Beam me up dipankar.

February 7, 2002 1:20 AM

Beam me up dipankar. The dream of teleporting atoms and molecules - and maybe even larger objects - has become a real possibility for the first time. Look out! - it's nearly the future. Not long until we all get our silver faces.
posted by Spoon (25 comments total)

The technique should work for any objects - atoms, molecules and who knows what else - as long as you can split the beam into a quantum superposition.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd feel comfortable being hurled towards a quantum beam splitter.
posted by Qubit at 4:59 AM on February 7, 2002

Could this be used for faster-than-light communication? Take two tangly particles, and take one a long way away. Then tweak one, measure the other, voila. Instant comms.
posted by Mwongozi at 5:46 AM on February 7, 2002

Instant comms

Yeah, I believe it was called an ansible in Ender's Game. If you could plug it into that little jack plug at the base of your neck, we'd have invented telepathy.
posted by walrus at 5:54 AM on February 7, 2002

Could this be used for faster-than-light communication?

No. See any introductory text on quantum mechanics, usually in the chapter related to Bell's inequality.
posted by Qubit at 6:32 AM on February 7, 2002

The ansible originally came from Ursula K. LeGuin's Ekumen novels, such as The Left Hand of Darkness. I first read about it in Ender's Game too though.
posted by Yogurt at 6:49 AM on February 7, 2002

Also see The Physics of Star Trek for an explanation of why transporting people is pretty improbable. Basically, it comes down to the fact that while transporting matter might be feasible, we each have potentially myriad gigabytes of information in our heads - how do you transport memories, thoughts, and personalities? The thing that comes out on the other end might be a completely brainwashed lump of flesh.
posted by starvingartist at 6:51 AM on February 7, 2002

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle would have come into play here. I think I recall that in The Physics of Star Trek they refer to a "Heisenberg Compensator", or some such nonsense, which alleviates the problem.
posted by gimli at 7:32 AM on February 7, 2002

They'd probably fix all that lump of flesh stuff before they let people have a go though.
posted by Spoon at 7:41 AM on February 7, 2002

Spoon, what was the silver faces comment in reference to? It brings to mind a book with a group of people called "guppies", but I've been trying to remember the name of the book for ages...
posted by nprigoda at 7:42 AM on February 7, 2002

Just make sure there aren't any flies in the teleporter when I step in. I have no desire to have to spit on my food to eat it first.
posted by adampsyche at 7:57 AM on February 7, 2002

Aliens and Future people always have silver faces in b movie sci-fi.
posted by Spoon at 8:03 AM on February 7, 2002

Anybody ever read "The Jaunt" from Stephen King's "Skeleton Crew"? Great short story about a transport technology. First horror story that actually scared me.
posted by starvingartist at 8:19 AM on February 7, 2002

I was just thinking about that story, starvingartist. I might rather be turned into a fleshlump than meet the fate of the little kid in "The Jaunt."
posted by gimli at 8:28 AM on February 7, 2002

For those who haven't read "The Jaunt" and want the synopsis, highlight text below:


This is how I remember it:
A teleportation technology has recently been invented. During testing of the system they find that animals sent through keep coming out insane on the other end. It turns out that the mind perceives the the instant of teleportation as an eternity spent in pitch-black isolation. To overcome the problem, people are required to take a sedative pill prior to transport. In the story, a family is going on vacation. They are each given their pill to take before entering the contraption. Their young son, being the curious type, decides to palm his pill so he can see what it's like for himself. He comes out a slobbering maniac on the other side. /font>


posted by gimli at 9:09 AM on February 7, 2002

Ooh, cool, magic writing!
posted by rushmc at 9:13 AM on February 7, 2002

And if I just posted it normally, you probably would have been the one to say, "Way to spoil the story for people, asshole."
posted by gimli at 9:22 AM on February 7, 2002

how do you transport memories, thoughts, and personalities?

I'm under the impression that our memories are formed by burnt synaptic patterns in our greymatter. So long as you reassemble the atomic structure of the brain correctly, our personalities should remain intact.

Spoon, the future is defined not by silver faces but by flying cars.
posted by johnnyace at 10:11 AM on February 7, 2002

and tinfoil suits
posted by briank at 10:36 AM on February 7, 2002

Okay, I'm not a molecular scientist, but from the article, it appears that this new method suffers from the same problem as all previous "transporters": The only way to obtain the information about you needed to "entangle your data" is by killing you. Personally, I don't care if you can beam a perfect "Aaron" instantaneously onto some neat new colonized planet six solar systems away, if it means I have to die here on Earth in the process.

I don't get into the whole metaphysical "but it insures you can live forever" argument, either. I couldn't care less that a duplicate human being could be created that looks like me, thinks like me, has my exact memories, etc, and otherwise be so perfect that he would actually believe he was the same me I was before being beamed. All I care about is that the ME me, the one typing this now would still be as dead and gone as I'm eventually going to be anyway.
posted by aaron at 11:08 AM on February 7, 2002

It's all about you, isn't it? Oh look at me, I'm hot, my hair's on fire, me me me...
posted by NortonDC at 11:56 AM on February 7, 2002

It's forever in there.
posted by dong_resin at 12:40 PM on February 7, 2002

aaron - you've hit upon a view shared by Derek Parfit and Dan Dennett. But maybe you already knew that. They argue that teleportation (if well-articulated, which is a challenge) is more like faxing than mailing, so to speak.
posted by yesster at 12:56 PM on February 7, 2002

Argh. What's the name of the book about the rock star who time hops by projecting his mind into some otherworldly desert dimension where he's stalked by some unspeakable horror?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:45 PM on February 7, 2002

And if I just posted it normally, you probably would have been the one to say, "Way to spoil the story for people, asshole."

Hey, I wasn't being facetious...I thought it was cool.
posted by rushmc at 9:36 AM on February 8, 2002

My apologies, rushmc. It's been a snarkfest around here lately, and I was overly defensive. I'm gonna put the rose-colored glasses back on and quit assuming people are being sarcastic.
posted by gimli at 1:38 PM on February 8, 2002