seem to be about matter but about state. I feel this may be thought-evidence for consciousness continuity or some kind of existence fidelity (if one considers consciousness as something describable by quantum physics).

One day perhaps teleportation will be viewed as we see flight today: simple fundamentals and devilish engineering.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[ScrewMaster]

I think this would escalate to a whole new level if you teleported someone and failed to erase the original, and the two got together and were told to argue it out who needs to live and who needs to die. They'd both have the same conscious train of thought and would probably both want to live and would both believe they were "the real one" etc.

There was an episode of ST:TNG which dealt with that idea, when a transporter beam was deflected by the oddball atmospherics of a hostile planet and the Riker who was beaming up got doubled ... one made it back to the ship, the other ended up trapped on an abandoned research base for ten years until he was rescued by Enterprise. The one that got out was the one that we all came to know, and the dupe started out identical but evolved emotionally in a different way. It was kind of a cool episode, actually.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[ILuvRamen]

that method is the hardest when you think about it. I actually did think about it during Voyager :D Bending space or using quantum effects is the easiest but having a computer scan every atom and its vector (which direction it's moving and how "hard" would be important) and storing that all then being able to transmit it to another computer and re-assemble it all together and start all the atoms moving at the same vectors is just as hard as it sounds. Plus then we could probably make copies of ourselves with that technology and that'd be TEH COOLNESS for open source projects so finally I wouldn't have to work with lazy and crazy people or 16 year olds lol. And then we could clone the president and put him in stasis in case he gets assassinated! Lotsa possibilities there. But yeah, I don't think anyone should ever pursue that technique cuz it's just too hard and dangerous no matter what your level of technology.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[deanoaz]

I've always thought, from the first time I saw it on Star Trek or read about it in a Sci-Fi story, that teleportation is obviously a quick painless death followed by replacement of you with a new synthetic person who thinks they are you. I'll pass.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Hunter-Killer]

The fate of souls during teleportation was an issue discussed by the religious faction of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri:

And what of the immortal soul in such transactions? Can this machine transmit and reattach it as well? Or is it lost forever, leaving a soulless body to wander the world in despair?

Sister Miriam Godwinson
"We Must Dissent" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh-ZcdO5fe8

SMAC is one of the most philosophical games, and a classic.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Rogerborg]

Are you made of the same atoms from one instant to another?

How would you test it?

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Dahamma]

But you see, every cell in your body is replaced every seven years, so you aren't that exact set of cells.

Poetic, but inaccurate. With a few exceptions, almost all nerve cells do not get replaced over your entire lifespan. And in the end, those are the cells that define your personality, which is what you would call an "identity".

I actually agree with the idea that if one could replicate the exact quantum state of every particle in your body, then there is no difference from the original. But everything you said to get to that point is fairly ridiculous, and sounds more like a Star Trek episode than science...

Re:Death and Rebirth

[scottrocket]

It's kinda absurd to think your consciousness somehow transfers with the teleportation.

It's all perspective - I would like to think that my consciousness would be parsed into its' most basic "grammar" (the atoms, or subatomic particles, or...?), & the instructions needed for reconstruction would be included (hopefully!). In Star Trek, I think they "phased" your particles into something like subspace. Either way,in effect my consciousness would be teleported, if only in pieces, awaiting re-assembly. In any event, as long as "I" materialize with all of "my" thoughts & cognitive skills intact, "I" will be happy, or at least not unhappy. In short: I think, therefore me am.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[rk]

What about the component molecules of nerve cells? The cells still metabolize, don't they?

Re:Death and Rebirth

[langelgjm]

It was called Second Chances. Gotta love wikis.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeap, This was all addressed in "The Metaphysics of Star Trek". Did a pretty good job too if I remember correctly. Basically you're not the same person from moment to moment. Between seconds your body loses cells, creates new ones, grows, quantum states change, etc... Looking at minuscule details you can never be the same from moment to moment. In this line of thinking when state A has two skin cells more than state B, it's no different from saying state A was in place X and state B was in place Y... whether that's a few mm or a few km difference doesn't matter.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Domstersch]

It's kinda absurd to think your consciousness somehow transfers with the teleportation.

No, it's absurd to think that it doesn't, unless you're a dualist. In which case you're beyond help anyway.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Oswald]

Actually, it sounds like a pretty solid novel by Algis Budrys called Rogue Moon. Of course, the theme has been done many times, but I remember this one had an impact when I read it in college. I never see Budrys's name any more (his Google number is less than a tenth of Ellison's, about one fifteenth of Silverberg's), but he's a good writer.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Headcase88]

Yeah, gameplay-wise I find it tedious, but story\philosophy-wise it's top notch, no question.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[novakyu]

I think this would escalate to a whole new level if you teleported someone and failed to erase the original, and the two got together and were told to argue it out who needs to live and who needs to die. They'd both have the same conscious train of thought and would probably both want to live and would both believe they were "the real one" etc. In the world of fiction, anything can happen, and except for a few extraordinary cases, it quite doesn't matter here in the real world.

In the real world, you can rest assured, that as far as we know, the "transportation" process destroys the original quantum state (No cloning theorem), so it is not possible to "fail to erase the original"—because existence of the original would mean that you made an "imperfect copy" of what you were trying to transport, and in this case, it's fairly clear which one needs to be incinerated.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider also the fact that you are no longer the same atoms that were functioning as "you" earlier...

What is most fundamental - your memories or your specific physical matter? This is a very tough question. Neither is absolute - you may have lapses in your consciousness/memories, and the matter in your brain can and will be replaced. My first inclinations would be to claim the constant "stream" of consciousness - but since I am sometimes unconscious (sleeping or sufficiently drunk), is that valid either?

Re:Death and Rebirth

[LoudMusic]

Whenever I see discussion about teleportation discussed, I think about Ilium and how in reality when they were teleporting, they were being killed and brought back to life at the other end, they were never the same person, made of the same atoms, just an exact copy. Begs the question, "What IS life?" doesn't it?

Re:Death and Rebirth

[bill_mcgonigle]

Whenever I see discussion about teleportation discussed, I think about Ilium and how in reality when they were teleporting, they were being killed and brought back to life at the other end, they were never the same person, made of the same atoms, just an exact copy.

Hmm, a 2003 book. Sounds alot like the premise of Think Like a Dinosaur (1995).

Re:Death and Rebirth

[bill_mcgonigle]

I've always thought, from the first time I saw it on Star Trek or read about it in a Sci-Fi story, that teleportation is obviously a quick painless death followed by replacement of you with a new synthetic person who thinks they are you. I'll pass.

Star Trek is explicitly not this, it's an analog process - your body 'energy blob' is really moved. This allows Star Trek to skirt many moral and ethical questions so they can get on with the Space Western.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[greg_barton]

they were being killed and brought back to life at the other end, they were never the same person, made of the same atoms

You do know that we replace about 98% of the atoms in our bodies every year, right?

And it's 100% every seven or so. (bones take a little longer...)

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Layth]

"Begging the question" is related to the fallacy of circular reasoning.
What you're looking for is either "Raises the question" or "Invites the question"

Re:Death and Rebirth

[KinkyClown]

There was also a movie on this very topic: it's not on teleporting but on replica's and the will to live. Also a nice movie: in which they teleport people from the past to the future.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[KinkyClown]

Sorry: The Island: http://imdb.com/title/tt0399201/ Freejack: http://imdb.com/title/tt0104299/

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Wolfkin]

No, it's absurd to think that it doesn't, unless you're a dualist. In which case you're beyond help anyway. That's exactly the reverse of the case. Only if you were a dualist would you think that there could be two bodies sharing a single consciousness, merely because they were copies. Those who believe that consciousness is a physical process would, of course, realize that there are two such physical processes going on, rather than one.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Domstersch]

That's possibly true, but that's not what I was saying. Perhaps because of the ambiguity of "transfer", perhaps because you're getting the implication the wrong way round (I'm saying non-transfer -> dualist, not dualist -> non-transfer).

You're right that a dualist might think the new brain connects to the old mind, and that way consciousness is preserved. Or, a dualist might not think that; they might think that a teleport would sever the tie to the old mind. Neither view is what I was talking about.

What I was saying is that a materialist would think that consciousness is transferred along with the brain. Because, to a materialist, there is no part of what we call consciousness that is immaterial. Thus, it's absurd to think consciousness isn't transferred along with the brain, unless you're not a materialist.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Paul Slocum]

Is it really necessary to explain the episode on Slashdot? "The episode of TNG with Thomas Riker" would have sufficed.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[7Prime]

Actually, yes, if I remember correctly, Star Trek gets around that by basically moving your atoms into a sort of "energy plane" and then moving them from one place to another, so technically, you're conscious throughout the entire procedure (which explains all the weird Barkley episodes where he ends up moving around and doing shit mid-transportation).

Still, I would NEVER use teleportation the way it probably could ACTUALLY be done: it's simply death and rebirth. It would be great for inanimate objects though... PERFECT for internet shopping. I remember a game called Journeyman's Project 2: buried in Time, in which you could by stuff off the internet, and it would materialize right there in front of you, perfect!

Re:Death and Rebirth

[TummyX]

There was an Outer Limits episode named "Think Like a Dinosaur", based on a short story of the same name. A distant race of Dinosaurs come to help humanity and give them transporter technology. The catch is that the transporter always creates a duplicate and a human operator is required to destroy the original by pushing a button. The story deals with a technical issue which left the original not destroyed (as they think the transmission failed and cancelled the process). When they discover the transmission was actualy successful, the operator has to deal with ethical and moral issues when he is ordered by the Dinosaurs to destroy the original transportee who he has started to befriend.

Really good story and great Outer Limits episode. I highly recommend watching the episode if you can get a chance.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[bemoosed]

You are never the same atoms from one moment to the next either. Nor an exact copy.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[RadioElectric]

Yes but it's the connections between them that are important and the state of potentiation/depression at the synapses.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only someone could figure out quantum entrainment, we wouldn't have this whole disassemble-reassemble issue. But then the question would be whether or not living matter could survive being in such a coherent state that allows a more massive object to behave as a particle while in a quasi-singularity state.

The closest thing to that in the StarTrek universe is probably the warp bubble that Wesley Crusher was fooling around with at one point.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[UnxMully]

Actually, it sounds like a pretty solid novel by Algis Budrys called Rogue Moon [wikipedia.org] See also Clifford Simak's Way Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Station_(novel). Both excellent books IMHO.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[fuzza]

There was also an episode in The Outer Limits (the new one) called Think Like A Dinosaur, which was based on a short story of the same name.

Idea was that an alien race had developed a transportation method to send people to other planets, but the actual procedure was to make a duplicate of the person at the other end, and then kill the original (so there was only one).

Was a bit of a problem when one day they failed to receive confirmation that the person had been cloned at the far end...

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Chris Carollo]

What I was saying is that a materialist would think that consciousness is transferred along with the brain. Because, to a materialist, there is no part of what we call consciousness that is immaterial. Thus, it's absurd to think consciousness isn't transferred along with the brain, unless you're not a materialist.

Yes, as a materialist you'd assume that consciousness is transferred along with the brain -- but you'd also assume that if the teleport didn't actually move the original atoms that the transfer is actually a copy rather than a move. And that the original was destroyed to make it appear as if a move happened.

Kind of like the way that perforce does file renames.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[smittyoneeach]

So, if we save off the precise state of your existence, does that allow you to go back to it at any point?
In some future MondoByte()* storage system, do you have some SVN repository of yourself that you can go back to at will?
In addition to teleporting, the idea brings up some cloning, immortality, and Groundhog Day aspects.

*This is a function for calculating big storage. Take the biggest amount currently under discussion, (is it currently petabyte?) and raise it by a power of two. Future-proof you storage remarks!

Re:Death and Rebirth

[fritsd]

That's odd.. I'm having a Slashdot deja-vu moment.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[SanityInAnarchy]

Another creepy exploration: The Prestige.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[amorsen]

Star Trek is explicitly not this, it's an analog process - your body 'energy blob' is really moved. This allows Star Trek to skirt many moral and ethical questions so they can get on with the Space Western.

That is how teleportation works in the real world. Quantum state is moved. You can't copy quantum state, so you'll never get any extra twins.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[serutan]

Well the writers are just playing with these ideas in a stimulating way. They only have to get it right to the extent that most readers understand the reality. Back in the days when the early explorers were coming to America, Europe was abuzz with tales of exotic creatures, natives and treasures to be found here. Imagine the strange visions that would have been created if movies had existed then.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[ProfessorJWN]

there was a "new" outer limits episode that dealt with this concept. The premise of the episode was that earth had been contacted by another species from space. They were "evolved" "dinosaur like" reptiles. They (the dinosaurs) installed a "gateway" in orbit around earth to provide transportation back and forth to their home world. Earth people were free to travel back and forth as well. The "transporter" worked like you stated (recreating the person on the other end and essentially killing the (now) copy on this end of the line the reptiles referred to this as "balancing" the equation. (to eliminate ST:TNG Ryker Paradoxes presumably) In any case, there was (of course its Television) a malfunction in the process, and the technician thought the transport did not occur, so he failed to perform the "balancing of the equation", thereby leaving the "transportee" alive. It is worth a watch if you are interested in the writers "take" on this concept, it really does make you think. BTW - I believe that our soul is inherently linked to our "configuration" of atoms, perhaps on a DNA / subatomic level, and no matter where in the universe we are, our soul would remain linked (or relinked) if we displaced ourselves 10 feet or 10 light years? Quantum entanglement/duality of particles may actually support this idea. Distance is irrelavant to quantum entanglement. for any type of "Transporter" technology to work, this would have to be part of the technology. Two many darn molecules to copy the state of otherwise. Either way, Transporters are a great idea, but probably require some part of physics we haven't quite tripped over just now. Interdimensional "hopping" would accomplish the same thing, at perhaps a lower level of technology, though the power requirements to bend space time would be rather large. The theory goes that you could "jump out" of this space time continuem and emerge in another at a predetermined location. Similarly, I think the Stargate concept, or stable wormhole is probably much more likely to occur in the forseeable future, especially for long haul interstellar travel. But once a person had a device or ship capable of bending space time, wouldn't it be possible to be anywhere instantly, or perhaps anyWHEN? String theory and pockets dimensions/sub space make this really stranger every day. Cool stuff. Best Regards J.W.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[khallow]

What makes you think you have the same conciousness now as when you wrote the above post? My take is that teleportation wouldn't be unusual as a physical process that might change conciousness. I also don't believe that it is absurd to think that conciousness transfers with teleportation. as I see it, conciousness is a condition of a certain organization of matter. If that organization is destroyed in one place and created identically in another, then conciousness has been transfered.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[iwein]

Teleportation is not the same as making a copy and destroying the original. That proton that was teleported was actually the same proton... or at least that is my basic understanding of it. As remarked already teleporting the quantum state of a human would be a little more involved, but it should adhere to the same (non-copying) principal.

If you would be able to make a copy, then why would you want to destroy the original at all times, why not wait until he has done the dishes?

