Teleportation is getting closer....

[MrGaribaldi]

From Discovery:
Jan. 31 — From an idea that was only considered practicable 10 years ago, scientists say they have succeeded in teleporting laser photons over two kilometers (1.25 miles), the biggest distance yet achieved.
...
In spite of the breakthrough, teleportation is still restricted to light particles. No-one is even close to teleporting an atom or a bacteria, even less a human being.

Read the rest here...

[edit] forgot the "L" in the last url tag... [/edit]

 

[StormBringer]

That is a huge step in itself. To think of the possibilities that could come of teleporting light. Fibre optics may have just become obsolete.

 

[MooktaKiNG]

Couple of months ago my Physics teacher took out class to University College London, in UK. And i saw a student who made something like a tracter-beam, (like in start trek). He used light to move (well, shake it a bit) an atom side to side.

Its is also a great achievement. I was so amazed, there turning all the fiction from sci-fi programmes, into reality

 

[Nick]

i wish i could teleport down to alabama, give storm a hug and come back here

 

[Arris]

This was done a while back with just normal photons. The theory was that if you create something with exactly the same properties as the original object (photon in this case) then destroy the original you will have performed something resembling teleportation.

Sounds like quite a novel way they have found to perform their teleportation

Their answer was to exploit something called "quantum entanglement," in which a laser beam is squeezed and split in such a way that it creates two particles of light at the same time.
Particles created in this exotic process behave like psychic twins. Even if they are far apart, a disturbance to one particle affects the other, a phenomenon once dubbed "spooky interaction" by Einstein.
Their idea was to use these "entangled" particles as transporters. By introducing a third "message" particle into the light stream, one could transfer its properties to both sets of particles.
It would work like this: One of the "twin" beams is scanned, which in the process destroys its quantum state. The information is sent to the recipient via a classical communications channel, and is transformed back into a light beam. The recipient then combines this light beam with the second entangled beam he has received, and in so doing "unwraps" the original message in its virgin state.

 

[Nick]

thats kind of freaky

 

[Rick]

Maybe if someone makes a clone of me and flies them to a remote location and I shoot myself, I will have teleported.

 

[MooktaKiNG]

If teleporting is possible, then humans will be able to travel at the speed of light (or close to it).

That would be some invention. Going to mars in minutes.

 

[Nic]

I think they are abusing the word 'teleport' in this case.

They are really talking about 'manufacturing' clones.

Using their method it will soon be possble for me to be in more than one place at any one time. :grinthumb

 

[Rick]

Despite my joke above, on some weird quantum level, I think this singular entity actually exisits twice. So basically it is the same item, but it occupies two spaces because of the trick they have done.

This would explain how one affects the other.. I guess.

 

[MooktaKiNG]

if its the same as cloning someone and then destroying the other. Then i don't understand how the clone woul remember everything that the original knows. Memeory is not in your genes (right? ).

Basicly your clone would be like a BIG baby, very dumb.

 

[Nic]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MooktaKiNG
Basicly your clone would be like a BIG baby, very dumb.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, and not even your mom would notice ...
[just kidding]

Maybe they could use their process to replace plastic surgery.
:grinthumb

 

[Rick]

Originally posted by MooktaKiNG
if its the same as cloning someone and then destroying the other. Then i don't understand how the clone woul remember everything that the original knows. Memeory is not in your genes (right? ).

Basicly your clone would be like a BIG baby, very dumb.

Not a clone... But an exact copy. Memories, thoughts, etc.. Would be duplicated if you were copied exactly. Everything about you is contained through matter and energy. Memories are stored physically in the brain, while thoughts etc may take on a more energical form.

If you can copy all if the matter and energy that you comprise of, then it would contain everything about you right down to your own sense of style. Cloning does not offer this, but copying you atom by atom would.

You have to understand that this is not a copy though, but a single thing existing in two locations at once. They are both identical because they are the same thing. I say this because affecting one affects the other miles away.

Or that's how I interpereted it. I probably watch too much Star Trek anyway.

 

[Nic]

-----------------------------------------------------
Rick
Not a clone... But an exact copy.
-----------------------------------------------------

Most of us are confused at the best of times. Imagine how much more confused it would be to exist in two places at the same time. Destroying the original might even be classed as 'murder'.

Besides, if we were only made up of matter and energy, then what happens when we die? What has changed?

There was recently an interesting TV program that looked at Near Death Experiences (or should that be Out-of-Body Experience?), and this seemed to indicate that our consciousness can still exist even when our body and brain stops functioning. Some scientists have suggested that our brains are really just 'receptors' (like a TV aerial) for our consciousness. All the individuals - that were studied during this program - and that had experienced an NDE seemed to change fundamentaly and become non-competitive and not afraid to die. There was one case studied that had a woman that died on the operating table. She was hooked up to all sorts of monitoring equipment at the time so they knew that there was no longer any brain activity happening. After successfully reviving her they found that she had a perfect memory of events in the operating room while she was 'dead'.

