The topic of time travel recently and my viewings of countless Star Trek episodes in recent weeks got me wondering how the science of teleportation might eventually be achieved.
That and I also finished a Stephen King short story yesterday titled "The Jaunt" in which a father in the future describes to his wife and kids how teleportation was invented...right before they're about to "Jaunt" to Mars. (that story is in the Skeleton Crew collection)
Actual teleportation raises many questions with even more difficult answers.
The definition of teleportation technically is this:
"Dematerializing an object at one point, and sending the details of that object's precise atomic configuration to another location, where it will be reconstructed. What this means is that time and space could be eliminated from travel -- we could be transported to any location instantly, without actually crossing a physical distance."
I took that definition from an interesting article at Howstuffworks.com.
They also state that, "Physicist Charles Bennett and a team of researchers at IBM confirmed that quantum teleportation was possible, but only if the original object being teleported was destroyed."
Regarding human teleportation they say this:
"For a person to be transported, a machine would have to be built that can pinpoint and analyze all of the 10 to the 28th power atoms that make up the human body. That's more than a trillion trillion atoms. This machine would then have to send this information to another location, where the person's body would be reconstructed with exact precision. Molecules couldn't be even a millimeter out of place, lest the person arrive with some severe neurological or physiological defect."
Many issues are discussed including "biodigital cloning" and even the "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle" is included.
Here is the article....oh by the way, after you're done reading it, look below and click where it says "Lots More Information" for some more really great articles on this topic.
http://travel.howstuffworks.com/teleportation.htm
What do you think of all this?
Post Edited (01-21-04 07:24)
That all raises the interesting question of the soul. If teleportation is destroying one physical form and reconstituting an exact replica somewhere else, don't you die in effect? What happens to your soul? Also, couldn't you then skip the first part of the process and make new versions of yourself (you know, one to send to work while you go fishing)? And what about teleportation not by the clunky Star Trek break-em-down-and-build-em-back method but by creating a rift in the dimensions and stepping through it? Or travelling on an as yet theoretical 4th dimension?
My guess is this: 5 million years from now, wherever the human race is and whatever it's doing, teleportation will never have been invented and science will probably have written it off as either impossible or impractical. I'll bet you a coke.
How do we know that Teleportation doesn't already exist?
Philadelphia Experiment.
Not the crappy films but the real occurance that happened in 1943.
"How do we know that Teleportation doesn't already exist?"
I think the auto industry would probably supress that.
How do we know that time travel doesn't exist?
Because anyone with the wisdom to invent time travel would have the wisdom to go back and make sure Michael Bolton was never born.
I keep thinking of Cronenberg's 'The Fly' [and to a lesser extent, Galaxy Quest] and think how funny [yet disgusting] it would be to see people trying to figure out why the damn machine doesn't work right, and why things keep turning inside out.
But the Fly brings up a good point: what if you and another animal got teleported? Sure there would have to be failsafes, but it's already a nightmare to compute all the atoms, throwing extra stuff into the mix is just asking for trouble!
The only way a computer could be made that would be capable of the calculations required would be if it was a Quantum Computer. Since we're years away from that, and teleportation would most likely require another half-century of study to make even remotely safe, I don't expect we'll see it in out lifetimes, despite the current rate of advancement with Quantum Mechanics.
To answer the "fly" question though - chances are Quantuum Teleportation could only take place in a "clean" environment anyway. And I don't just mean clean of dust and bacteria - I mean clean of electromagnetic interfearance, including things like the radio signals that routinely fill American airwaves. Even the slightest pulse could completely screw things up - so I'm pretty sure that flies getting in the works would be the least of our worries.
For an interesting fictional treatment of Quantuum Teleportation/Time Travel, I suggest Michael Chriton'e Timeline. And I don't mean the watered-down, dumbed down 2003 film, either. I mean the book.
There was a story in the regular news about 1 year ago about successful teleportation of small particles. Perhaps its been surrpressed already, as I couldn't find it on a news search a moment ago.