Re:Death and Rebirth

[ProfessorJWN]

Khallow, After rereading my post, I tend to agree with you. Consciousness is of course a "state of mind". and since effectively this is duplicating ones mind (an exact copy of a finite state machine at the moment of teleportation) While destroying the original, all that would happen from the universe's perspective is that you as an individual disappear from one location and reappear at another simultaneously. Since I posted originally, many of my brain cells have been re-tasked, and my overall "electron bias" has changed significantly. Since we are really transmitting matter's states, any associated energy activity would likely "go along for the ride" with the information. So while your soul may be "stretched out a bit" along the way, it would re-materialize along with your body at the destination. This whole process is similiar (at least in theory) as doing a complete backup of a computer. What you are transmitting is a moment in time of that machine. 5 micro seconds before would be different, 5 micro seconds later as well. When you restore a complete backup, you get an image of the computer as it was at the time of the backup. whether you immediately restore, or FEDEX the tape across the country and "rebuild" the computer there, from it's perspective, it would "wake up" and behave exactly like the orginal at the time of the backup. It would seem that if we could ever develop this technology such that it does not destroy the original, perhaps it would be better than cloning. We would be able to make exact replicas (experience, memories, skills, etc.) of any one and as many as needed. It would make creating an army very quick and economical. this whole concept is quite strange, and I agree with an earlier post, Gene Roddenberry needed a "consistent vehicle" or method of getting the cast don to a planets surface quickly (and cheaply) without planetary shuttles, and other landing craft. Remember that this original concept (from 1964) followed very lose with the series of "FLY" movies of the 50's so the concept was freshly in the audiences mind at that time. Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis use of the "Gates" as stable wormholes provides much the same type of travel, but lets the universe figure out how to transport the matter/energy stream across the universe. they do have the short range "ring transport" devices, but these of course are transmitter/recievers, and unlike the Star Trek do not appear to have the ability to operate autonomously. Great comments, Best Regards, J.W.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Anonymous Coward]

I think everybody is barking up the wrong tree. Future teleportation won't physically disassemble and reassemble. It will be more like Schrödinger's cat that the cat is both dead and alive at the same time. You will be at one place then the next because you are really everywhere all the time.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a materialist, and I don't think your implication accurately reflects my views.

Yes, consciousness would exist in the "copy", at the destination. But it wouldn't be your consciousness. It would be a whole new one that didn't exist prior to the teleportation, and which is only identical to yours, not actually yours. That new person would walk around with all your memories in tact, and they would believe that they had just been transported across some huge distance. But the original you, the one that was scanned atom-by-atom in order to create the copy at the destination, would still be the only person in existence with your consciousness. The clone is just a clone, it's not actually you. When the machine destroys the original you as the final stage of the transport process, your consciousness would disappear, and you would cease to exist. The clone would continue living your life as though it were you, and nobody else would know what really happened (save for the designer of the transport machine, who would realize that a copy doesn't imply transfer of consciouness).

Re:Death and Rebirth

[Mitreya]

There was an episode of ST:TNG which dealt with that idea, when a transporter beam was deflected by the oddball atmospherics of a hostile planet and the Riker who was beaming up got doubled

There was an even better Outer Limits episode ("Think like a dinosaur") that has dealt with a similar problem, where the teleportation process goes wrong and two copies of the traveler exist come into existence. The technician that was responsible for pressing the kill button after transmission process was confirmed (and the traveler has arrived at their destination) is now asked to "balance the equation" by killing the traveler at his end as having two copies of the individual is not allowed.

Re:Death and Rebirth

[deanoaz]

>>> it's an analog process - your body 'energy blob' is really moved..

And how do you propose to prove that the teleported person isn't just a perfect recreation who has all the memories of the original and believes they are them, while the original consciousness actually ended when they were physically disassembled?

Re:Death and Rebirth

[bill_mcgonigle]

>>> it's an analog process - your body 'energy blob' is really moved..

And how do you propose to prove that the teleported person isn't just a perfect recreation who has all the memories of the original and believes they are them, while the original consciousness actually ended when they were physically disassembled?

In Star Trek, they're not disassembled, they're 'energized'.

On the theory...

[dada21]

...I actually dreamed about teleportation theory a few weeks ago. That's odd that this comes up.

I woke up to thinking about it. If you teleport a la Star Trek, you're probably going to die just because pieces of your organs are seperated. Maybe if you could be placed in a true time-temporal state, it might work in chunks.

I'd guess the best way to teleport would be to map your atomic structure, and use some sort of carbon/hydrogen/oxygen builder to rebuild you piece by piece exactly using the atoms at the other end. Impossible today, yes. Probably a bit too scary for things living.

The thoughts moved to faster-than-light travel, and the same problems came up. If you could accelerate to "warp speed", would all your atoms accelerate at the same time or would you be stretched to oblivion?

Re:On the theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

People will have to come to terms with potential undesirable outcomes with teleportation. Take for example the short story Think Like a Dinosaur.
An individual is put into the teleportation chamber, data regarding their pattern is streamed at superluminal speeds to the destination where the individual is reconstructed while the original is destroyed.
The copy thinks and believes to be the original self as much as the original. There is no interruption of consciousness. If the original isn't destroyed due to a glitch does the original have the same rights or should everyone eventually become omnipresent and never return to their point of origin?

Re:On the theory...

[dohzer]

I guess it could only be done if every single particle were placed in exactly the same position as it were originally.
That means with the same velocity too.

Re:On the theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't accelerate faster than c. But with Albucierre (sp?) warp, it seems you are actually stationary relative to the space around you, the space itself moves - travelling without moving...

as for teleportation, I like Banks' idea of displacing. Does away with those existential questions by snatching the space you inhabit (with you in it) and transferring that somehow. No silly Heisenberg compensators.

Re:On the theory...

[bill_mcgonigle]

I woke up to thinking about it. If you teleport a la Star Trek, you're probably going to die just because pieces of your organs are seperated. Maybe if you could be placed in a true time-temporal state, it might work in chunks.

Yeah, if you're confining the problem to Star Trek, that's how it works - time is supposed to be frozen for the transportee. See how Scotty was preserved in transporter ring buffers for 70 years or whatever without aging. The magic sauce of the transporter technology is instantaneously accelerating all the parts of a thing to energy in an analog process. It's not copy-and-delete, your body is actually being sent across space - just in the energy form. Advanced technology / magic and all that.

But then the writers went and screwed that up with plots about people seeing space worms while being transported and other such crap.

Re:On the theory...

[Tony Hoyle]

I'm no physicist, but isn't that supposed to be impossible? (knowing where a particle is and what its velocity is at the same time).

Re:On the theory...

[ecavalli]

I don't think it becomes an issue if the teleportation is instantaneous. People have been brain dead (and had foreign objects disrupting their most vital of organs) for (relatively) extended time periods with little side effect, so even if your organs are disrupted momentarily, as long as the system is quick enough you should be fine.

Plus, if the teleportation were instantaneous, it would be REALLY convenient.

Re:On the theory...

[dohzer]

Exactly!
That's why I would always be scared about stepping into a teleporter. :)

But who knows what kind of technology or quantum physics understandings we may have in the future.

You have got to be kidding me

[handelaar]

"Next week, we'll be discussing the differences between general and special relativity with Big Bird from Sesame Street."

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[xannash]

And will you be leading that discussion?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Malevolent Tester]

Today, we'll be looking at the letter c

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[alexandreracine]

10.... 9 .... 8 .... 7 HAHAHAHA (insert devil laugh here)

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[jdevivre]

Today, we'll be looking at the letter c Better:
The letters for today were:
m and c .

The number for today was:
squared .

Distance?

[calebt3]

How much does distance affect this? Is two miles near the theoretical limit something can be teleported before degradation sets in? Or is that just how far the scientists have bothered to try at this point?

Re:Distance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Distance isn't an issue as far as its being possible with quantum teleportation.

Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Earlier this week "actor" Hayden Christensen...

Re:Fixed that for you.

[ScrewMaster]

Yeah, I pretty much lost any vestigial respect I had for George Lucas when I found out he cast Christensen as Annakin Skywalker. Not that that has anything to do with teleportation, other than I can think of a few places I'd like to beam Lucas to.

disassembly never made sense

[jollyreaper]

The Star Trek method never made any sense, chopping up a living organism and beaming it defies even scifi logic. It makes more sense to just say it's a wormhole between here and there.

Re:disassembly never made sense

[Quarters]

The Star Trek method makes perfect sense. Roddenberry & Co. didn't have the budget for establishing shots with shuttle craft and planetary atmospheric flight. They needed something that would be cheap to produce, not eat up lots of show time, and would have a good "wow" factor.

Re:disassembly never made sense

[calebt3]

Roddenberry & Co. didn't have the budget for establishing shots with shuttle craft and planetary atmospheric flight. They could have done something like the Stargate, except with controlled exit points rather than only to other gates.

Re:disassembly never made sense

[VValdo]

They could have done something like the Stargate, except with controlled exit points rather than only to other gates.

GlaDOS wouldn't let them.

More ontopic, congrats to Doug Liman on his deal with the WGA.

W

(the pastry is a mistruth?)

Re:disassembly never made sense

[mblase]

The "Next Generation" Star Trek folks knew this, and covered it appropriately. Well, sort of. Read about it under Heisenberg compensators if you like.

Remember, folks, when dealing with science fiction, the operative word is always "fiction".

Re:disassembly never made sense

[smurgy]

If you think about it, were one to have a viable teleporter then you'd want some kind of placeholder (sparkly lights and sound) appear at the destination and transfer points so as to prevent mishaps (people walking through and everyone going splat).

I'm not for a minute suggesting that this was the reason for the Star Trek team going so, but I'd sure want everything going in my favour to prevent this kind of mishap.

My preference would be the locked-at-both-ends teleport booths described in some scifi novels for just that reason of guaranteed safety. The door at the other end won't close? I'm not going.

Re:disassembly never made sense

[fireboy1919]

Or forget traditional transporting at all. Transporting seems to take about 30 seconds or so.
How about just having a magical tractor beam that can compensate for inertia and can move something at a fast, yet non-relativistic speed (and that forces air molecules out of it's way)?

The speed of sound (Mach 1) is 340.29 m/s. The diameter of the earth is 12756.1 km. At mach 100, you could circumnavigate in 6.2 minutes.

As long as we're talking about moving around on earth, or moving around within a small region around earth, these speeds are sufficient. Heck, go for 1000 times the speed of sound and *everything* is seconds away.

And in case anyone's wondering, the speed of light is 880,991x the speed of sound, so that's not even coming close to relativistic problems.

I think that some kind of efficient way of having high velocity, low friction traveling is probably the real thing we're going to see that resembles transporters.

Re:disassembly never made sense

[Tablizer]

The Star Trek method makes perfect sense. Roddenberry & Co. didn't have the budget for establishing shots with shuttle craft and planetary atmospheric flight.

They forgot to get a quote for a giant slingshot.

Re:disassembly never made sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The Star Trek method makes perfect sense...
from a completely different point of view.

The old poem

[Chairboy]

"I teleported home one night
with Ron & Sid & Meg
Ron stole Megan's heart away
and I got Sydney's leg."

- Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Re:The old poem

[Anonymous Coward]

For what it's worth I know a guy named Sidney Legg. Anonymous for reasons of drunken slashdotting and avoidance of recursive flames in the morning derived from this post.

Shouldn't that be...

[kbob88]

"Earlier this week actor Hayden Christensen, of Star Wars fame,

"Earlier this week actor Hayden Christensen, of Star Wars infamy..."

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Shouldn't that be...

[Swampash]

Nah, I liked Christensen in SW2 and 3. I thought he did pretty well with the script and direction he had... WHICH WAS AN ABOMINATION BEFORE GOD.

Re:Shouldn't that be...

[kryten_nl]

Will Wheaton, did you register a new account?

How about recreation?

[RyanFenton]

If full-on analog teleportation using raw physics isn't possible in the short-to-mid term, what about recreation of a person at the endpoint?

What I mean by that, is you are able to identify what in a person's brain (and related nervous systems) that allows them to be their own unique person, and can store that as some kind of information, if that can be sent to a far-off location, to a reusable body or synthetic equivalent. This body could then perform the same role that the original would. You could afterwards read what changed in the meantime to find out what happened.

Of course, like all teleportation/copying ideas, it would challenge our definitions of what makes any of us unique, and the underlying nature of our definition of self.

Ryan Fenton

Re:How about recreation?

[RyanFenton]

Drat - should have added a dash between re- and creation, otherwise it looks like a word for relaxation (which itself looks like a rather funny word in that context). Darn you again, written english!

Ryan Fenton

Re:How about recreation?

[fullgandoo]

That's all fine but what to do with the original? Does the original continue to exist or is killed -9? If it exists, how would you synchronize the two? What happens to the copy? What if the copy doesn't want to be erased? It is these ethical dilemmas that are keeping telportation from becoming a reality!

Re:How about recreation?

[dkone]

Ahh, but the problem Ryan, is that I have a patent on that idea already and you are in violation of *IAA, DCMA, copyright violation, IP transgressions and various other egregious and flagrant affronts to my idea.

Just think of all the patent lawsuits that will crawl from beneath the rocks when some does come up with a way to successfully teleport.

DK

Re:How about recreation?

[mysidia]

What I mean by that, is you are able to identify what in a person's brain (and related nervous systems) that allows them to be their own unique person, and can store that as some kind of information, if that can be sent to a far-off location, to a reusable body or synthetic equivalent.

In that world...

If the police suspect there's a remote chance someone might possibly be guilty of a crime, instead of tapping their phone, or sneaking in to do a secret search, they'll just subpoena the teleporation company for a sneak peak at the latest copy of the person's teleporation scan image, for analysis of their brain, everything they were thinking, and everything they remember.

Advertisers/marketers will make deals with the teleportation co. for access to "personal information" (brain images) for marketing research purposes. After your teleporation is completed, your brain image will have been surreptitiously modified according to contract with the advertisers (This teleportation, brought to you by ASDFXYZ, INC.)

Not only will identity thieves look for your SSN, they'll look for a backup copy of your teleporation image, complete with your brain data... all your PIN codes, appearance specifications, and everything they need to impersonate you. On the other hand, the benefit of backup images is that you can arrange to be be brought back to life (from the backup image), if you suddenly die unexpectedly.

Nothing can really be secret, when an effective record of all your past thoughts pass through a computer.

You can bet politicians abuse it to examine the thoughts of their supporters (and their opponents). The possibility of a thought police force becomes truly possible.

Re:How about recreation?

[Bones3D_mac]

I've had some ideas on this... sort of a "grey goo" teleporter system. Basically you'd inject the body with a series of nanobots to disassemble the body from the inside out, while logging their every move. Once the messy stuff has been hollowed out of the body, it'd disassemble the exterior.

Once all the data is collected and the original is recycled for later rebuiding materials, an identical system elsewhere would begin reconstruction by first constructing a pipeline rail system (sort of like a 3D outline of your body in chickenwire), followed by reconstruction of the exterior and finally refilling the casing with your innards, all from the log data collected at the starting point. Finally, before leaving the body, the nanobots would zap a few areas with enough of a charge to get things going.

The interesting part comes at just the point where the system revives you. Somewhere along the line, it'd have to verify the reconstruction was successful and that the output is identical to the initial source. Somehow, you'd have some sort of checksum value applied to your body to verify you really are you, and not a messed up, degraded version with some major flaw.

Re:How about recreation?

[mblase]

What I mean by that, is you are able to identify what in a person's brain (and related nervous systems) that allows them to be their own unique person, and can store that as some kind of information, if that can be sent to a far-off location, to a reusable body or synthetic equivalent.

See also "Altered Carbon", as well as "The Matrix" et.al.

Re:How about recreation?

[TheNucleon]

I have to say that I am both creeped out and intrigued by your idea.

It would be better if the nanobots took one more step: (1) analyze and record, (2) transmit info with cryptographic checksums, (3) disassemble, and (4) reassemble at remote site. Note that the info gained in step (1) would essentially be a complete backup, like dd for humans.

However, if there really is important information going on at the quantum and not atomic level, your garden-variety nanobots wouldn't be able to analyze and record that. Therefore, you'd get a really awesome organic clone at the other end that might have a variety of faults (including not being alive, or not being the original subject).

Honestly the thought of being hallowed out by nanoscopic machines is horrendous. I'm gonna have pizza dreams tonight, I'm afraid.

