I just watched "The Fly 2" (the one starring Eric Stoltz) again on TV and was just wondering if this will ever be possible. I remember reading about scientists actually doing this now but only with "some really, really, really small stuff" (that's the best way I can put since I honestly can't remember wtf it was they teleported!).
Teleportation... possible?
- Thread starter Reverend
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cloudscapes
Regular
If scientific research will one day allow the creation/transformation of matter at the molecular level, then maybe. But I believe that duplication would come first, and then afterwords teleportation, because they'll have figured out how to "erase" the original once the subject has been duplicated.
That's one way of seeing it. Another way could be temporarily bending space so that point A and point B are nearly the same, and then snap space back to how it was once the subject took a few steps.
I really don't know enough about physics to dive deeper into the subject, but it certainly is an interesting one!
That's one way of seeing it. Another way could be temporarily bending space so that point A and point B are nearly the same, and then snap space back to how it was once the subject took a few steps.
I really don't know enough about physics to dive deeper into the subject, but it certainly is an interesting one!
Last time I checked (a few months back) they were teleporting atoms, which was a good step forward.
However as cloudscapes said it's not really teleportation, it's rather destruction/reconstruction.
AFAIR, they destroy the atom, store data along the way, send that data/state, and they rebuild it at destination.
Not sure if the destruction is a requirement to gather data for reconstruction or not, I think so.
However as cloudscapes said it's not really teleportation, it's rather destruction/reconstruction.
AFAIR, they destroy the atom, store data along the way, send that data/state, and they rebuild it at destination.
Not sure if the destruction is a requirement to gather data for reconstruction or not, I think so.
Mass is energy, and a lot of it.
Teleporting me would be equivalent to transporting ~2 PWh = 2000 TWh.
That's just short of USAs yearly nuclear power production.
So teleporing in the traditional sense is quite hard.
One possible way to get around that would be to not transport the mass, but just transport "blueprints". So you'd need all the atoms needed to build the object on the receiving side. At the transmitting side you'd leave the atoms that once was the teleported body. (Either as the body still intact, or as a pool of goo.)
I'd hate to be out of toner in the middle of the transmission though.
Now, how much data would you need to transfer?
You'd need to send the type and location of all the ~8e27 atoms in your body. Which is a rather massive vertex list. You could of course compress the data quite a lot, but it would still be an immense amount. (I wouldn't want to go through any lossy compression.)
So no, I don't think we'll see any practical teleportation. If it's been done, it was probably done on a few molecules, but not on anything bigger.
Teleporting me would be equivalent to transporting ~2 PWh = 2000 TWh.
That's just short of USAs yearly nuclear power production.
So teleporing in the traditional sense is quite hard.
One possible way to get around that would be to not transport the mass, but just transport "blueprints". So you'd need all the atoms needed to build the object on the receiving side. At the transmitting side you'd leave the atoms that once was the teleported body. (Either as the body still intact, or as a pool of goo.)
I'd hate to be out of toner in the middle of the transmission though.
Now, how much data would you need to transfer?
You'd need to send the type and location of all the ~8e27 atoms in your body. Which is a rather massive vertex list. You could of course compress the data quite a lot, but it would still be an immense amount. (I wouldn't want to go through any lossy compression.)
So no, I don't think we'll see any practical teleportation. If it's been done, it was probably done on a few molecules, but not on anything bigger.
cloudscapes
Regular
A few things I've been thinking about in-between work cycles here.
Imagine teleportation become possible in.. say 150 years. And it consists of storing blueprints and destroying the original, and duplicating it elsewhere, supposing we'd have access to the monsterous amount of energy that would require. Say the subject that was teleported was a person, and they safely arrive at destination. I don't know about you but it would make me kind of depressed, knowing that somewhere else was the original me, and that I was dismantled. Makes you think...
Another thing: Say the teleportation equipement sent the data of yourself before destroying the original. So for a split second there would be two of you. Now say there's a delay, a lag, like the destination equipement needs to acknowledge the safe arrival of the subject before destroying the subject. If for example that lag is ten seconds, then the original will aquire new memories, and possible even the desire to not be destroyed, even though a perfect copy of that self exists. If the original lives for even a couple minutes, because of the new memories and new thoughts, destroying the original could almost be murder! All this of course is only if the whole concept and technique produces two copies at one time, even if very brief. Of course, the subject might need to be rendered unconcious through anesthesia, so that would solve the moral problem, at least from the eyes of the teleportee.