Here is a science website from 1997 about teleportation and photons.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00014CBD-7633-1C76-9B81809EC588EF21
And about that Philadelphia Experiment I actually knew someone who was involved with it in a Philadelphia Naval yard. Very normal guy who never spoke of such things and one day he was totally spaced out/dazed and told me the whole story. He said he was very young and he was there with his father and they were involved in a couple things beside the Philadelphia Experiment including early radar. His father left him there with some scientist and they did experiments on him. I use to speak with him for about 3 years during the late 80's and his persona wasn't one for odd subjects. This one night was the only time he ever brought it up and he never mentioned it again. The next time I seen him he simply said he dosn't want to talk about it and I never brought it up again. We where both taxi drivers in Atlantic City. I was convinced something had happened to him.
If such technology existed, or was actively be developed, why would ANYONE suppress this? What motivation would the automakers or anyone else have to put this down?
Think about it. If they KNOW about it and have the power to suppress it, then they have the power to benefit from it. Just think, if you owned an airline, and were secretly developing teleportation, when you got it to work, you'd put the OTHER airlines out of business - period. If you could teleport people from NY to LA in a second or so, why would anyone fly with your competitors? Ditto the car companies or whoever. The chief beneficiary is the one supposedly suppressing the information.
That's the main problem with 'conspiracy' theories - they just are not logical. Though I admit, they are FUN.
By the way, "The Jaunt" was an excellent story; yet another King short story that has really stuck with me over the years. (I like his shorts better than the novels).
Ulthar,
If you remember back to Philadelphia Experiment lore, you'll remember that the experiment went horribly wrong. Supposedly men were getting sick, disappearing, etc. Some stories even say the men would slip in and out of invisablity.
Some versions of the story have the ship coming back to Philly with men embedded in the hull.
So, IF there was such a technology, it was obviously not ready for any type of use. This could still be the case. What if we ARE on the threshold of such a technology but the fine tuning has eluded us for forty years.
Yeah, conspiracy theories sure are fun
Skaboi wrote:
>
> So, IF there was such a technology, it was obviously not ready
> for any type of use. This could still be the case. What if we
> ARE on the threshold of such a technology but the fine tuning
> has eluded us for forty years.
>
> Yeah, conspiracy theories sure are fun
>
I can certainly see keeping it silent because it is not ready for prime time yet. I was just commenting on the idea of the automakers or oil industry or (insert favorite whipping dog here) suppressing the technology to keep their own industry 'on top.' That does not make sense to me, since if they can suppress it, they can exploit it (in the good sense) for their own gain.
I've never seen the movie the Philadelphia Experiment (at least not all of it), but I did read about it years ago. It is a very interesting concept. The book I read about it in was relating that idea to the Bermuda Triangle disappearances.
"Beam my ass outta here, Scotty!"
Yeah, its a neat idea. But, if you don't have a quantum computer, forget it.
That point was explained in the book "The physics of Star Trek." Waaaaaay too many atoms to calc, even if you have an Omnicognic Nutron Wrangler, which can count all the atoms in an exploding star.
I read a short story in "Analog" magazine once. The transporter guy decides the machine is copying people, and the "Husks" left behind are people in deep sleep. Wakes up a Senator, so he can watch "Himself" haveing a news confrence. Yep...quite an ethical problim....
The transporter could be misused, like anything else.
Imagin what a torture device it could make?
No wonder Bones hated haveing his atoms scrambled!
I'd hate to have my liver atoms displaced by a stray rerun of "Threes company"!
Think in terms of Goverment use as opposed to corperate/public use. And think in terms of Tesla and Edison.
The basic technology might be useful even if such a tremendous level of sophistication were not reachable. For something as complicated as a person, yeah, lotsa Tera Tera Tera FlOPS needed.
On the other hand, what about freight? In this case, who cares if you mislay an iron atom here and there, and there are no problems with soul or consciousness.
Or, recently a ship capsized while being loaded and three crew members died. What if the teleportation could be used to transport the cargo from quay to deck, without the lifting (and balancing act that entails); we are talking HUGE tonnage here, but not necessarily complicated stuff at the molecular level.