Re:How about recreation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, like all teleportation/copying ideas, it would challenge our definitions of what makes any of us unique, and the underlying nature of our definition of self.

Not exactly. Your idea may result in an identical consciousness at time t=0, but from then on, your copy will experience something you won't and you will experience what your copy won't. Your copy will have its own free will and it will make decisions in its role at the far-off location. It may make choices that you might have not chosen in the same situation. Thus, by any definition, you are still unique.

Re:How about recreation?

[dmitriy88]

Psh, we've been doing this in Eve Online for a while. It's called jumping to a clone ;)

Re:How about recreation?

[Mjec]

There are two issues with read-and-transmit teleportation:

1. Data. There is a LOT of it. You need to read it all, then store it, then transport it. And even if there wasn't a lot of it we couldn't know all of it. Heisenberg has a problem with your device ;).

2. Speed. You're limited to the speed of light even with unlimited bandwith. See [1] about just how much of that you'd need. Real teleportation uses quantum entanglement to have instantaneous transfer.

Re:How about recreation?

[Bones3D_mac]

Another issue I've attempted to figure out is how one would transmit the matter needed for reconstruction to locations lacking certain key materials. One possiblity, assuming you have alchemy like capabilities, would be to convert your materials into Bose-Einstein condesate compatible molecules and launch a matter stream alongside the data stream. However, the matter stream would be a bit trickier, since it would not move in a linear path the same way a laser would.

An alternative option was to somehow have the nanobots stack themselves into a strand only a few nanometers thick but with the structural stability to stretch out to several thousands of miles without collapsing. Using such methods, a grey goo system could literally leap from planet to planet and then piggy-back the remaining colony across the planetary bridge before undocking from the start point and being pulled in to the destination.

Re:How about recreation?

[mattwarden]

It would also change our fundamental understanding of who commits actions (like crimes). Can you prove "I" occupied that body at the crime scene?

Re:How about recreation?

[Anonymous Coward]

See Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon". They are doing exactly that. And they using an FTL transfer called needlecast.

Chop chop

[cefek]

Make a set of protons of myself and then teleport me, one proton at a time, to that chick next door I've been dying to meet. Is that too much to ask?

Re:Chop chop

[calebt3]

These are geeks too. So it is too much to ask them to talk to a pretty girl in order to get her permission to set up the receiving equipment.

Re:Chop chop

[hfarberg]

And then you would be Ion-man, saviour of the universe!

An information universe

[FromTheAir]

If it's an information universe then prehaps it is possible and information technology may give us more insight into the universe than we think. Being that all you are reading now is the result of two values 0 and 1. There are two things that have not been understood yet. That quantum randomness is all pervading and that consciousness / observer [virtual particles] give rise to form via a filtering mechanism which is also the same as projection. Quantum randomness is the field. In other words from the entropy of the universe comes order as a function of consciousness. The other thing that has yet to be understood is that space connects everything. Action at a distance is possible because the two objects are connected by the very same space. If I have a long stick and you hold the other end of it and I thrust my end towards you, you will instantly faster than the speed of light feel it at your end. Now replace the stick with space. Travel across the universe is possible because travel is a function of space not matter and with that you can understand the gravity of the situation. Travel is only an appearance a valid one at that, creating a real experience, it's all about choice of perception. You can fantasize all you want and believe or fictionalize, but if the math doesn't work, it is not going to become reality.

Re:An information universe

[acid_andy]

If I have a long stick and you hold the other end of it and I thrust my end towards you, you will instantly faster than the speed of light feel it at your end.

Although it's a neat idea as a thought experiment with an infinitely rigid stick, in reality the effect cannot be faster than the speed of light as the force you apply accerlerates the molecules at the end closest to your hand first, which in turn apply an increased force against the next molecules along and so on until the force has propogated through the whole stick to the other end. As it's essentially forces accelerating masses, they must still obey special relativity and cannot move faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

Re:An information universe

[Anonymous Coward]

"you will instantly faster than the speed of light feel it at your end"

No you don't. You feel it far far slower than the speed of light. In fact the transfer of your energy on one end of the stick to fully traverse the stick in question doesn't even travel faster than light. Far slower.

Re:An information universe

[AJWM]

You're exactly right. In fact, the impulse is transmitted at the speed of sound in the stick.

Re:An information universe

[DemonThing]

In fact it wouldn't be anywhere near the speed of light; assuming you're not pushing too hard, the effect will only propagate at the speed of sound of the material of the stick. (For instance, steel is roughly 5 km/s, which is about 0.0017% the speed of light)

Re:An information universe

[FromTheAir]

Yes, you are technically correct about the stick. It was meant to convey an idea. As an object approaches the speed of light,it's mass approaches infinity. So reach the speed of light it would need to cease to have mass becoming pure information.

Re:An information universe

[WK2]

If I have a long stick and you hold the other end of it and I thrust my end towards you, you will instantly faster than the speed of light feel it at your end.

Dude, I don't do that. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Also, the vibrations of the stick won't go any faster than the speed of sound, like my sibling poster said.

Re: An information universe

[Black Parrot]

The other thing that has yet to be understood is that space connects everything. Action at a distance is possible because the two objects are connected by the very same space. If I have a long stick and you hold the other end of it and I thrust my end towards you, you will instantly faster than the speed of light feel it at your end. So, if you want to travel to Alpha Centari all you need is a tube full of yous between here and there. To make the trip, you step into this end of the tube, forcing another you out at the other end. Reverse the process for the trip home.

Re:An information universe

[Hockney Twang]

At the speed of sound? That's relatively slow, don't you think? Wouldn't that mean that there should be an observable compression effect in the stick if you recorded the action on a high speed camera? I guess I could see that happening in s pliant material such as wood. But what if we record the movement of a much more rigid object, such as a steel or carbon rod? Could the force of me thrusting a steel rod really cause a wave of material compression to ripple along its length?

I'm fascinated. I'm sure this has been studied, but I can't even think what to call it in order to look for more information.

Re:An information universe

[AJWM]

The answer to most of your above questions is "yes". You'll probably find that the speed of sound in steel and carbon is higher than it is in wood. The whole thing is almost by definition -- sound is a longitudinal wave (compression/rarefaction) and so transmits as fast as the medium will compress.

If you try to physically push one end of such a rod faster than the speed of sound in the material, it will break. (You can accelerate the whole thing gradually, but if you hit it with a high enough impulse it breaks or permanently deforms, because the energy can't spread down the rod fast enough.)

The speed of sound in air is a bit over 1000 fps (feet per second), in water it's a bit less than 5000 fps, and in structural steel it's a bit less than 15000 fps. Wood varies, but 13000 fps is a rough average. In beryllium (very stiff, very light), it's a phenomenal 42000+ fps. A search of various web sites turns up two different values for the speed of sound in diamond, the lower being about the same as that in beryllium, the higher being about 50% faster than that.

This page has a table of the speed of sound in various materials, and some explanations.

Quantum Information

[ilikepi314]

The article doesn't go much into it, but I once saw and spoke with one of the leading researchers into quantum information theory. He gave a fantastic seminar on how to send "instant signals". This is my poor memory trying to recall things over my head, so please correct me if I make a mistake, but I think this is the general principle:

You need quantum entangled particles so that their states are always related, and no matter how far apart, when you mess with one particle, the other one instantly changes state accordingly. Thus, you can send signals instantly to anywhere (theoretically) by this approach, manipulating a particle some place and having people elsewhere record the changes from its entangled twin.

The problem is that while its instant when you decide to do it, you first have to get half of the entangled particles to their destination (moon base or whatever) -- so it would be days, months or years until you transported the entangled particles elsewhere, and ONLY THEN could you actually instantly send signals to the moon, Pluto, etc.

It seems teleportation would have a similar constraint, based on the article. This isn't to say teleportation or instant communication is never going to work, but just that infrastructure would need to be well thought-out in advance, and that it isn't quite the "go anywhere, even if you haven't been there before" of sci-fi.

Re:Quantum Information

[Moleculor]

What, you mean an anisble, ala Orson Scott Card's Ender series?

Re:Quantum Information

[NonSequor]

You need quantum entangled particles so that their states are always related, and no matter how far apart, when you mess with one particle, the other one instantly changes state accordingly.

Unfortunately a lot of quantum computing lecturers explain it in a misleading way to avoid bringing in the math, which can be kept fairly simple if you don't mind dealing with some relatively simple vector spaces (albeit with an oddball notation).

The two entangled particles form a system. This system has a quantum state represented by the state vector. This state vector is expressed as a linear combination of the vectors |00>, |01>, |10>, and |11>. |00> corresponds to both particles being in the 0 state, and you get the idea for the other vectors.

You can prepare a pair of particles so that their joint state vector is (|00>+|11>)/sqrt(2). That means that if you measure the two particles, there's a 50% chance you'll get two 0s and a 50% chance you'll get two 1s. It doesn't matter which order you measure them in because once you measure one, you know what the other one has to be and nature obligingly gives you the answer you expect when you measure the other one.

It's misleading to say that anything you do to one will happen to the other. A better way to think of it is that if you measure one of a pair of entangled particles, then the other one's value is constrained so that it can't contradict the first one.

You could take those two particles in the state (|00>+|11>)/sqrt(2) and perform a NOT operation on one of them. Then the state of the system is (|01>+|10>)/sqrt(2). You haven't changed the other particle, you've just changed their relationship and now they'll have opposite values when you measure them.

The way you use this for quantum teleportation is you perform an interaction between one of the entangled particles and the particle with the state you want to send, measure both of these particles, then send the results to the recipient who performs an operation on the other entangled particle based on the result of the measurements. All of this is set up so that the final state of the recipient's entangled particle is the original state of the particle to be sent.

You'll notice that in order to perform the teleportation, you have to communicate with the recipient by some other means, which means that even if you have an entangled pair of particles on Earth and Pluto, you can't use them to communicate instantly.

Entangled particles are a lot like one time pads in cryptography. With a one time pad, you make a secure delivery of n bits today and that lets you transmit n bits over an insecure channel as if it were secure at some point in the future. In quantum computing, you can split n pairs of qubits with someone today and then you have a mechanism for transmitting n qubits over a classical communication channel (internet, phone, yelling, etc.) at some point in the future.

Re:Quantum Information

[marcansoft]

That's not how it works. Let's say you have a pair of entangled particles. By definition, you know that one will be seen as being in state A and one in state B (even though you don't know which is which). You can ship one of them off, then later on look at your copy, and instantly know what state the one you sent off will be measured as.

The confusion arises when you realize that, by definition, the state of the particles is random. Since they are entangled, they have opposite states, but the states are unpredictable. However, once you measure your local particle to be in state "A", you force the other particle to be measured in state "B". Technically, you would "force" the other particle to the opposite state once you observe your particle, no matter how far away they are. However, since you don't get to pick what state the particle ends up being in, you can't actually send information this way. It does have some interesting applications in cryptography though.

Re:Quantum Information

[ilikepi314]

This is true, but I was always under the impression you could cool down particles to low states, or otherwise set up an environment where one state was amazingly more probable than the other(s). Thus, my understanding was you could use it for things like sending information, there would just be a (hopefully small) percentage of errors in the message. By agreeing on some method of communication, you could have error correction techniques that would make it a small problem (like slight occasional static over a radio, for instance).

But, I am not working in the field so this could be my wrong attempt to understand something over my head. Any thoughts.

Actually, it's not that hard

[Anonymous Coward]

On my planet, we figured it out about 8 Earth years after we reached the point where you are. That's how I got here.

oooh, not quite.

[quest(answer)ion]

errors in TFA:

Christensen, who gained infamy and complete pariah status playing Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episodes II and III there. fixed.

Bose-Einstein Condensate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too lazy to log in.

Quantum entanglement is a problem, but working with a bose-einstein condensate might get around the problem.

Check it here. Some Australian scientists are playing around with it.

Star Wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA: "...who gained fame and heart-throb status playing Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episodes II and II..."

Well, I chuckled, at least.

Does it matter that you "die"?

[Anonymous Coward]

But does that really matter? Your atoms are being replaced all the time, just small bits at a time. Scanning and sending data, instead of the actual matter or energy, seems much more plausible. You aren't your atoms, you are the information that your current atomic configuration describes. Have any scars? That scar likely doesn't have a single atom that it did at the time of your injury. It's been copied, bit by bit, atom by atom, over and over again. Teleportation differs only in that it does a whole lot of atom swapping all at once. If the information is beamed correctly, "you" will "arrive" properly.

Normal notions of being, self, life and death don't really apply, at least, most of what people think of doesn't apply and if you break it down, it usually comes down to religious questions, like the soul. If you believe that your body requires a supernatural soul to animate it with intelligence and desires, than teleporation likely isn't for you. If you believe that you are essentially a matrix of interacting atoms, a materialist in other words, than it shouldn't bother you.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Oswald]

I'm a materialist, and I would never volunteer to be copied by any destructive process. I would be dead. My survival instinct prevents me from permitting this. Some other guy with my memories and delusions that he is me would be alive in my place.

The fact that the person typing this is a guy with delusions that he is the same person who signed up for this Slashdot account when acct numbers were in the 200,000's--I admit that this is the case--is no consolation at all.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[TexVex]

I'm a materialist, and I would never volunteer to be copied by any destructive process. I would be dead.

To me, Quantum No Cloning and the Teleportation phenomenon makes this philosophically interesting. Suppose that consciousness or soul is some actual thing, tied up in the quantum processes taking place in and between our neurons; that our selves are part of the continuous interactions and entanglements going on in our brains.

No Cloning and Teleportation would mean that I couldn't really be copied, but I could be teleported. If "I" am actually the entanglement in my own neural system, it seems like it wouldn't matter if I were suddenly made out of different particles in some other location, if my entanglement is preserved while being teleported to my new body. The particles themselves aren't special, but their quantum states and entanglements between them are unique!

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

Does it matter that you "die"?

Well yeah, because you actually die. What do you think, that because some machine created a carbon copy of you you'll be somehow magically linked to it? No, that's if as you grew a twin/clone and then killed yourself. You die, you're getting killed, the way you chose, and life goes on for your copy, who is a copy of you, but not you.

And actually you don't actually have to get killed when you get teleported, you're "telecopied", you're only killed for the sake of not spamming the universe with copies of yourself.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Hyperspite]

But does that really matter? Your atoms are being replaced all the time, just small bits at a time.

About a year ago, I tried to answer that question and I came up with an interesting answer. Excluding religious answers (ie assuming everything in the universe is physically based), your consciousness has to be somewhere physically. There are two places where this could be (one of which I just thought of incidentally). Either it resides in matter, or it resides in an energy field (like an electric field for example). If it is in a field, then that probably means your conscious state is an artifact of the surroundings. I don't like this idea because we walk near strong energy fields all the time without feeling affected (something would budge!), but I don't think it is impossible.

The other idea is that it has to reside in matter. What level of matter though? My guess would be that it would be a fundamental property of elementary particles like mass or charge (something like that can't just appear out of higher order, there has to be something basic that it arises from). If that is true, and the state is changed based on its interactions with other particles nearby, then you can have transient particles, ones that just wander by, taking on an organized consciousness. It also means they can lose this property by acquiring another spontaneously (such as when they exit your body).

Since consciousness is a fundamental property like mass, spin, or charge, there must be a set of variables that describe it. This means is that consciousness is a singular state that evolves in time in a way that should be possible to describe mathematically (at t0 consciousness parameters = and at t_F they = for instance according to some law). This also means that as you disbelieve this, the next instant those parameters could change and you could be lung or a rock with no memory of your past. IE: you are the parameters, and if the parameters are different, you would not know how it would be like to have a different set.