The equipement could scan and immidiatelly dissolve molecule by molecule, thus there wouldn't be two copies of the subject at a time, just two halves at variating amounts of completion. For this to be possible, the equipement would half to be extremelly solid and safe. I can imagine the poor Teleport Inc. PR employee visiting a weeping family giving the details on how the Microsoft(tm) matter convection software ran into a buffer underun and the individual was lost somewhere during a BSOD..
I'm pretty philosophical this week, I blame the 22 episodes of the anime PlanetES I've watched since Saturday for that.
Imagine teleportation become possible in.. say 150 years. And it consists of storing blueprints and destroying the original, and duplicating it elsewhere, supposing we'd have access to the monsterous amount of energy that would require. Say the subject that was teleported was a person, and they safely arrive at destination. I don't know about you but it would make me kind of depressed, knowing that somewhere else was the original me, and that I was dismantled. Makes you think...
Another thing: Say the teleportation equipement sent the data of yourself before destroying the original. So for a split second there would be two of you. Now say there's a delay, a lag, like the destination equipement needs to acknowledge the safe arrival of the subject before destroying the subject. If for example that lag is ten seconds, then the original will aquire new memories, and possible even the desire to not be destroyed, even though a perfect copy of that self exists. If the original lives for even a couple minutes, because of the new memories and new thoughts, destroying the original could almost be murder! All this of course is only if the whole concept and technique produces two copies at one time, even if very brief. Of course, the subject might need to be rendered unconcious through anesthesia, so that would solve the moral problem, at least from the eyes of the teleportee.
The equipement could scan and immidiatelly dissolve molecule by molecule, thus there wouldn't be two copies of the subject at a time, just two halves at variating amounts of completion. For this to be possible, the equipement would half to be extremelly solid and safe. I can imagine the poor Teleport Inc. PR employee visiting a weeping family giving the details on how the Microsoft(tm) matter convection software ran into a buffer underun and the individual was lost somewhere during a BSOD..
I'm pretty philosophical this week, I blame the 22 episodes of the anime PlanetES I've watched since Saturday for that.
i highly doubt we will get advanced enough to teleport humans in the near future (500 or so years )
But imagine being able to build space colonies here on earth and teleporting them to pluto . It would be less costly than flying the parts from earth to pluto and would take much less time .
But imagine being able to build space colonies here on earth and teleporting them to pluto . It would be less costly than flying the parts from earth to pluto and would take much less time .
Why would we want to teleport colonies to Pluto?
There's nothing there but rock, cold, darkness and frozen methane. The sun is a little speck of light in the sky. What a totally horrible place to live.
There's nothing there but rock, cold, darkness and frozen methane. The sun is a little speck of light in the sky. What a totally horrible place to live.
cloudscapes
Regular
The549 said:
If teleportation should require the duplication of an object or being (which is plausible *if not essential* if you use the molecular blueprint idea) then you'd have to destroy the original, or else you'd end up with copies.
The549 said:
Not sure it is the case, could be.
It could by like a lego, you need to unmount it in order to know what's where...
Otherwise on a moral/ethic side, I don't think I would appreciate too much being replicated all over, although that would fit well in my scheme to "Take Over the World !" - Cortex.
Gonna try to get my hands on those articles about current state of teleportation knowledge/experiments.
[edit] checked, they need to de construct the object to get its state, then re construct the object @ destination. Basically it's a state transfert.
Which leads me to thinking that you could be reconstructed years after, should it be possible to store all the information.
At least with that tech you wouldn't die frozen like current cryogenic systems. (But of course the smart guys selling cryo stuff pretend we will one day find a workaround. Even if a frozen cell is destroyed, not matter what.) [/edit]
cloudscapes said:
I don't think a duplicate and destroy method can be called teleportation. It's a little hazy when dealing with a single quantum of energy, but something as complex as a human can't hide behind probabalistic uncertainty.
If a guy is copied, and the original destroyed, you haven't teleported anyone. You just killed someone and built another guy who just thinks he's the original. If you could get a recording of the original guy's thoughts as he stepped into the teleporter, it would come to a very abrupt end.
Guden Oden said:Why would we want to teleport colonies to Pluto?
There's nothing there but rock, cold, darkness and frozen methane. The sun is a little speck of light in the sky. What a totally horrible place to live.
it was just an example . But for instance , we can use it as a refueling area and supply stop before leaving our solar system
3dilettante said:
what would make him not the original? i forgot how many years it is exactly, but you get basically a new body every few years. so what really defines a person? is it the flesh or is it the thought process? it is unquestionably the thought process that makes me me, I'd still be who I am even if I was in a completely different body.