My point here is that there may be more to 'life' than matter and energy, so if you were to be 'teleported' and the original destroyed, then you would probably be *dead* even if the copy was 'perfect'.

 

[RustyZip]

If you were teleported and the original died - then think about it, you'd be dead... The other that was duplicated would not actually be you. Different mind and Brain, but the same (?) So whats the point !!!

 

[Rick]

Originally posted by RustyZip
If you were teleported and the original died - then think about it, you'd be dead... The other that was duplicated would not actually be you. Different mind and Brain, but the same (?) So whats the point !!!

In this case, "copy" may also be a bad term. You would exist simulataneously in two different locations.

Both would be you.

I'm sure that this type of teleportation for human beings (if it ever does exist) will raise serious questions about consciousness and self-being.

There was one case studied that had a woman that died on the operating table. She was hooked up to all sorts of monitoring equipment at the time so they knew that there was no longer any brain activity happening. After successfully reviving her they found that she had a perfect memory of events in the operating room while she was 'dead'.

This may be true and although I think it is vain that we always try to glorify the human existance as some sort of complicated and special exception to the universe.. It is also vain to assume that we know everything there is to know about energy, matter and the human conscious. So this is an interesting idea and I figured someone would bring this up. This makes for some serious ethical debates over religion and our existance... Debates of which no person in existance is really qualified to argue.

 

[MooktaKiNG]

This could be used to transport normal objects (if it doesn't work with living things). For example, i go to Mars, no oxygen.

I call my parents to teleport some Oxygen and a pizza to me

 

[StormBringer]

It would really change the meaning of "express shipping"

Another thing, to my understanding, the part about existing in two places at once is actually talking about fractions of a second, so the object at the "send" location would disapear nanoseconds(or less) after the object is recreated at the "receive" location.

Personally, I don't like the idea of having my molecules scattered around the galaxy.

 

[MooktaKiNG]

Originally posted by StormBringer
It would really change the meaning of "express shipping"

Another thing, to my understanding, the part about existing in two places at once is actually talking about fractions of a second, so the object at the "send" location would disapear nanoseconds(or less) after the object is recreated at the "receive" location.

Personally, I don't like the idea of having my molecules scattered around the galaxy.

I wouldn't mind that.

I would love it if someone would shoot me into space (still in tact) after i die

I won't decay, live for ever lol

 

[TS | Thomas]

While I don't think we'll see human transportation (well any "live" transports for that matter) it should do wonders for the shipping of freight.
Would this not also be a way to solve the fossil fuel crisis?? I mean if teleportation is merely a matter of copying 1 thing, replicating it at the other end & destroying the original could they not modify the process a bit to replicate only.

 

[poertner_1274]

This is kind of like cloning. Except that deals with DNA, and to do the fuel cells you would just have to change it up a bit. But I agree that it would be nice if something like that could happen.

 

[MooktaKiNG]

You can't just create matter from nothing (except from energy).

But the idea of replicating food in Star Trek, is great.

"Computer, replicate me a sundae, and some hotdogs, some crisps, drinks, pizza, no two pizza's, and also couple of billion pounds"


But we woudn't need to replicate fossil fuel, becuase we wouldn't need them. We would teleport all the energy (lava etc etc) from the sun and use it here.

 

[Rick]

I see new ways to make war using teleportation actually...

Can you imagine teleporting a gigantic nuclear weapon into the middle of a city?

Or how about teleporting entire military installations into space or entire fleets of tanks and ships to enemy lines.. or something else elaborately destructive and silly.

If this can only be done with light, perhaps we can teleport deadly laser beams on our enemy.

Or perhaps more civally, we would use it for communications or even long range visual scans etc..

 

[Storm_Lord85]

Well Im waiting for them to work out all the driver bugs before I'm teleporting myself anywere:grinthumb

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by Storm_Lord85
Well Im waiting for them to work out all the driver bugs before I'm teleporting myself anywere:grinthumb

Be sure to not use the Windows-powered teleportation servers, only the Unix ones...

Rick, your points are well taken, but I think that any sort of teleportation device would need a receiving module of some sort. I don't think you could just beam a nuke anywhere you wanted to and detonate it.
Read the book Battlefield Earth, the aliens had a teleportation platform on Earth, and it was protected by a dome shield, to prevent beaming a bomb or something else in the middle of cities. The way the book's hero got around that was beaming very high powered bombs that went straight down from the platform, actually splitting apart the planet...

Noone's stopping us from creating a mobile tele. platform, wheeling it over wherever and instantly transporting anything we wanted...

Unmanned spaceships flying to a faraway planet with a platform to beam astronauts directly to the planet...

The auto, plane, ferry, shipping etc. industry would phase out...

Having internet orders shipped almost instantly to your local post office, because their wouldn't be delays for credit card verification then either...

The possibilities are limitless, and humankind would reach a new era of laziness.