The upshot of this is that (IF IT IS TRUE OF WHERE THERE IS NO PROOF.... YET?), since everyone is just transient particles, human affairs are transient things that could last anywhere from nanoseconds to years. It also means that when a human representation dies, some of those particles will retain their representation for some time, others will reconfigure immediately, etc. It means that the physical-chemical model of humans is right and there really is no such thing as morality because no human is conscious, they are just chemical automations AND everyone survives a human's death anyway, albeit with a different state (until they meet an antiparticle?).

Anyway, the way this would resolve the teleportation thing is that, if it's true, it does and doesn't matter that you're made of different stuff. It matters because none of the old particles will be in the same state anymore. However, they wouldn't have been in that state very long anyway and would have been replaced.

Food for thought?

PS: I didn't really review this carefully so if something is unclear just ask.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[earthbound kid]

Actually, as another poster points out, the problem is much worse for materialists than for those who believe in souls. If you have a soul, it can just wander on over to your new body after the teleportation is through. If you're just "stuff," it would be like making an exact replica of the Mississippi River on Mars. Sure, it looks the Mississippi River did at the time the copy was created, but it's not really the "same" river, is it? The Mississippi River isn't a collection of particular atoms, or even a location of moving water, it's an on-going, self-perpetuating process. Teleporting the Mississippi would destroy it, since it would destroy the historicity of the river. The same thing applies to the human body. It's not a thing or a collection of atoms or a particular shape, it's a continual process.

See my essay at http://deadhobosociety.com/index.php/HelloWorldProject/ENTRY34 for a longer discussion of the same general subject.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Wordplay]

I don't know about that. I lean towards a theory that our consciousness is emergent behavior from a very complex set of electrochemical reactions (whether it was designed to be that way or not is an entirely different argument). Duplicate the electrochemical factors exactly, and you're essentially "forking" the process, creating the exact same emergent behavior -at that exact moment-. And at that point, are you really different? In my mind, no more so than my copy of Firefox and your copy of Firefox are different. They're two different instances of the same program (nitpicking about versions aside). Close one, and Firefox still exists.

Truly, to me the atrocity would be a teleportation process that did not simultaneously destroy the source. One tick later, and you'd be two different people. At that point, you are killing a unique consciousness irrevocably.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

This is idiotic. It has absolutely nothing to do with how identical two things are but conciousness. Imagine you've been "telecopied" to Mars. So, at that moment, you have yourself, and an identical running copy of yourself. Big whoop. Let's say you die. Does it matter whether your copy is alive and well or fell directly into hot lava? No, you just die, who cares if a million copies of you have been made. What's so hard to understand about it?

Oh of course, to other people, you still exist, and to your copy, he magically got transported very far away. But you, you had a plain old death, you weren't the one magically transported, and depending on your understanding of death you'll spend the rest of eternity unconscious or whatever your religion specifies.

To sum it up, if I cut your head off, you'll die, and whether or not a copy of you has been made won't change a thing to this.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Lije Baley]

Here's a potentially related observation:
Let us assume there is nothing "mysterious" about consciousness, that the technology exists to scan and recreate biological structures exactly, down to the molecular level, and also that a means exists to "freeze" or otherwise suspend a person's biological processes without damage.

There is a room with two operating tables, let's say one with a blue light overhead and one with a red light overhead. You are brought into the room and placed on the table under the blue light. A general anasthetic is administered and you drift off to sleep noticing the glow of the blue light. Your body is "freezed" and scanned. The left half of your body is then precisely cut away from the right half and placed on the table under the red light. Using the scan information, the complementary half of your body is reconstructed, in the "frozen" state, joined with the original half, on each table. Each of the two now complete, molecularly-identical bodies are "thawed", the anasthesia wears off, and they wake up. Which light do you see?

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Wordplay]

Thanks for the flame. :)

Again, it depends on what you define as you. To me, I'm the program, not the host. As long as the program continues (and at no time are there two copies running), I see it as being roughly analogous to migrating a VM. Whether or not this particular mass of meat dies is of no concern to me. As has already been pointed out, it's died many times over already. Continuity is an illusion, any way you look at it.

Plainly, your philosophy differs, and that's fine. I understand your argument.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[7Prime]

Holy shit, I just spewed brain cum!

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[D-Cypell]

Firstly, you need to calm down.

What you seem to have failed to grasp, is that what this process would do is split a single point of view into two. Both 'copies' would believe themselves to be a continuation of the original. The point of contention is whether the "soul" would be copied along with the atoms. We have such a powerful sense of self, it is difficult to imagine a situation like this, it is based on a highly speculative, fictional technology after all.

The core of what is in debate here goes back to a subject that has been under intense discussion for thousands of years, and you are acting like you have all the answers, and getting quite aggresive about it. Frankly, it makes you sound like an ass.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Troed]

Which light do you see?

One me, let's call it me' will see a red light. The other me, let's call it me'' will see a blue light. In the instant both mes wake up they are identical, but they will start to diverge instantly and create new and separate experiences of their own.

The question "Which light do YOU see" implies you think there's something mysterious to consciousness ;)

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[MarsMartian]

and its death is no different from a regular death, that's the point. I wouldn't consider having all of your atoms disassembled within a millisecond to be death, especially if you can revived (or recreated) afterwards.

think about it as a computer program (as many Determinists also believe that a human is simply a Turing machine). If you copy a program from one area of memory to another, does it actually die?
It exists both before and after you copy.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Rhone]

If you believe that your body requires a supernatural soul to animate it with intelligence and desires, than teleporation likely isn't for you. If you believe that you are essentially a matrix of interacting atoms, a materialist in other words, than it shouldn't bother you.

That's mostly true, but even if you are a materialist the idea of a teleportation that makes a copy and destroys the original can still be a bit disturbing. Even if you don't believe in a spirit, you still have a stream of consciousness that will come to an end. You are going to experience dying, however instantaneous and painless that experience may be. Your copy may feel perfectly like you, and like their stream of consciousness has continued uninterrupted, and it will certainly make no difference to others who communicate with him and find him to be identical to you. But YOU, the person at the beginning of the teleportation, are not the one experiencing what your copy is experiencing. You're dead. Just like you'd be dead if, say, a copy was made of you (without you being destroyed at the time) and you were murdered a few days later.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Vellmont]

What do you think, that because some machine created a carbon copy of you you'll be somehow magically linked to it?

I guess you're getting to that whole, unobservable, "soul" thing. You're obviously a believer in that. In quantum mechanics, and science in general there's no soul, or some kind of magical "you" linked to your body.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Chris Carollo]

I wouldn't consider having all of your atoms disassembled within a millisecond to be death

On the contrary, I think that's quite likely to be fatal.

Though I'm not as hostile as 4Dwhatever, I have to agree with him, and it's not about a "soul", it's about continuation of consciousness. If you make a copy of me, presumably that forks my consciousness, so we both think we're the original, but at that point we're both completely independent and our consciousnesses go their own directions. Killing one of us is still killing a consciousness, regardless if we'd been previously forked or not.

The fact that we replace our cells gradually over time is a red herring, because our consciousness is able to carry on just fine with a few cells here and there dying out and being replaced. It's entirely different than a complete disintegration that would clearly destroy my consciousness.

The interesting part is that I'm not sure there's any way to tell whether something's been teleported or copied-and-destroyed. As far as the subject at the destination is concerned, it was a perfect teleportation.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Lije Baley]

...Or perhaps something mysterious about individuality? Or maybe you just see a purple light. :)

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to tell you this, but you aren't the same person who signed up so long ago. That person was much different. He was much younger than you, for example. Anyway, the atoms that made up that person dissipated long ago, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[amorsen]

Imagine you've been "telecopied" to Mars.

Thought experiments are fun and all, but in the real world "telecopying" is impossible. "Teleportation" isn't impossible, merely impractical.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Wordplay]

It's not a red herring in the sense that 4D's argument was that you are your physical body, vs. my argument that you are the emergent behavior of your physical body. I don't believe in souls, but I've been a software developer for years, and work for a major VM company now. Programs, hosts, migration, etc, I believe in, whether the substrate is silicon or meat.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

and work for a major VM company now. Programs, hosts, migration, etc, I believe in, whether the substrate is silicon or meat.

Then it's amusing how you fail to realise that your VM migration analogy backs my claim, in that the original VM has to be shut down. Your problem is that you look at things from an outsider point of view and fail to imagine what happens for the original copy, either of the VM or of a person.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

I guess you're getting to that whole, unobservable, "soul" thing. You're obviously a believer in that.

I beg your pardon? How on Earth does what you quoted me saying allow you to deduce that?

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

I wouldn't consider having all of your atoms disassembled within a millisecond to be death

What the hell are you referring to? Disassembled? The teleportation we're talking about consists in sending full information to allow the reconstruction atom by atom of your body, as well as your "electrical running state" if you will, so that a faithful copy can be created at the other end, and then you're killed, in a regular way. How are you supposed to be disassembled?

If you copy a program from one area of memory to another, does it actually die?

Just like the other guy, that's where your logic fails. Because you talk about this whole thing from an outsider point of view. Like I said before, in the case of teleportation, outsiders don't see the difference, the teleported doesn't see the difference and the original copy gets killed. Trace the conciousness. Just because there's one person at the beginning at the process and one person at the end of the process doesn't mean no one got killed (creating one person and killing another isn't the same as not doing anything, even if the two persons are identical)

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Wordplay]

Like I said, I get your argument, and got it the moment you made it. And if you allow the original to continue living after scanning, I even agree with it. In VM talk, that would be the difference between a migration and a clone. What I'm saying is if the order of operations is:

1) Scan original, while killing/disintegrating original.
2) Simultaneously or near-simultaneously with 1), integrate destination.
3) Destination continues from there.

Then A) the original consciousness has no new experiences after scan, and B) the destination sees contintuity in new experiences from scan. To me, that's effectively teleporting the consciousness, by migrating it. It's a fairly similar scenario to Greg Egan's scenarios in -Permutation City- and other scan-the-consciousness stories.

There are other scenarios you can play out that lend themselves more to your argument: you kill the original body after allowing it to have new experiences, you never kill the original body at all, etc. I'm concentrating on the one that has a wordplay-host here on one tick and a wordplay-host there on the next.

Obviously, I acknowledge that you're killing the original body--despite your assurances that I am, I'm not an idiot. Again, our primary difference is that I see the body as substrate, not identity. The only reason substrate and identity are tied together is because we currently have no way to perfectly duplicate the substrate elsewhere.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[serutan]

Teleportation isn't the only thing that messes with our preconceptions about "self." Suppose you got into a time machine and traveled back 1 minute, then got out and watched your original self get in and vanish. Did you really "travel" back through time, or are you a copy of your original self that was destroyed in the time machine? For that matter, does the you who goes to sleep at night survive to wake up in the morning, or is your personality essentially rebooted when you lose consciousness, creating a different you?

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[MarsMartian]

What the hell are you referring to? Disassembled? The teleportation we're talking about consists in sending full information to allow the reconstruction atom by atom of your body,
the way I've been imagining it is such that the teleporter would kill parts of the person slowly. As in, it would examine one part of the person and then "kill" that part.

about your outsider comment, if no one sees the difference how does the killing actually happen?
Of course, now I seem like a mad man but bear with me with for a second. If the teleported doesn't notice a difference and the outsiders can not tell the difference, how can anyone know that the new copy is not the "original"?
Furthermore as to "tracing the consciousness", what if the person is teleported while they are asleep? There will be no break in consciousness.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

If the teleported doesn't notice a difference and the outsiders can not tell the difference, how can anyone know that the new copy is not the "original"?

The copy is the original, but the other copy had to die.

Furthermore as to "tracing the consciousness", what if the person is teleported while they are asleep? There will be no break in consciousness.

What on Earth does it change? You're just getting killed in your sleep, you're still dead, and definitely in the telecopy of yourself. What is it so hard to understand about it all? Teleportation = Telecopy then death. That means you die, and a copy of you lives, not you.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

Seriously, does anyone out here know what death means? Cause it seems like none of y'all really grasped the concept.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[MarsMartian]

What on Earth does it change? You're just getting killed in your sleep, you're still dead, and definitely in the telecopy of yourself. What is it so hard to understand about it all? Teleportation = Telecopy then death. That means you die, and a copy of you lives, not you.

Okay going back to the original argument, (to be honest I'm very confused at the conclusion we've reached so I'm going to state my viewpoint for the original debate):
Suppose that time has stopped, as in the person is not making any actions and the environment is not changing.
However, a machine is examining the person on the atomic level and transmitting information about each particle. By the time a hair has been examined by the machine, it no longer appears on the original but it floating in mid-air at the endpoint.
After transmitting each particle (yes, each and every damn particle), the person no longer appears at the startpoint but only at the end and time continues.

Although most of this is scientifically impossible (with the Uncertainty Principle), consider it as a thought experiment. Where in this experiment can you see the person dying?

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

Where in this experiment can you see the person dying?

Well your experiment blurs things out, and it's not the experiment we've been talking about for the whole time. The one we've been talking about makes things less ambiguous. You copy someone, then you kill that person in a "traditional" way. That's it. But it still work for your precision experiment, as in, the original isn't magically liked to the copy, information is taken out of it, it doesn't matter if it's ever turned into a person or if that happens hours later, information is taken, then the body is systematically destroyed. Taking information before destroying a body doesn't prevent the person from dying. Do you understand that?

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about if we don't believe in any supernatural crap but we also don't believe that consciousness is simply a byproduct of neurological function?

But then again, since consciousness (at least in some Buddhist schools) doesn't really correspond to a physical place, I think you may be right in that it might not cause death.

I would talk about this more, but I don't want to attract new-agers who jump to conclusions about quantum physics.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Of course, not because science or physics has disproved that idea, but because it's not their area of study.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I think you will find that many people have many different ideas on what death exactly is. Perhaps you should give us your idea, rather than assuming there even is a single, correct concept of death.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[gozar]

There are four lights!

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[MarsMartian]

Taking information before destroying a body doesn't prevent the person from dying. Do you understand that?

I suppose this is where our philosophies disagree, as I believe that by taking all the information - the person does not die. Of course, their body may die but the person does not.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I fully understand your reasoning here. Personally, I don't believe in a soul or spirit that brings consciousness to my physical body. And yet, I can't help but feel that teleportation (as in Star Trek) would be suicide. A copy of you would be created at the destination, complete with all your memories right up to stepping in the teleporter, but it wouldn't be you. You'd be dead. Worse yet, nobody would realize such a horrible mistake has been made, because your copy would act exactly just like you, and would assume the teleportation was successful. Little does he know, he'll have about three hours to live until they all beam back to the ship, at which point yet another copy would walk away with the combined knowledge of the previous two existences.

Why does the specific configuration of a person's atoms imply that the same consciousness will emerge after the teleportation process? After all, even if just for a brief instance, there will actually be two of you (before the original is destroyed). How would the universe deal with that? Would you both have the same consciousness for that split-second? If not, then why would it transfer to the copy right after the original ceases to exist? It makes more sense to me that the copy would be a whole different consciousness, and every crew member who has ever teleported before was actually unwillingly killing themselves.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[4D6963]

the person does not die

Outsider point of view..

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[MarsMartian]

Outsider point of view..

Again, this is where our philosophies differ. If we were to consider the "If a tree falls in a forest.." riddle, I suppose we would also have different conclusions.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[CFTM]

I disagree with your take on this one; I would argue that all hard science originally starts in the field of philosophy from a theoretical framework. Thus, the reason science hasn't proved the existence of the soul is because the field of epistemology has yet to come up with claims that can be proved or disproved by scientific rigor. It is not the job of the scientist to disprove ideas that originate in faith; it is the job of the faithful to create a hypothesis that can be tested in the real world IF they want ideas such as the soul to be explored by scientists.