How about fuels - instead of pipelines all over the place with mainenance heavy pumping stations, leaks, etc. you teleport "20 gallons here" or "20 gallons there." Think of a car's gas tank as a 'receiving station' and to fill up, you simply log onto a web site (or send an email from your cell phone). Your credit card info is 'in the system,' the gps on your car transmits your location (hey, isn't gps kinda like how the communicators on Star Trek locate everybody??), and ZZZIIIIPPP, full tank. No stopping for gas, no exposure to fumes, no over the road transport (sorry truckers, I do know a few) of gas to gas stations, and alas, no more gas station attendants.
The replicators on Star Trek essentially worked the same way (kinda like half a transporter) - you program what molecular make-up you need, and zip, energy to matter. Admittedly, this would require a tremendous amount of energy, but what about simple things, like pens or whatever. No more late night trips to the store 'cause your pen ran out of ink ;) (we have boxes and boxes of new, used and possibly empy pens around here, so this last was sorta toungue in cheek).
Peace.
I thought the 'Philadelphia Experiment' had something to do with invisibility - but I do remember some article concerning about it being used for time/space travel.
As for teleportation, I remember an old TV episode where some guy who developed the teleportation device and doesn't think twice about the moral and ethical reasons behind it, is going to attempt a teleport to Mars.
Eventually the guy goes through the teleporter but isn't destroyed - he see's himself appear on Mars and questions if the guy on mars is him (which it is)...
I can't remember much what happens to him after that.
This makes me recall an old Black-and-white movie about some guy who goes back to kill Hitler - all I remember is him standing in a window frame with a rifle in one hand with his sights on Hitler. Then a knock occurs on the door - and that's all I can remember - don't even remember the film's title.
Anyhow - I think teleportation would solve the transportation problem but cause massive ethical problems too.
Ad,
It was the Philly Experiment was actually set up to cause "Radar Invisibilty" or so the gov says. Most accounts though say it was an attempt at visual invisibility and that the teleportation was a huge side effect.
ad wrote:
>
> This makes me recall an old Black-and-white movie about some
> guy who goes back to kill Hitler - all I remember is him
> standing in a window frame with a rifle in one hand with his
> sights on Hitler. Then a knock occurs on the door - and that's
> all I can remember - don't even remember the film's title.
>
I think this is a 'Twilight Zone' episode, at least it sounds similar.
I've been meaning to point something out to people all over online for awhile now, and I have elected to so honor this board. The term "flash mob" seems to be derived from "flash crowd", which was coined by Larry Niven in a series of short stories about teleportation including "The Last Days Of The Permanent Floating Riot Club". Glad I got that off my chest.
http://davemunger.blogspot.com
All I know is, if they ever do figure it out, I sure as hell ain't getting into one.
Brother R
I've read accounts of the experiments into teleportation also. If I recall correctly, one article said that they were working on getting it to teleport a single atom and that if they could accomplish that, the only obstacle would be the computer power required to teleport something.
As for the methods involved, the idea of creating a copy and destroying the original has been used several times. It was at the heart of the book Waystation by Clifford Simak and it was used in an episode of the new Outer Limits. I've always thought that if it worked this way, *YOU* wouldn't actually go anywhere, it would create a copy of you somewhere else and you'd die.
>This makes me recall an old Black-and-white movie about some guy who goes
>back to kill Hitler
I agree with ulthar, I think this is one of the hour-long Twilight Zone episodes, No Time Like the Past (http://www.tvtome.com/TwilightZone/season4.html#ep112)
Finally, I also liked the story The Jaunt. The part that gets me is trying to imagine what it would be like to be awake through such a trip where you would experience millions of years worth of limbo. The scary part is that seems like something I'd do.
If I recall correctly, one article said that they were working on getting it to teleport a single atom and that if they could accomplish that, the only obstacle would be the computer power required to teleport something.
I recall the articles about IBM working on this and basically the probelm was that the time to break down and digitize and transmit the information in even something as simple as an apple would take years (like in the thousabds or millions range). So while the technology is theoretically possible, it won't be pragmatically doable for quite some time
hi ,,,
i amm akshay .. doing my engineering ... i have got a paper presentation so i chose the this topic ... and i amm not getting sufficient information regarding this .. so i kindly request u to provide me all the sufficient information
thanking you
akshay