Teleportation

Hi everyone.

I have always been intrigued by the concept of teleportation and with the recent advances in quantum teleportation at the University of Innsbruck, the results are encouraging. However, it should be noted that this form of teleportation doesn't allow physicists to teleport the photon itself--only its properties to another, remote photon. Here is the site:

http://www.aip.org/physnews/graphics/html/teleport.htm


I'm an aspiring science fiction writer and what I want to do in my story is achieve teleportation by actually teleporting the people themselves, not their properties. So, I began thinking about how I was going to do that. I thought about creating a teleporter that works by converting matter into energy and reconverting the energy back into matter and being able to pass through walls and ceilings, sort of like radio signals.


1) Is matter and energy conversion a good candidate for true teleportation?


2) Does conversion of matter into energy and vice-versa in this case imply the destruction of the person undergoing the process, only to be replaced by a replica who was literally born into existence once the energy was reconverted back into matter?


3) What other possibilities could I use for my story?

Whitestar

Your post made me think a bit- mostly about Star Trek and how the beam in and beam out all the time. I often wondered if a persons consciousness would be lost. What I am getting at is that consciousness may be non reconstructable like you would be teleported but you would esentially die your consciousnes replaced by a new one with all your memories and thoughts its just 'you' are missing.

So maybe that could be a story there- a man say in the 26th century who refuses to use a teleporter and has difficulty finding a job as he is limited in his capacity as he shuns this technology. Perhaps he is paranoid and thinks he sees subtle diffences in people who have been teleported. Also another idea what if someone altered the teleportation sequence or reintegration of the subjects so that they could be reprogramed to carry out covert missions or assassinations. Or what if there was a way to clone a person instantly- ie spliting the signal what if this guy is important and gets teleported suspects something is up and tries to warn the authorities but he is hounded by mysterious figures- he realizes the only thing he can do is find his clone and see that it is destroyed. He finds his replica and to his horror he realizes he is the clone and he must be killed...

Those are interesting ideas. But before I go that further, I would like to know your opinion on matter and energy. That is, do you think that matter and energy conversion is a good candidate for true teleportation?

Whitestar

Converting matter into into energy is easy, but I don't think that you can convert energy into matter.

hey whitestar,
interesting site.
Have you heard of Aether. It is considered to be the building block of ...everything....some speculate without it the universe would collapse. Basically it moves in and out of mass at a sub atomic level. It is considered to be the source of enegry for the atom.


As I understand it, any particle with the same signiture is connected through this aether. You change the particle you change every other particle with the same signiture.
Thsi may be what happened in the experiment with the photons.
They took 2 complimentary particles, and changed the property of one...yes? So If one of these 2 particles, having the same signiture changed, then through aether the other would also change.

You see where I am going with this?

My links are not working but if you copy and paste this url to your address bar...this is a good place to start.



http://www.keelynet.com/davidson/npap1.htm

Are not matter and energy one in the same?
If energy can change from one form to another, then it should be conceivable that it can change back to its original form.

otb i agree with you, there are many things in the world that go vice versa. Look at gasses liquids and solids, they all form each other, so its only natural that energy can be converted to matter. BUT HOW DO YOU DO IT?

I'm workin on it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2049048.stm
No, you cant reprogram people into doing asassination missions etc. by them going through a teleporter

Converting energy into matter or vice verca is not necessary for teleportation.

And you are right, the original person is destroyed and a perfect replica of that person is created in the same instant using the entanglement effect. Every atom, every dream, hope, memory. You cannot add or remove anything.

Except perhaps for those people who beleive in souls etc.

As for story ideas, watch anime =P


EDIT: Change from matter-energy and vice versa is called phase transition

EDIT: Again! >.< So far only sub-atomic particles have been teleported

EDIT: Ok, last 1, dont forget to mention quantum computers, cuz they are already being designed and can send data at near the speed of light,
Also posted wrong link at the top >.<
http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/

Many scientist believe that the key to converting matter into energy and back for teleportation lies at the quantum level. As you may all know as you reach further and deeper into physics e.g molecules-atoms-electrons-quarks and so on matter eventually orginates in energy. Many physasists (i dont know if thats the correct spelling - sorry!) have hypothasised that the basic particles from which other more complex ones like electrons are formed are WAVES OF ENERGY OR "STRINGS" that form loops and enclose to form particle - if we can understand how energy is enclosed into matter at thye sub quantum level perhaps we can find ways to "unfold" these loopy energies and then loop then back together!

According to Einstien's equation, it is next to impossible to turn matter into energy. The equation, E=MC2, states that in order for matter to be energy, it must travel at the speed of light squared. Once in this form though, it can be transfered as electricity through cables. But the question is: How do you get energy back into matter? Another problem is that if some of the energy is lost, you get incomplete matter. Imagine what it would be like if this happened to a person.

quote = "it is next to impossible to turn matter into energy", im very sorry (im not being critical) but isnt that what happens in a nuclear explosion? Please explain? The atom is split and releases huge amounts of energy - at least thats what ive read!
As for the issue of whether energy is lost well a device that allows teleportation would have to have some feature that allows the entire energy transferred between two points to be encommpassed or held together in some way until it can be re intergrated back into matter on the other side.

Oops! Missed that detail(crud!). But still, it's pretty hard to keep the energy in one place after the phase transition. Energy particles are quintillions of times smaller than atoms. A single marble would turn into a humungous amount of enrgy, and an even humungouser(yes, I did write humungouser on purpose) amount of energy would be added for each extra atom. It would be impossible to contain.

"A single marble would turn into a humungous amount of enrgy, and an even humungouser(yes, I did write humungouser on purpose) amount of energy would be added for each extra atom. It would be impossible to contain".
Have you ever heard of zero point energy, it is said to be the energy that holds atoms together - many physasists believe it holds the key to containing energy!

Ive heard of it, but I haven't heard a lot about it. If it can contain limitless amouts of energy then WOOPY! But we still have the problem of reconsructing energy into matter. If zero point energy can help out there, then congratulations, you've just found the secret to teleportation.