Teleportation

[Redistribute the Rep]

Will teleportation involve killing a person and then just synthesizing a molecularly identical individual somewhere else? Or would it be possible to make a wormhole small enough to fit on earth so then you could just go through that.

[Remus Bleys]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_%281986_film%29

[Sinister Intents]

Will teleportation involve killing a person and then just synthesizing a molecularly identical individual somewhere else? Or would it be possible to make a wormhole small enough to fit on earth so then you could just go through that.

Did you see that comic too? That Existential Comics site.I swear I read an article on a science website where scientists successfully teleported molecules. That was afew years ago so I don't know how I'd find the exact source. Honestly I'm not sure

[Slavic]

Will teleportation involve killing a person and then just synthesizing a molecularly identical individual somewhere else? Or would it be possible to make a wormhole small enough to fit on earth so then you could just go through that.

If either of those two where to be a possibility, I think the first one its more likely.

If we develop instruments sensitive enough to take a "snap shot" of your atomic makeup, then all we need is the world's most advanced 3d printer and BOOM teleportation.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Will teleportation involve killing a person and then just synthesizing a molecularly identical individual somewhere else? Or would it be possible to make a wormhole small enough to fit on earth so then you could just go through that.

Teleportation sounds cool and all that, but I don't think there is a need for it. We already have ways of getting form one point to another relatively quickly, and things like evacuated tube transportation would be more practical and easier to justify scientifically.

Making wormholes stable would probably require exotic matter - i.e. matter that has a negative energy density. So far we haven't found any. Even if we did, human-sized wormholes would probably just tear you due to changes in the gravitational field, then throw your shredded remains elsewhere. I think this would only be applicable as a high-tech paper shredder.


I swear I read an article on a science website where scientists successfully teleported molecules. That was afew years ago so I don't know how I'd find the exact source. Honestly I'm not sure

This is so-called quantum teleportation. What is being teleported isn't matter but the quantum state of a particle - it's equivalent to changing a distant particle so that it is in the target state.

[Skyhilist]

Not sure this is really something we can say for sure with current technology. But even if you get killed and then molecularly reconfigured, who is to say that that isn't still you? After all, who is to say that you're defined by anything more than your molecular components and the circumstances around you that shaped them?

[Redistribute the Rep]

Not sure this is really something we can say for sure with current technology. But even if you get killed and then molecularly reconfigured, who is to say that that isn't still you? After all, who is to say that you're defined by anything more than your molecular components and the circumstances around you that shaped them?

To other people it would be you, but I imagine your stream of conciousness would end.

[Sinister Intents]

To other people it would be you, but I imagine your stream of conciousness would end.

Would it matter if it's an exact replica memories and all? Then it'd be you, but a copy.

My question is: Do you like existential comics?

[Sewer Socialist]

I think that's how it works on Star Trek, and that's why the humans on the show Enterprise are afraid to use it. And then in the series set to occur in later centuries, no one wants to talk about it.

But if you want a real life answer with real science and stuff, I have no idea how it would work whatsoever.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Would it matter if it's an exact replica memories and all? Then it'd be you, but a copy.

My question is: Do you like existential comics?

Never heard of existential comics, but like I said, from your point of view you'd die. The copy of you would seem the same to others, it'd be like having a twin who has had all the same thoughts as you up until that point. But then your own consciousness would cease

[Sinister Intents]

Here you go!!! http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1

[Slavic]

Never heard of existential comics, but like I said, from your point of view you'd die. The copy of you would seem the same to others, it'd be like having a twin who has had all the same thoughts as you up until that point. But then your own consciousness would cease

What is a conscious if nothing more then the sum total of your brain's electrical pathways forming opinions and expressions from past and current events.

Here is an interesting thought.

If you were under surgery and during this surgery there was a complication in which your heart stopped functioning and you were technically dead for 2 minutes. If though medical technology you are resuscitated, would you be the same person considering your conciousness had ceased for 2 minutes?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Teleportation sounds cool and all that, but I don't think there is a need for it. We already have ways of getting form one point to another relatively quickly, and things like evacuated tube transportation would be more practical and easier to justify scientifically.

Why do we need internal combustion engines? We have horses, don't we? :rolleyes:


Making wormholes stable would probably require exotic matter - i.e. matter that has a negative energy density. So far we haven't found any. Even if we did, human-sized wormholes would probably just tear you due to changes in the gravitational field, then throw your shredded remains elsewhere. I think this would only be applicable as a high-tech paper shredder.

By "changes in the gravitational field" I assume you mean "tidal forces". A mere engineering problem which could be overcome by making the wormhole large enough relative to the average human body to avoid the noodle effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification).

But yes, establishing the physicality of negative energy is a make-or-break hurdle that will have to be overcome if wormhole physics is to become more than speculation.


This is so-called quantum teleportation. What is being teleported isn't matter but the quantum state of a particle - it's equivalent to changing a distant particle so that it is in the target state.

But since particles (of the same type) are otherwise identical, is this not functionally the same thing as transporting said particle?

Unless one is some kind of essentialist...

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I blame capitalism.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I blame capitalism.

Don't we all?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The forum software won't let me quote Noxion.

Why did we need combustion engines? Well, the horses and other draft animals weren't enough for our needs. But any sort of teleportation would probably be so prohibitively costly in terms of energy that society would prefer other modes of transportation. And there is no obvious need for teleportation (perhaps if humanity spreads out across two or more solar systems, but even then there are several problems with having a wormhole stretch out across open space.

Yes, tidal forces are part of the problem - there would probably be other forces due to a gravitational field that changes to a significant degree on a short (for gravitation) scale (and that would probably have a wonky geometry). It is an engineering problem, but even if we suppose it can be solved, it would make wormhole teleportation less attractive. (It's not just the noodle effect either. Radiation would have to be contained so the passengers aren't cooked off etc.)

And, well, no, the particle isn't copied because in fact you can't copy the exact quantum state of a system (what is generally copied amounts to one qubit; so for example the electrons of the target atom will be in the same excited state as the ones of the atom being "teleported" but the nuclei will be in different states) etc.