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[CFTM]

Ha! I'm a moron, not epistemology; I meant Phenomenology...

That philosophy degree is starting to get a wee bit dusty ;)

Re:Does it matter that you "die"?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

But what if it's very nature is subjective? You can't expect science to make sense of that -- that wouldn't be very scientific.

Everyone exists at coordinates 0,0,0

[FromTheAir]

That is part of the revelation of Intangics, that there are no particles only the appearance of particles and there is no travel only the appearance of travel. When you drive down the street you are not moving, the world is moving around you.

Which superpower would you want?

[Checkered Daemon]

I found it fascinating that in Roger Zelazny's "Creatures of Light and Darkness", the most powerful being in the universe was a teleportationist. Think about it.

Re:Which superpower would you want?

[calebt3]

Have you seen the movie "Next"? Precognition is a pretty good contender.

Re:Which superpower would you want?

[calebt3]

Never needing sleep is also good.

Re:Which superpower would you want?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the teleporting power comes with some invisibility cloth that will be sweet. Just teleport myself to some hottie dorm and getting there, staying invisible.

Teleportation Fraud

[camperdave]

Science hasn't teleported squat. They've just caused one particle to mimic the quantum state of another. The number of particles at the source hasn't changed. The number of particles at the destination hasn't changed. So in what way was anything "teleported"?

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[AsnFkr]

Sounds more like they sent a fax.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[CastrTroy]

So basically if they were able to do the same thing with people, they would just be creating and exact duplicate of the person. Now that could be useful.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[smorken]

certainly, imagine a beowulf cluster of Natalie Portmans!

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Versus Lucy Liu Mob #579

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[davidsyes]

LOOKS like they sent a fax. Just the facts, ma'am...

But seriously, with a fax, there's a communications line that can be disrupted. Can a quantum teleportation "instruction" to "state-mimic" be disrupted? (I don't know, and that's why I'm asking")...

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Adambomb]

Now, 0 time to target communication of information WOULD be interesting. Do you have any sources concerning the quanntum state teleportation that mention if there was a time lapse at all?

Certainly not teleporting matter in the any sense, but that would still be more than squat.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[MisterCaptainFunKill]

Science hasn't teleported squat. They've just caused one particle to mimic the quantum state of another. The number of particles at the source hasn't changed. The number of particles at the destination hasn't changed. So in what way was anything "teleported"? The "teleported" part is in that the particles were entangled. So, while they didn't actually move the particle, they "teleported" the properties of one atom onto another at a distance. It's the same as teleportation in that sense, but there are things we call conservation laws that prevent what you're talking about with literally teleporting matter as in moving it somewhere else instantly without it crossing the space between (or falling into a wormhole).

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it was a SUBATOMIC fax! Viva la science!

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would teleportation require the destruction of the original?
In case of, say, Star Trek, the original person was destroyed
simply because the actors had their copy-once bits set.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

How can you possibly say that something was not transported? Before the experiment there's a proton in state A at location X. Afterwards there's a proton in state A at location Y. Given that all protons are absolutely identical apart from their state, and that the state was reproduced at Y, how can this under any circumstances whatsoever be considered as anything other than teleportation? What else could the word teleportation mean? That's not meant rhetorically. I want to know what you actually think the word could mean.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[novakyu]

Science hasn't teleported squat. They've just caused one particle to mimic the quantum state of another. The number of particles at the source hasn't changed. The number of particles at the destination hasn't changed. So in what way was anything "teleported"? In those experiments, you have to realize that all protons are identical. This may not be the intuitive way to look at it, but you can look at those entanglement experiments in this way: You have one proton at point A, in state X. You have another proton at point B, in state Y. After a given amount of time, you have a proton at point B, in state X, and you have a proton at point A, in state Z (Z may be equal to Y, but frankly, I don't know enough about these experiments to say whether the quantum state of particle at point B gets preserved elsewhere). Then, you can say that the "proton at A" was transported to point B. It doesn't matter if you could actually follow a trajectory (classical trajectories are meaningless in quantum mechanical sense, since you cannot determine a particle's position at all times anyway), or whether the proton that ends up at point B is "really" the proton that was at point A (this statement is meaningless because, other than being in different quantum mechanical states, those two protons were and are REALLY IDENTICAL).

Yes, this is quite far from actually "teleporting" macroscopic objects, and it's not even clear if this process of entanglement can even be used for such teleportation. Regardless, according to some very widely accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics, a true teleportation of a proton did happen.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

It may sound pedantic, but in quantum mechanics, teleporting the wavefunction really is teleporting the photon. Since there's no way to distinguish between photons (for example, you can't tag them), the transfer of wavefunction from one photon to another is really the same as swapping the position of the two photons.

And this isn't one of those "we can't distinguish experimentally" issues. The theory states that all photons are indistinguishable. Of course, the theory could be wrong...

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Zalbik]

No...the word for what they did is "duplication". Teleportation means the actual transport of item A to position B.

The original proton was not moved. It is irrelevant that an idential proton was created...that is NOT what teleportation means. Teleportation refers to a change in position.

From Dictionary.com:
Teleportation: hypothetical method of transportation in which matter or information is dematerialized, usually instantaneously, at one point and recreated at another.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Particles are indistinguishable except for their quantum state. If an electron has the same state as another, they are indistinguishable - effectively the same. I think it's perfectly valid to have the same number of particles at each node of the teleporter. You can just say that each has a "matter pool" that it uses to build whatever is getting teleported.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Rocketship Underpant]

At the atomic level, there's no meaningful difference between two particles with identical quantum states. Instantly causing proton #2 to assume the properties of proton #1 remotely is as good as saying proton #1 was teleported. At the sub-atomic scale, there are no characteristics to differentiate a copy and an original.

You might even consider yourself teleported or copied from moment to moment. Time is not a smooth current but a series of intervals one planck unit in length. Each new planck unit interval, a given region of sub-atomic space is likely, but not guaranteed, to contain a particle similar or identical to the one that occupied that area during the last interval.

For technical and scientific reasons, it's unlikely that a complicated arrangement of 10^28 atoms (the number in a human body) can ever be teleported this way. I'm no physicist, but the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for starters, which forces you to choose between knowing a particle's location and its momentum, probably rules out even simple multi-atom structures.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Jimbookis]

No-one seems to have considered the sheer stupendous amount of data required to convey the total quantum state of a human being at one instant - let alone the sort of channel it'd travel over. Even if you could capture the state of every single subatomic particle in your person, sending the data to some sort of reconstructor could take way longer than your lifetime.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

> The original proton was not moved. D'oh! If the proton moved it wouldn't be called teleportation, it would be calling moving. You know, like when you move your hand. > matter or information is dematerialized, usually instantaneously, at one point and recreated at another Yes, and this is completely indistinguishable from what you just described. The proton at the destination is completely indistinguishable from the one at the beginning. I'm not sure what else you want.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[radtea]

It may sound pedantic, but in quantum mechanics, teleporting the wavefunction really is teleporting the photon.

Use of the word "really" to imply you are describing the true ontology of quantum states is proof that you don't understand it.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[amorsen]

I'm no physicist, but the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for starters, which forces you to choose between knowing a particle's location and its momentum, probably rules out even simple multi-atom structures.

You can transfer quantum state as much as you want, as long as you ruin the original quantum state. You can't make copies, because then you'd be able to measure momentum on one copy and location on the other, and then Heisenberg comes around to beat you up.

Re:Teleportation Fraud

[Jamu]

How do you know the original proton hasn't moved? The particles are identical except for their state. You can swap just the protons around as much as you like (what you call "teleporting") and it would make no difference whatsoever. Your "teleporting" has no physical reality.

Fixed Summary

[Red Pointy Tail]

Earlier this week actor Hayden Christensen, of Star Wars infamy, ... There. Fixed it for you.

Larry Niven's prior art

[KORfan]

Larry Niven wrote a bit about the problems with teleportation, such as conservation of momentum and energy. You also have to do two-way teleportation, otherwise you're teleporting into matter (that includes air). If you change elevations, what happens to the potential energy? Does it convert to heat?

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[Dan East]

One of the more likely scenarios would be to have two blobs of matter that consist entirely of entangled pairs. You would transport, via standard means, one blob of matter to one location, and could then modify it by making changes to the first blob (or vice versa I presume).

Dan East

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[v1]

there are far more serious things to consider, like targetting. If you are strictly talking space, I don't even know if they've managed to figure out how fast Earth is moving through space. That's the big one with time travel too... ok lets say you CAN time travel. You'll do that exactly ONCE. ;) Then you'll suck vacuum for a few minutes. Time travel without teleportation is useless even if possible. For all we know someone's already invented it. Other than "I can make things disappear forever" you'd be hard pressed to prove it.

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[novakyu]

Larry Niven wrote a bit about the problems with teleportation, such as conservation of momentum and energy. You also have to do two-way teleportation, otherwise you're teleporting into matter (that includes air). If you change elevations, what happens to the potential energy? Does it convert to heat? As far as conservation laws go, you should remember that there is a third system: the teleportation device. Presumably, this device would be able to provide the energy necessary, absorb any additional energy or stray momentum. That's not to say that there are some huge problems, but those problems are not show-stoppers like, "Ha, ha. You violated energy conservation."

And I'm not entirely convinced that the two-way teleportation is a must—why can't you simply displace the air first by creating a vacuum or something?

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[evanbd]

Earth isn't "moving through space". There is no universal reference frame. (At least, so say both Newtonian mechanics and GR.) Earth is moving relative to the sun, the galaxy, the local group... but not "space".

The obvious answer to all this, and where most serious investigations of time travel wind up, is that you need a coupled pair of machines; you leave one and arrive at the other. Think of a wormhole, with the two different ends at different points in both space and time. Yes, this means you can't travel to a time before the first time machine.

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[Rocketship Underpant]

The problem I have with there being no universal reference frame shows up with centrifugal forces. If I'm allowed to imagine that the rest of the universe is spinning and my merry-go-round is not, why do I get pulled to the outside? And would centrifugal forces exist in a universe that consisted of nothing but me, a merry-go-round, and a third "reference object"?

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[evanbd]

Well, the thing is you're not actually allowed to imagine that (at least not and have normal equations hold). This is the distinction between inertial and non-inertial reference frames.

To translate to a non-inertial frame you have to add artificial force terms -- centrifugal force is the name for the apparent force that acts on objects in a rotating reference frame (well, also Coriolis forces). Centripetal force is its counterpart, the force required to accelerate objects in an inertial frame so that they follow the rotating path.

It's much the same as gravity and an accelerated non-inertial reference frame being indistinguishable to an isolated observer. It may help to remember that momentum and angular momentum are distinct concepts; the fact that there is no absolute position or velocity reference does *not* imply that there is no such thing as being not spinning.

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[flonker]

That problem seems pretty easy to solve. Travel inside a spacecraft.

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[Pfhorrest]

There is no universal reference frame. (At least, so say both Newtonian mechanics and GR.) Actually, Newton believed quite strongly in the existence of an absolute space, or as we'd say today, a universal reference frame. Samuel Clarke famously argued at length about this, somewhat on Newton's behalf, against Newton's contemporary and rival Gottfried Leibniz. Wiki link about their correspondance here.

Re:Larry Niven's prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious answer to all this, and where most serious investigations of time travel wind up, is that you need a coupled pair of machines; you leave one and arrive at the other.

Or, more simply, perhaps being launched through time at a reasonable rate causes you to follow the inertial frame of the Earth by default.

Post-singularity

[ecloud]

I think it will be done after the singularity, after technology has subsumed biological evolution. After that, it will not be so important because virtual reality and actual reality will have merged and people will be able to send themselves (in the form of software) anywhere that the network extends. But if it's possible, it still will remain an interesting academic challenge.

Re:Post-singularity

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the singularity will happen after we are able to use spectacles to upgrade our brains.

Maybe quantum teleportation isn't feasible but...

[jdb2]

...perhaps "Classical Teleportation" is :

http://www.acqao.org/news/readMore_TeleportationofMassiveParticles.html

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0706.0062


jdb2

Re:And we care why?

[Anonymous Coward]

My now, aren't you very creative?

MY power= Turn anything into CHEESE!

[spineboy]

Never be hungry. The fastidious would fear being turned into stinky Limberger. Tough guys would have to run or be turned into runny camembert. Bible thumping creationalist would be turned into........American "cheese"

But seriously pre-cog would be cool at first, but might take all the joy out of life - no surprises anymore. Right now my desired powers would be either super-speed like the Flash, or jumping ability like the Hulk. But that could be 'cause I'm living in Los Angeles, where the average traffic speed is 11 MPH (16 KPH).

Re:MY power= Turn anything into CHEESE!

[Anonymous Coward]

11 MPH is 17.6 KPH.

Re:MY power= Turn anything into CHEESE!

[Anonymous Coward]

18 kph (rounded)

Science aside...

[januth]

It sounds like they combined the pretty decent book by Steven Gould with Highlander 2 and Underworld.

Plot outline from IMDB: "A genetic anomaly allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere. He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between "Jumpers" and those who have sworn to kill them."

Another Hollywood abortion...

Re:Science aside...

[Taelron]

Actually there was another book I read back in the early 90's that went over this same precept... In it they were called "Flingers" instead of Jumpers... And while they could teleport to any destination that they had been to before, they were also limited to 918kg's max weight. They couldnt figure out why that was the max. They would practice with weights then put a feather on it and that one ounce caused them to not be able to move it. All of the flingers were brainwashed at the acadameys, and new ones were found when the elder ones heard a ringing near them... The counter part to Flingers were "Anchors", people that somehow naturally negated the flingers abilities. If an anchor was near by when a flinger tried to teleport, they were sucked to the anchor... Actually a really good book. When I saw the first movie trailers I though it was a rip off of that novell.

Well, let's take a look at this ..

[ScrewMaster]

There are basically two ways that are traditionally thought of for teleportation:

1. Matter Transmission: analyzing the structure of an object, deconstructing it somehow, and transmitting the (vast amount of) energy and information needed to reconstruct the object to a remote location, with all the possible complications that entails (the beam being intercepted, extra copies being made, the transmission being garbled, etc.) I always hear Dr. McCoy's voice when I think about that, "Hell of a way to travel, spreading a man's molecules all across the galaxy!"

2. Opening a portal in space-time, rubber-sheet Universe-style, and simply stepping through to your destination. No disassembly required.

Personally, I prefer #2. It uncomplicates the structure of the tale.

Re:Well, let's take a look at this ..

[novakyu]

Or there's the Stargate (the TV show) way. You do both at the same time: Yes, you need to open a wormhole for FTL communication, but you are still "transmitted" after having been "broken down into subatomic particles" or some such nonsense.

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[davidsyes]

I will venture to say the governments would be all to happy to have precision site-to-SOME/ANY-site lock-on capability. They'd rather snatch and destroy living targets than spend the effort to insert humans to do the snatching. Why lose expendable assets (human, allied/aligned soldiers) when taking out the enemy (or enema) means only needing to lock on and scramble?

With a weaponization of such quantum technology, simple bombs or surveillance devices could also be inserted, with quantum self-destruct structures that respond to counter-intel sweeps, or simply devolve/vaporize when the temperature reaches some design-imposed level. This could be to act as a weapon, or to enhance "plausible deniability".

Worse, as a weapon of torture for those who are maniacs or pranksters who get their hands on one, we (or the future people) might read about rulers, bolts, rocks, and other foreign matter being precision-beamed/teleported into people, animals, or even into security or safety glass in buildings.

Imagine this as the perfect bomb: taking OUT or comproMISING structural members of any building, fortification, dam, tower, transmission/reception site, etc. If used on skyscrapers, the toll worldwide would be, well, ummm, "mind-bending". Who the hell would want to go to work in Chrysler Building, or Petronas or Taipei 101 KNOWING that whole floors are collapsing in for no outward (visible/believable) reason. Oh, the reason would definitely be from outside (assuming the teleporter is not transported into the building...)

And, no, I didn't read this in any books. I've been for decades wondering why in Star Trek we've NEVER seen the Federation or non-Fed use of the teleportation technology to undermine the target ships. Always (with exception of I think one Voyager episode) using phasers, quantum or older torpedoes, outright bombs, etc. The transporter was always used as a utility insertion/extraction/rescue/logistics device, not as a weapon. Had I had one, and had enemies who could not localize me, I'd certainly consider using such as device. But, I'm not a time traveler, don't have enemies (that I know of) who'd want me dead RIGHT NOW, and I (right now) deem certain acts as crossing the line. Even going after certain presidents would not be worth it. Too many unforeseeable consequences might unfold. I wouldn't want to be personally responsible for it (unless I could see into the future and KNEW that I'd be saving more innocent lives (not innocent by or for government reasons, but by higher truths and most politicians would care to believe) than harming.

Hopefully, teleportation technology continues to elude physicists. And, don't tell me about all the "good" things it could do. For one, the things might consume enormous amounts of energy. If they do, then that energy could be harnessed instead for removing a lot of pain, suffering, starvation, hunger and joblessness. But military and government bean counters and strategists all have agendas. Basically, if I'd stumbled upon teleportation tech, I'd probably destroy it and hope it was the ONLY copy. So, better hope I'M not the one some alien encounters. No one government can be trusted with such technology. Not at THIS point in our evolution. Hell, not even 2 or 5 or 25 governments. NON can be trusted.

Nuff said?

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[davidsyes]

Oh, I forgot: In Star Trek the tractor beams and deflector grids have been used to entrap or destabilize targets, but the crew never used them in a Dr. Evil or maniacal, gleeful way...

e=mc^2

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, if you're going to go there, you can at least try.

"Brought to you today by the letters e, m, and by the number c."

Very funny, Scotty!

[PPH]

Now beam down my pants!

Goog name

[Vadim Makarov]

I think everyone in the field agrees that teleportation as the name of the physical effect is just wonderful. The name relates to the modern fairy tales. This, as a consequence, gets people and media talking about it. It excites students, too, which may be no less important.

Compare to how dull it could have been if it were called a "transfer of quantum state" or something like that.

Heisenberg Compensators

[TobyRush]

I'm just assuming that everyone here knows this already, but for the one or two of you who don't know, the Heisenberg Compensator is the part of the ST transporter that deals with the pesky quantum issue of not being able to pin down the exact location of the subatomic particles whizzing around in Picard's body.

Of course it's physically impossible to make such a compensation, and when one of the technical guys on the show's staff (Okuda?) was asked how the Heisenberg Compensator worked, he replied, "Very well, thank you."

Re:Where's Wesley Crusher to help them out?

[ScrewMaster]

Yeah, but it would take over the Enterprise's main computer and force Data to reset himself, with a chastened Wesley ending up being chewed out by Georgi after it's all over, having overlooked the fact that he had accidentally bypassed the matter-antimatter intermix safety protocols and almost blown up the ship.

Wesley Crusher was one of the most annoying and dangerously brilliant Star Trek characters ever. I was soooo glad when he bombed out of Starfleet Academy and went away with the Traveller and we never had to see him again.

Not offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this offtopic? Topic of the post = teleportation. Topic of the article = teleportation.

Re:Not offtopic

[Dun Malg]

I think it got "offtopic" because it's a whole lot of barely coherent rambling. He needs to learn to present ideas in a calm rational manner. Seriously, his post reads a bit like the Time Cube guy's web site.

I see dead people!

[r_jensen11]

The quantum state of a living creature is pretty formidable. That is just not in the foreseeable future. Then let's start with something more simple. Can we expect to teleport dead people in the foreseeable future?

Re:I see dead people!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we expect to teleport dead people in the foreseeable future?

Funny that you should say that. I was at the event and during the discussion it was agreed that teleportation with Hayden Christensen turning up dead at the endpoint would be considered a great success, from a scientific perspective.

I'd rather wait...

[billybob_jcv]

...for WonkaVision...

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever modded this OT is a moron. Is the post not about the possible uses of teleportation? Is the summary and TFA not about teleporation? Then why is the post Off Topic.

It's a shame that no punishment is doled out during metamoderation!

so it's a fax machine?

[commodoresloat]

So basically what they're doing is send a FAX of the particles at one end to the other? And since the person on one end "dies" in order to send their particles to the other end, this is basically a Snuff FAX?

I'm not quite sure...

[Whuffo]

Not sure which is more troubling - those who believe in such speculative ideas, or those who think that our current understanding of the physical world is absolutely correct.

The steps along the way to actual teleportation of human beings would be revolutionary in and of themselves. At a simple level, a teleporter would "scan" the source item then duplicate / recreate it at another location. That implies that the receiving end could recreate a complex physical object from "scratch" given a "template" - so before we arrived at the necessary level of perfection that would allow humans to be transported without damage we'd have machines that could create all kinds of simpler items - such as computers, eyes, steaks, crude oil, or whatever at low cost and upon demand. That'd shake the world economy up...

The scientific process has brought us a long way over the last 100 years - but all the miracles and wonders that have resulted are just a tiny, tiny fraction of a small piece of a limited understanding. Assuming that scientific research isn't hobbled by misguided politics there's many, many more and better things just around the corner. Teleporters? Maybe not tomorrow - but they're not impossible either.

Re:I'm not quite sure...

[celle]

"create all kinds of simpler items - such as computers, eyes, steaks, crude oil, or whatever at low cost and upon demand. That'd shake the world economy up..."

Ah, you mean like a matter replicator.

Exactly - scientific scanning is the ultimate gift

[NotQuiteReal]

If you could be perfectly scanned (in a destructive manner, to be sure), but with 100% confidence that one or more duplicates of you could be created, right down to the last thought you had before your were scanned, would you do it?

To be transported light-year distances? Just for a "backup"?

It would really mean nothing to "you", but would be the check-point backup for your future self.

"For Bob so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Body, that whoever replicates Him shall not perish, but have eternal refreshes."

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[ArcherB]

I've always wondered about the same thing. Rather than beam in a team of commandos down to the surface to kill a bunch of guys, why not just teleport the bad guys off the starboard bow?

My other thoughts:
Using it as a cloning/copy tool, (which was done in a few episodes). "Counselor, why don't you go down to the teleporter and copy yourself so we can have a threesome?" or "Scotty! I need you to copy these 20g bars of latinum for me. I need to go back to the surface and tip one of those green strippers."
Using the teleport as a backup tool. "The captain is dead again. What is the latest tape backup? Do we have one backed up BEFORE he became such a bitch?"
Medicine. Why use a scalpel to remove a liver when you can just beam it out? Why do they still have disease when they can just beam everything BUT the virus back to the ship?

Yeah, we spend too much time pondering things like Star Trek. Then again, I guess that's what made it such a great show; it makes you THINK!

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[Rude Turnip]

"Scotty! I need you to copy these 20g bars of latinum for me. I need to go back to the surface and tip one of those green strippers."

Latinum cannot be replicated without being detected as "counterfeit." That's why it is used as a currency.

The fact and the fiction

[FernandoBR]

The fact: there's no such thing. The fiction: any Star Trek movie/novel/whatever.

Klein teleportation.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The quantum state of a living creature is pretty formidable. That is just not in the foreseeable future.'""

That's because you all are doing it wrong. You leave the person were they are, and teleport the universe around them.

Quantum Teleportation != FTL communication!

[Cordath]

Here's an extremely simplified version of how Quantum Teleportation works. This model *will* break down if you push it too far, but it's a better model of the real physics than a Star Trek transporter.

1. Go out and buy two identical rubik's cubes.
2. Put them into identical configurations.
3. Send one to the other side of the planet.
4. Now, create any new configuration you want, but record the steps you take. (e.g. Rotate top 90 degrees left, etc.)
5. A person on the other side of the planet with the other cube can now recreate your cube precisely if you call them up and tell them the steps you took.

In quantum-land, there are some rather huge differences, which I'll talk about in a moment. However, the crucial thing to get out of this necessarily imperfect macroscopic example is that this kind of teleportation relies on preparing identical rubik's cubes in advance, classically transporting one of them to the receiver, and communicating via classical channels when actually performing the teleportation. At NO point can information travel faster than light (FTL). i.e. Quantum teleportation does *not* break causality. However, you will note that you can, potentially, communicate a very complex rubik's cube configuration with a very small ammount of classical data, provided you choose your initial state and operations intelligently.

The reality of Quantum Land (This will most likely confuse you. For that, I apologize.)

The pair of identically configured rubik's cubes are meant to be an analogy for an entangled pair, which is the most crucial thing to have in any quantum teleportation scheme. (You can make entangled pairs out of many things, such as photons or electrons. However, these things are typically tiny and simple. Complex Atoms, molecules, etc. don't work so well.) Where the analogy breaks down is entanglement, which is something we just don't see in macroscopic objects. The key idea behind entanglement is that you can place two things into a state that is not separable (i.e. You cannot describe one things state without also describing the other simultaneously), and any operation on one of them will have an effect on the other no matter how far separated the two things are. (NOTE: This does NOT allow FTL communication.) The problem is that quantum operations on entangled states are probabilistic rather than deterministic. If the sender performs operations, measurements really, on her half of the entangled pair and a new particle that is to be teleported, the receiver needs the results of those measurements to do anything useful, such as reconstruct the particle the sender had. Those results *must* be communicated from the sender to the receiver via classical channels.

Another big thing to note about quantum teleportation is that it, currently, is applied to indistinguishable particles. When you copy a rubik's cube, the copy is made up of complex molecules in a configuration that is unique. If you can magically examine the structure of any two real world rubik's cube you can tell them apart. They are distinguishable. A pair of photons in the same state, on the other hand, are indistinguishable. When you perform quantum teleportation, the copy that comes out at the sender's end is an absolutely perfect copy of the original because it has the exact state of the original and the particles themselves are not distinguishable. The state of the original, however, is changed when it is measured in the teleportation process, and there's no way to recover it. Effectively, the original is destroyed and a perfect copy comes out at the other end.

So there you have it. Quantum teleportation isn't really like a Star Trek transporter at all. It actually a lot stranger than that, and much more difficult to grok. (especially the entanglment part) Again, I apologize for not being able to come up with a way to explain entanglement without throwing a lot of math at you. (I'm not sure you can really understand it without the math.)

Re:Quantum Teleportation != FTL communication!

[jdevivre]

Effectively, the original is destroyed and a perfect copy comes out at the other end. Note that "destroyed" could be "altered". Measurement may eventually simply disrupt, not disintegrate.

Re:Quantum Teleportation != FTL communication!

[Eli Gottlieb]

So it's like the ansible from "Ender's Game", but totally useless for any real communication?

Re:Quantum Teleportation != FTL communication!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is actually quite a good example to be honest.
The only people i can really see not understanding it are people who aren't really into science, or as thick as a rock.

And the "destroying original, creating a copy" fact is why Quantum Teleportation (and any other form similar to this) would get a hell of alot of hassle from loads of people (just like in the early days of the Star Trek universe, the Enterprise series that is, not the original Star Trek series)
Disassembly just doesn't sound too nice, even though it would be pretty much impossible to prove death of consciousness since whatever comes out the other end has all the memories from before teleportation.
More research into what consciousness actually IS would make things better... or worse, depending on the result.

I personally think wormholes would probably stand a better chance of becoming a form of "instant" transport over current ideas of teleporters.
Now, if only we could build one. Where is Carter when you need her? Oh wait, different series.

Re:Exactly - scientific scanning is the ultimate g

[springbox]

No, one of the problems is how would you know that you retain your consciousness once you reach the other end? If a copy was successfully made the answer would obviously be "yes," but who would be responding to that question? It would be impossible to know since the entities before and after teleportation are both conscious and self aware but is the copied entity really the same as the original (that is the original still conscious?) No one knows how people's consciousness actually works; as far as everyone can tell, they suddenly came into existence out of nowhere because they can't explain it. This is why people have a concept of a soul to try and explain something we have no actual understanding of.

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[TapeCutter]

Heh, not only do the mods not recognise the topic, they also can't tell the difference between a troll and flamebait.

My money's on wormhole technology

[Dadoo]

Maybe if you could be placed in a true time-temporal state

Even if that were possible, think about what it would require. You'd have to record the state and location of every elementary particle in your body, then transmit that information somewhere, and reassemble your body, atom by atom. If you do the numbers, making the very generous assumption that the computer responsible for the process requires one cycle per particle, you'll find there haven't been enough computer cycles in the entire history of computers to transmit a single person. To make things more difficult, scientists don't even have the slightest idea how they might disassemble and reassemble and object composed of more than one elementary particle.

At least we're pretty sure wormholes exist and we know how to use them, once we can make one big enough: just step through.

Re:My money's on wormhole technology

[pushing-robot]

If you do the numbers, making the very generous assumption that the computer responsible for the process requires one cycle per particle, you'll find there haven't been enough computer cycles in the entire history of computers to transmit a single person.

To be fair, I'd expect that by the Star Trek era somebody will have learned how to write a decent parallel program.

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[Zugok]

Imagine this as the perfect bomb: taking OUT or comproMISING structural members of any building, fortification, dam, tower, transmission/reception site, etc. If used on skyscrapers, the toll worldwide would be, well, ummm, "mind-bending". Who the hell would want to go to work in Chrysler Building, or Petronas or Taipei 101 KNOWING that whole floors are collapsing in for no outward (visible/believable) reason. Oh, the reason would definitely be from outside (assuming the teleporter is not transported into the building...)

And, no, I didn't read this in any books. I've been for decades wondering why in Star Trek we've NEVER seen the Federation or non-Fed use of the teleportation technology to undermine the target ships.

They used this in Martian Successor Nadesico, Yuirko called it the BOSON CANNON. I have forgotten the name of the episode but it's the one where she orders the ship to switch off all power so the enemy could not track the Nadesico. She called it a game of 'fishing'.

This reminds me of that Outer Limits episode

[greggish]

with the bald guy from Just Shoot Me. He has to kill the "jumper" that was accidentally left in tact after the jump. The dinosaur creatures that invented the "jump" technology had ethical rules that duplicate jumpers were not allowed to exist. Anyone else see that episode?

Re:This reminds me of that Outer Limits episode

[witherstaff]

I read that short story in a sci fi yearly best of the best a few years back. Didn't realize outer limits was using those as scripts, although it would make sense to.

On the subject of the movie....

[mblase]

...did anyone else watch the trailers for "Jumper" and think, "Hey, this looks like they borrowed a lot of ideas from Alfred Bester's 'The Stars My Destination' and a few more from 'The Demolished Man' (teleporter cops instead of telepath cops) and smoosh them together into a single story?"

Not that it means it'll be a bad movie, but man, I hope the screenwriters and directors give credit where it's due.

Re:On the subject of the movie....

[Bob of Dole]

Having read the book (You know there was a book, right?) and The Stars My Destination, not really.
TSMD is an exploration of "What if everyone could teleport?", Jumper is more in the superhero realism genre, "What if one guy could teleport?". (Realism because it's not "What if one overgrown boyscout could teleport?", but a real person)

I don't know which way the teleporter cops thing will go, that's certainly not in the book. It may very well be lifted from The Demolished Man.

Re:On the subject of the movie....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it seems to be a complete rip off of those.

My concern with teleporting a living person

[zygotic mitosis]

I've always had this nagging feeling that by disassembling your brain and moving it, that instant of consciousness would cease to be. You would actually die; in the destination pod, what is essentially a perfect clone is born with your memories. Of course, it would be seamless, and your teleported self wouldn't have any recollection of having died. This would also be impossible to prove, but it's what I choose to believe about this fictional device. Teleportation engineers kill humans!

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Badgam]

I think in order to be 100% sure that this doesn't happen, there would have to be a 100% continuous conscious experience through the whole process. How this would work, I can't say; perhaps if the person were somehow teleported in bulk, or if it were possible to measure brain activity during the jaunt (in reference to the classic Stephen King short story)

Of course, in the meantime it would still be very, very useful for transporting things and information from point to point. The ability to effectively use real-time communication over considerable distances (presumably we're talking longer-term interplanetary or intersystem communication and trade) would be a massive asset and would resolve many of the main logistical challenges with large scale space colonization by itself, let alone its knock-on effects.

It's almost certain it will be used first for data transmission, then goods and equipment, and lastly conscious sentients (humans, robots, AIs, all of us). Anything else would likely be far too risky.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Futile Rhetoric]

"I've always had this nagging feeling that by disassembling your brain and moving it, that instant of consciousness would cease to be."

I've heard this argument used before, and all I have to say to that is that if we use that line of reasoning, you die every single night when you go to sleep, only to be resurrected every morning.

I think that with technology such as teleportation, we would be forced to redefine death. While this may sound odd, it's not -- we've done so before, when cardiorespiratory arrest could no longer serve as a sufficient definition.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[mrjeffreya]

I share your method of thought.

However, when I think of this, I start thinking of how it compares to sleeping. When you fall asleep, that instant of consciousness ceases to be, like above. When you wake up, there's a new instant of consciousness and it doesn't have any recollection of the previous one having end, also like above.

The part I'm undecided on is whether or not the middle stage of above applies to sleeping which depends on whether or not "you" and "dying" is talking about a single instance of consciousness or the series of consciousnesses...

I case you're wondering, I haven't slept in 473 days.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[BungaDunga]

I'm not sure why you would want to use teleportation to transmit information: you have to send a particle classically anyway at speeds quantum information without physically sending the particle from one place to another (and potentially destroying the delicate quantum state). It'll end up being useful in quantum cryptography, probably.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[BungaDunga]

I meant to say "... speeds less than or equal to the speed of light. It does let you transmit quantum information..."

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Badgam]

That's what I would think; it could be a better way of sending sensitive data.

Of course, I wonder if it would be possible to use teleportation in this wayw to circumvent the speed of light, enabling real-time communication over long distances. Given how little I personally know about the mechanisms behind teleportation (sadly, I'm studying accounting and not physics), I have no idea if this is workable or not.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[BungaDunga]

I've only read pop versions of quantum mechanics but the basic idea requires information to be transmitted from the sending location to the destination classically, slower than the speed of light. This rather large caveat tends to be left out of articles like this. The point of teleportation is not that it is instantaneous, its that it allows you to transmit quantum states without physically transporting the particles in the special state from one place to another.

In a relativistic sense, FTL communication would actually end up sending information back in time rather than in "real time" and cause all hell to break loose with causality; see this "tachyon pistols" thought-experiment

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[nospam007]

... what is essentially a perfect clone is born with your memories. Of course, it would be seamless, and your teleported self wouldn't have any recollection of having died. This would also be impossible to prove, but it's what I choose to believe about this fictional device. Teleportation engineers kill humans!

___

Just the contrary. Actually they would rebuild the body without the cancer, the anemia etc and only the brain from the current consciousness-state, the rest of the body would be built according to the recording done when the subject was 21 year old.
IOW immortality.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Fred_A]

Just the contrary. Actually they would rebuild the body without the cancer, the anemia etc and only the brain from the current consciousness-state, the rest of the body would be built according to the recording done when the subject was 21 year old.
IOW immortality. ... for your clone.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[hey!]

That scenario has actually been analyzed by philosophers (speculative fiction provides a rich source of theoretical problems): if a teleportation technology were to cause me to disappear at point A and have what for all possible purposes would seem to be me appear at point B, would it be me? Or would I have been destroyed at point A and would the person who appears as B just think he was me?

One view, stemming from the Scottish philosopher David Hume, could be characterized as saying the question is meaningless. "Identity" is a construct of language, in reality objects don't have identity they just have a bundle of properties.

If you think about it, the way you pose the problem leads to an answer, which in turn poses new problems.

If we suppose that the entity at B is exactly like you wouldn't that mean he has every property you have? Well, then what about identity? If identity is a property, and the terms of our problem are to assume that B is like A in every respect, then he'd have to be you, because the technology would have reconstructed that property. If he is not you, and identity is a property, the technology has failed to meet the conditions of our problem.

So when you consider some teleportation technology, you ought to consider if it reconstructs whatever property it is that you consider to be identity. For example, if identity is the possession of immortal soul that being nonphysical is not measurable or observable in any way, then there is no teleportation technology that could ensure that your immortal soul isn't stripped of any physical container.

Teleportation (and time travel) would produce a person that is necessarily different in one characteristic: location in space time. If you look at identity as being part of a contiguous process in space time (the way Kurt Vonnegut's Trafamadorians saw people as a kind of four dimensional snake), then teleportation or time travel results in a new, non-contiguous segment, and thus a different identity. But if that is identity, it's not clear why anybody would care so much about it.

So the good news is that according to the bundle theory, you don't have to worry about it teleportation, time travel, or duplication. On the other hand, maybe you should worry about Alzheimer's, brain damage, or learning new things and having new experiences.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[dimeglio]

IANAP but based on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, as you move thought any of the 4 dimensions, there is a split in an infinite number of parallel universes that takes place. This means your Self "dies" at each infinitesimal moment to be reborn in another. See quantum suicide.
So to me, it doesn't matter if move from one point to another through teleportation or through plain old movement, the effect is the same. You just have to ensure entropy is maintained throughout the "movement."

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[drinkypoo]

If you believe one of the fun hippie-dippy theories of consciousness (I don't subscribe to any of these belief systems, or any magazines either) like the idea that we are just a projection of a part of another being, or that we're all different reflections of the same soul from different bodies or something, then it becomes equally irrelevant unless we lose our attachments to the body at the other end when it comes out. Just some additional food for thought.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Philosinfinity]

There's a greater question involved in this that the sleeping example does not address: the nature of personal identity. What defines you as you? While there are many failed accounts at defining "youness", one of the major needs in addressing teleportation is the method of moving an object from point A to point B. Are we deconstructing the person to an atomic level and transporting the atoms, only to recreate the person, atom by atom? Are we scanning the person and recreating them from a bucket of atoms on the other side (This one has a great example of a system malfunction where the teletransporter accidentally creates two yous.)? Assuming that in either case the method is relevant to "youness," you could easily have a scenario where the teleportation creates a copy of you rather than an actual transport of you.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[fastest fascist]

You seem to be assuming consciousness is something that rises from, or is connected to, the physical body, but transcends it somehow. I don't see how that could be.

That said, I'd definitely stay the hell away from teleportation devices as portrayed in fiction. They all seem to involve mapping out the person's molecular structure and using that information to create a copy on the other end. In the process the original is destroyed. I don't much care for that, however perfect the copy might be.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Kirth Gersen]

This is not the only post which makes the point that the teleported version is a copy, not the original.

This point was addressed at length in the 1960 sf novel by Algis Budrys, "Rogue Moon":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Moon

The trick in the novel is, the original is *not* destroyed. Instead, the *copy* is (after a time) destroyed. I can recommend it, although I have not read it for about 30 years; Wikipedia says it lost the Hugo to "A Canticle for Leibowitz".

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[gfody]

http://stng.36el.com/st-tng/episodes/250.html

I guess that answers that!

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the concepts used in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee related stories is that the Xeelee have a way to transmit information via quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement in reality is faster than light, but it is not possible to use it to transmit information (causality breaks down if you can, amongst other reasons I am certainly not intelligent enough to understand). In the stories the Xeelee have some way to get around this.

...of course, in the stories the Xeelee have also existed since roughly 5 minutes after the birth of the universe, lived through the entire length of it, plus went back in time to reengineer their evolutionary path because they didn't have enough time to get out of the losing battle with the photino birds, so yeah...<_<

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Andrew Penry]

You may want to take this test to see if your beliefs about personal identity are consistent. http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/identity.htm

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Dr_Barnowl]

I have the same worries about uploading ; to me, an upload is not the same as the person who was imaged to produce the data. Instead, I would prefer to have my brain gradually augmented, first with devices that learn to be "me", which are then slowly permitted feedback until they become a genuine part of my mind. Eventually, you would transition to a 100% non-biological substrate, but still have a mind that shared continuity of consciousness with that old soggy bit of grey matter that ceased to function last week. A copy that just instantaneously got uploaded to a new substrate and started running ; well, it wouldn't be *me* (even though it would think it was).

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Jamu]

My thoughts are that if it's at all possible that the original could be preserved - even in theory - then the destination person must be identical to a copy. That is, the original, if destroyed, would now be dead. Interestingly, Quantum Theory indicates that preserving the original is not possible when transferring a complete quantum state from source to destination, and teleportation would occur instead of destruction after duplication.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Captain Splendid]

I've always fancied that we're figments of our own imaginations. You die when you stop believing in yourself.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[ignavus]

"Teleportation engineers kill humans!"

And create exact, living clones of them immediately somewhere else. It is this last step that your average murderer forgets to do.

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[Lours]

You would actually die; in the destination pod, what is essentially a perfect clone is born with your memories.

You are assuming that consciousness is a byproduct of matter and that the presence of the same exact configuration of it will be enough to recreate an identical consciousness at the other end of the teleportation.
So far, it can't be considered as anything else than an hypothesis : it could be but it might not be, evidence is currently not conclusive in any way.

I always hear a lot of my scientifically knowledgeable (which I consider myself to be as well) friends infer that the former is obviously true and that Occam's razor dictates we should prefer it to the later, but I disagree : it makes as much sense to consider that the brain can just be a very precise receiver for an extremely tenuous kind of non-electromagnetic kind of wave which does interact with other matter only in infinitesimal proportions (sort of "static" neutrinos).

What we call consciousness would actually be a (very) complex waveform of this particular "radiation" (in the electromagnetic meaning of that term). It can't be electromagnetic otherwise we would have detected it, and consciousness would be disrupted by all electromagnetic fields surrounding us all the time.
That would fit pretty well with string theory which postulates that more dimensions than space and time exist : the consciousness waveform would evolve mainly in the tiny and not-easily-perceivable dimensions : only an instrument as extremely precise and complex as the brain would be able to interact with it.

This hypothesis has a lot of explicative power in a lot of areas (even spiritual ones) and opens the way for a whole field of experimentations but its exploration belongs to another thread I guess so I'll stick to the current subject :

Quantum teleportation as we are able to implement it nowadays, assuming it can be scaled up to move a whole body of atoms would not transfer that consciousness waveform along with with the rest of the quantum data (I say "quantum data" because as was said by other posters above, no atoms or matter of any kind gets moved : we only replicate quantum state), and what you'd get at the other end would be a lifeless body collapsing to the ground as soon as it gets there.

But anyway, when we'll arrive at the point where replicating the quantum state of a complete human organism is possible we'll be actually testing the hypothesis that consciousness derives from matter. Those are going to be interesting and fruitful times.

That is, if climate warming doesn't destroyed civilization before we get there :)

Re:My concern with teleporting a living person

[vic.thorn]

Star gate approached this Id concept from a slightly different aspect. The team gated to a planet and woke up later to find that they were in actual fact Robots. the real team were still asleep. The robots had all the memory and personality of their originators. The robotic team eventually were killed and their consciousness ceased to exist. Reverse that and say that the original team were killed and not the robots and that then in essence is your issue. If I was to be teleported and an exact copy of me produced, with all of my thoughts, memories and experiences, it would still not be the conscious me. I would be dead, therefore all you would be doing is duplicating an experiential person, but each time they were transported the actual ID of that individual would cease to exist. They would be killed.

SPOILER ALERT!

[Dorceon]

It was also one of the twists in the movie The Prestige.

Too small

[bill_mcgonigle]

At least we're pretty sure wormholes exist and we know how to use them, once we can make one big enough: just step through.

The wormholes we think exist are too small to carry much in the way of matter. Possibly some photons.

Re:Too small

[Tony Hoyle]

Cool.. then we can look through them :p

Re:Too small

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yeah, and even send our teleporter signals through.... it's always a bootstrapping problem, isn't it?

You mean like the Portal version?

[Dorceon]

Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out. I don't think the game ever had a chance to show the portals working like a siphon, or if they thought of that. Would have been neat.

Why teleport living matter?

[kitsunewarlock]

Everyone is so concerned with teleporting living matter. I say start working on the non-living matter first. Besides, in the end we probably never need to teleport ourselves in the first place.

I mean, you wanna go to the store? Just teleport whatever you want to buy to yourself instead? Wanna go to the grandcanyon? Teleport it to ya piece by piece.

Alfred Bester anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jumper = Jaunting from The Stars My Destination

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[evanbd]

Can it be teleported without copying, and still count as original? If so, how is the copying teleport different?

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[Gulthek]

Nope, gotta move it by hand.

The Prestige (spoilers)

[Rocketship Underpant]

***Spoilers below***

The film "The Prestige", about two competitive magicians, has a similar plot twist. One of the magicians, unable to figure out his adversary's teleportation trick, invents his own with the help of Nicola Tesla. Instead of teleporting him, a machine creates a perfect clone of the magician, and then the clone kills and disposes of the original below the stage.

Re:Exactly - scientific scanning is the ultimate g

[KlomDark]

Joe, we've asked you before - please don't smoke pot at work.

When used as a weapon, some1 will build a defense.

[WK2]

In the Star Trek universe, all of the people were "idealogical", and would never consider torture, or "fighting unfair". The Star Trek writers wanted to keep the universe too much like our own, and didn't really think through the implications of the technologies they introduced into their universe.

In the real world, every weapon in the history of the world has had a defense created shortly afterward. Swords have other swords, shields, and armor. Bows and crossbows also have shields and armor. Bullets have armor. Bombs have black boxes, and bomb detectors. Snooping has encryption. Everything has something that can destroy it, too. Armor has weak spots, especially at the joints. Bomb detectors have the "walk around it" vulnerability, as does encryption (key loggers). Communication structures have bombs.

You are suggesting that government, warfare, and life itself will be defenseless against a new technology. I'm sure that the people of just a few centuries ago felt the same way about airplanes, if they were possible. "How can we possibly defend ourselves from people who can just drop out of the sky anywhere they please?"

Teleportation hasn't been invented yet, and neither has a defense. However, it is in many space/sci-fi shows, and they have usually have defenses. In Stargate: Atlantis, the Wraith have jammers, that prevent Asgard beams from working in their ships. The Earth ships have gotten through the jammers on two occasions that I know of. The first time is because the Wraith ships weren't expecting it (the first time). The second was when a Wraith they allied with "gave them the codes." The point is that every weapon has a defense.

The only weapon I can think of that I can't think of a defense is most theories of time travel. The reality-bending-to-story shows like "Time-cop" have a defense, where the "future" doesn't change "immediately," and they have a warning, so that they can fix the past before it affects the future. The "12 Monkeys" version has a built-in defense. You can't change anything. I can't think of a defense against the "Back to the Future" version, or the "Stargate" version. Fortunately, time travel is probably only in fantasy.

Well double dumbass on you

[Weaselmancer]

Hayden is Star Wars, not Star Trek. That's why he doesn't know it.

quantum teleportation

[nguy]

There is no evidence whatsoever that teleporting people requires teleporting quantum states. Quantum mechanical effects are involved in many biological processes, but only on very short time and spatial scales. If you decohere them all during teleportation, the effect would probably not even be noticeable.

So, all those results on quantum teleportation probably nothing to do with teleporting people. Real teleportation can likely be done purely classically.

Re:quantum teleportation

[Anonymous Coward]

After Edward Farhi explained quantum teleportation, Max Tegmark (who wrote a paper concluding that quantum effects are not involved in consciousness) brought this up. One issue that comes up with copying the classical state of a person is that (unlike quantum teleportation) you can end up with a second copy. Now what would you do with two Hayden Christensens?

Re:quantum teleportation

[Pfhorrest]

Now what would you do with two Hayden Christensens? Two Hayden Christensens at the same time, man.

Awww yeah... giggity giggity...

Re:quantum teleportation

[nguy]

Quantum models of consciousness are so idiotic that they aren't even worth commenting on, and I wonder why Tegmark even bothers.

Other than that, there is no known physical law that prohibits the duplication of people.

The whole discussion reminds me of the kinds of discussions people had when the first flying machines and cars were developed; some people seriously suggested that you'd die if you lift up in the air or drove faster than 25mph.

You missed a spot

[Dachannien]

"Earlier this week actor Hayden Christensen, of Star Wars infamy..." "Earlier this week human Hayden Christensen, of Star Wars infamy..."

Whatever he was doing in those movies, it sure as hell wasn't acting.

In the movie...

[kcbrown]

FTFA:

Jumper, which is scheduled to be released on Feb. 14, is a sci-fi thriller about a man, played by Hayden Christensen, who discovers he has the ability to teleport himself anywhere, anytime.

...

Christensen's character discovers that he's not the only Jumper alive and that there's a secret organization of people sworn to kill all Jumpers because they believe the teleporters' ability makes them a danger to everyone else. Actor Samuel L. Jackson plays the man in charge of tracking down and killing the Jumpers.

Samuel L. Jackson (upon seeing Christensen for the first time): You! . You cut my hand off, bitch! [Busts out a lightsaber with with the words "Bad Motherfucker" inscribed on it and ignites it]. Now you gonna pay!

Hayden Christensen: What the ... ?!? [Teleports away]

Samuel L. Jackson (muttering to himself): Motherfucker do that shit to me, he better paralyze my ass cuz I'll kill the motherfucker, know what I'm sayin'?

Wasn't that a book by Alfred Bester....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds vaguely like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester_(author)#The_Stars_My_Destination

Re:Wasn't that a book by Alfred Bester....

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Bester write about 'jaunting' (telekenetic transportation?

I'm putting my money on Niven's 'stepping disks' and 'transfer booths' (plus, the stories are good reads - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Known_Space - almost equal to Bester's works).

Yes it IS

[zoomshorts]

IF you could do it, it would take a RECIEVER at the other end ready
to reconstitute the component atoms , plus a supply of those atoms in a useable form. Y
ou simply cannot 'beam' crap someplace and expect it to materialize, THAT would take
megakilogazillion joules of energy and the ability to control that energy. BLOW ME !!!

Re:Yes it IS

[name*censored*]

THAT would take megakilogazillion joules of energy and the ability to control that energy.

In this distant future, this would be equivalent to running a latest-model graphics card for 10 seconds.

Re:Yes it IS

[beckerist]

Type II?

THE SOOUUL

[mqduck]

Random thought: If you created a clone of yourself and then killed yourself, would you say that you are still alive (assuming you're still alive to make that consideration :-D)? If no, why wouldn't you say that this configuration of atoms at the other end of the "teleportation" isn't a new and different person in the same way? Even more trippy: from the person you are one instance to the person you are the next, haven't you basically gone from one almost duplicate to another? Do we truly therefore only live for one single "instant" (however long that is)? For a dedicated materialist, I find it very troubling when my thoughts seem to force me to conclude that there's such a thing as a soul.

Re:THE SOOUUL

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

If you cloned yourself, you wouldn't be able to kill yourself because you would both be exactly matched. You'd have to get a friend to maim your clone for you, but of course your clone would be asking your friend the same thing at the same time...the only way to do it would be to set up a trap so as soon as the clone comes out he/she is killed (a la that episode of Itchy and Scratchy).

Re:THE SOOUUL

[mqduck]

If you cloned yourself, you wouldn't be able to kill yourself because you would both be exactly matched. But I'm killing MYSELF, not my clone.

And anyway, if me and my clone get in a Battle to the Death, just because we're evenly matched doesn't mean there won't be a winner. From the instance I wake up from my cloning-from apparatus right HERE, and my clone wakes up from his cloning-to apparatus over THERE, we're two different people.

"Perfectly symmetrical violence" may, in the words of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, "never solve anything", but so long as two different beings begin in two different places, nothing is symmetrical.

(P.S. The clone machine -> kill machine assembly line was definitely a good I&H.)

Re:THE SOOUUL

[mqduck]

Me:

The clone machine -> kill machine assembly line was definitely a good I&H. Or should I say "DISassembly line"? Ahaha!

But what does he know...

[uhlume]

Edward Farhi, director of the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT, said, 'It's a little less exotic than what you see in the movie. Teleportation has been done, moving a single proton over two miles. [But] teleporting a person? That is pretty far down the line.

Clearly he's never seen Hayden in Revenge of the Sith, or he'd be familiar with the technique used by most of the cast to phone in their performances.

Not only fiction

[dotancohen]

So far as I understand, more than just a single proton has been moved by teleportation. Yes, two kilometers is impressive, but more relevant to human teleportation is when large masses are moved intact. This has been done: http://what-is-what.com/what_is/teleportation.html (Disclaimer: I wrote that).

Spinning the universe around a still bucket

[Pfhorrest]

The problem I have with there being no universal reference frame shows up with centrifugal forces. If I'm allowed to imagine that the rest of the universe is spinning and my merry-go-round is not, why do I get pulled to the outside? And would centrifugal forces exist in a universe that consisted of nothing but me, a merry-go-round, and a third "reference object"?

Samuel Clarke's famous "rotating bucket" thought experiment claimed to show the absolute nature of space (i.e. a universal reference frame) like this, imagining a spinning bucket, filled with water which is also spinning and thus at rest relative to the bucket, in a universe where nothing but this bucket and the water exist (and let us imagine a lid on the bucket so the water does not fly out without Earth's gravity to hold it in). This experiment is meant to show that space must be absolute because the water and bucket are at rest relative to one another (and thus all matter in this imagined universe), but as we are led to imagine that the water appears drawn toward the sides of the bucket as though the bucket were rotating, we must conclude that the bucket is rotating relative to something. As no other objects exist in this imagined universe, that something must be space itself - or so Clarke intended to prove by this.

The relationalist objection usually raised to this thought experiment is that it cannot actually be conducted, as we cannot observe a spinning bucket of water in a universe where ourselves and the rest of the universe do not exist. Thus, we can't conclude that the rest of the universe has no effect, or that spinning the rest of the universe around the still bucket would not produce the same effect as rotating the bucket in a still universe.

But I believe that beyond that, we can clearly show via another thought experiment that if a still bucket of water in an otherwise empty universe were suddenly to become surrounded by massive objects rotating around it, that the masses of those objects - that is to say, the force of gravity exerted by them on the bucket and the water - would in itself draw the water toward the edges of the bucket in exactly the same manner. As we would classically describe water so drawn out in a spinning bucket as doing so because of its inertia interacting with the centripetal force of the bucket walls, to show that this same effect can be seen as caused by the force of gravity exerted by the rest of the universe on the water (and its subsequent interaction with the bucket walls) will show conclusively that inertia is a result of the force of gravity exerted by the rest of the universe upon the "massive" object in question. In short, I believe that that inertia (and thereby centripetal/centrifugal force) can be shown, by the following thought experiment, to be simply the product of what we might call "background gravitation".

Consider first our still bucket, filled with water, sitting alone in space. We will imagine the bucket as being held "still" relative to any other motion, so that we can examine simply the effects of other masses in the universe upon the water. (This situation is indiscernible from imagining the bucket moving in an otherwise still universe). Now, imagine that two equally massive objects come into being on either side of this bucket. Their gravity would draw the free- floating water toward the sides of the bucket, and so the water would pool on either side of the bucket. Imagining three such equal masses, evenly spaced around the bucket, would produce a more neutral distribution of gravity fields across the water, and more and more such masses evenly surrounding the bucket along it's axis would produce an outward force similar to the "centrifugal force" experienced by a rotating bucket - though this is not the point of my proof. If we then imagine even more such masses surrounding the bucket above and below, a sphere of mass encompassing the bucket, then all the gravitational forces would cancel and the water would be left in free fall again; that is, dr

Horror flick of some sort.

[reiisi]

Hypothesis contrary to fact.

Begging the question is correct.

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

There is a lot of logical fallacy in this discussion. Like, for instance, hypothesis contrary to fact.

Until and unless teleportation becomes a reality, we can imagine many things which no one can disprove.

Speed of sound

[aepervius]

Parent is correct, in the aforementioned experiment, when you move the stick, the "movement" wave will not even go at the speed of light in the vacuum, it will only go at the speed of sound of the material of the stick.

Why not just duplicate?

[TheRistoman]

It seems to me that teleportation as we intend it would only be worthwhile when applied to living things, and doing that would raise all the philosophical questions that have been mentioned already. However, if you can store the information needed to create a copy of an object, why would you destroy the original? just duplicate it. (whoa, that would be an awesome slogan... I claim ownership) So really, what we need is long distance replication. (Cue sexual double entendre jokes.)

Vendors would have a never-ending delivery system, and I could make copies of that $100 that's sitting in my wallet...

Planning

[pipingguy]

We have to get of this rock or else we're all dead.

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably why you never see a toilet in Star Trek. They just "beam out" the feces and urine for use with the replicators.

Teleportation experiments.

[AeiwiMaster]

Well, the term quantum teleportation is just science PR
for coping a quantum stat from one atom to another.

Many of the experiments with real teleportation (starting with Tesla)
have been kept secret.

But you can find some experiments here.

Why can't we just wish our Aiuas outside?

[Lt.Hawkins]

And when we come back, have also recreated our brother and sister from long ago?

Who said teleporting didn't make clones

[The_Underscore]

Christensen, who gained fame and heart-throb status playing Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episodes II and II, Well isn't that nice... The attack of the "The Attack Of The Clones" clones. It's just begging for the revenge of the [sic]. On the topic of teleportation though, I find it quite comforting to know that it could only move people and not copy them. There are many people I would gladly see disappear (even if only for a moment); but none (myself included) to whom I'd risk giving such a photocopier.

The scanning process kills

[graf0z]

(This is what i read in some article some time ago, so it may be false/false remembrance)

The destruction of the original is part of the copying process, so its more a mv than a cp:

To copy a quantum state of a particle, you have to read it. Measuring it's quantum state alters it into a (random?) new quantum state. So scanning a complex body destroys all it's atom's states, thus tranforming the body into a pile of particles. You cannot keep the original intact.

Can anybody confirm/refute that?

Better find a worm hole...

[llZENll]

How many subatomic particles are in the human body? Multiply that by maybe 10 or so and thats how much space you would need to 'record' your current state, so you could be put back together at the other end. So you would record the person on one end, send their info through to the other end, construct them from piles of subatomic particles, verify them, then deconstruct them at the original location.

You would need to record the orientation, position, temperature, and perhaps several other factors (probably unknown to us at this time) for all of the smallest particles.

This would seem to be the way to 'teleport' someone with ideas from current technology. Because the recording device would need MORE memory than the density of subatomic particles being recorded, this would seem to be quite a ways off, but you could do a rough calculation as to when we would reach this memory density and transmission rate.

It would seem easier in the near term to discover some kind of subspace worm hole than deal with the technological issues of teleportation.

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, in quantum mechanics it is possible to teleport a quantum state, but not to copy it.

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[MythMoth]

Why use a scalpel to remove a liver when you can just beam it out? This is my theory as to why they don't seem to have any lavatories on the star ships. The duty teleportationist is in charge of beaming the crap out of you (literally). Don't give him a hard time, though, or he'll "accidentally" take out your small intestine as well.

Re:Death and Rebirth... Thinking wrong use here...

[zarathud]

> Why use a scalpel to remove a liver when you can just beam it out?

I always figured this was the reason there were no bathrooms on the ship ;)

All kinds of death...

[SanityInAnarchy]

As other physicists will tell you, there are all kinds of ways in which you can define a death. I would strongly encourage you to mess with Conway's Game of life, because that is exactly how it works for us humans. In fact, the page I just linked to loads with a perfect example -- a glider. You'll probably want to download a bigger version of this, drop the scale down to one pixel, maybe, but the essential result is the same: A glider can be observed as an entity which moves across the screen, wiggling as it goes, where, in fact, it is a bunch of tiny organisms (think of them as bacteria) living and dying every step of the way. Nothing in the Game of life moves, but new things are born and old ones die.

The glider is also very cool for other reasons, too -- it's an emergent phenomenon. Grab any Game of Life simulator, set the resolution to one pixel per bacterium, scribble a nonsensical pattern on it with your mouse, and let it run -- it's almost a certainty that more than a few gliders will spin off of it and go sliding off towards the edge of the screen. It is an example of how patterns arise from chaos, and a very visual demonstration of why evolution works.

But back to the subject at hand... Various parts of your body live and die at different rates. I'm not sure how long it takes to replace everything, but I think it's only a month or so.

You can approach this two ways: Either get over your fear of death, or start to identify yourself as a pattern -- a meme, a program, a chunk of data. Even cloning doesn't diminish you -- if anything, it makes you stronger.

However, if you insist on the depressing/disturbing interpretation, watch The Prestige. I'll say no more, just watch it.

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. what does that have to do with Teleportation?
Saying that the teleporters just created a wormhole would have made it much easier from a science perspective, as well as budget. Its not like wormholes are hard to create with special effects, i could do it using my videocamera looking at its own videofeed (oh i had alot of fun with that!)

Although, someone teleporting out of thin air does look better than someone walking into a big swirly thing.

Shilling

[peccary]

Sez Hayden: "Not that there's anything at all novel in this discussion, mind you, but it gives us a chance to hype an upcoming Hollywood flick on the front page of Slashdot. Just in case some of you nerds really are living in a bubble that our producers haven't managed to penetrate."

Better they should have made . . .

[mmell]

The Stars My Destination.

Much more intriguing storyline, IMHO.

Teleporting particles

[moonshinerat]

How do they know the received particle is the same one they beamed out?

Do they ask it questions?, take it's photograph? ..... oh oh I know, it's got an iPhone. No problems with identification there then!

Re:Kindred Spirits

[drachenstern]

No, it's that we're fragments of other peoples imaginations. Sadly, however, all others are a figment of my own imagination.

Now the question is who came up with who, and how do I get off this stupid ride?*

*Okay, so if we're a figment of "other peoples" imaginations, does everyone have to give up on us, or just one person? If just one, how do we find them and ensure that they never let us go?

Wow. Just --- wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the article and I couldn't believe my eyes.

They're letting Hayden Christiansen act in more movies?

Yikes.

physical matter

[sihibbs]

everything in science in these areas always seem to assume that what we can currently see/detect with instruments is the only 'real' physical matter than exisits. I find this odd. I'm pretty sure in another couple of hundred years and further we will find that there is a hell of a lot more 'stuff' in what we call physical matter than we currently observe and believe in. This may eventually point to where the conscious or even what some may call 'soul' resides.

Low energy path to teleportation...

[Anonymous Coward]

HOPI SIPAPU
Being teleported is more like falling down a potential well where your body is transported by a carrier wave tuned to perfect resonance with your Base "NMR" signatures much like a surfer is transported by a h2o wave. Poured from one location to the other passing through simultaneous existence at both would most likely be the experience.