Teleportation?

[Strange_Wonderer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleportation

I'd be interested if this is possible, maybe it is? Travelling through wormholes to another place on earth, other planets or maybe even other universes could have some advantages - just imagine it if it could replace the aeroplane.

I've read about the wormhole theory in the article above, but I've also come heard recent news announcements from a scientist who claimed that being sucked into one would probably kill you due to being very hot and being sucked in so fast could destroy the ship you're in.

Any thoughts?

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

It'd be awesome if it really could be done, but (and I do say this with reservation), if it is even possible by the laws of physics, the power requirements would probably be too great to be produced by any means we will have for a long time.

 

[Yamialpha]

It'd be awesome if it really could be done, but (and I do say this with reservation), if it is even possible by the laws of physics, the power requirements would probably be too great to be produced by any means we will have for a long time.

I'd have to agree. Even if it is practical by the laws of physics, it certainly isn't practical with the technology of today or the technology of the future (at least for a very, very long time).

 

[Norseman]

I'd have to agree. Even if it is practical by the laws of physics, it certainly isn't practical with the technology of today or the technology of the future (at least for a very, very long time).

Rather, even it's technologically feasible, it's not economically sound.

 

[billwald]

Most of the stuff we spend money on are not economically sound.

 

[Nater_Tater]

yeah sure..it's all interesting and fun.......untill somebody screws around and turns themselves into a GIANT FLY!!!

 

[Norseman]

Most of the stuff we spend money on are not economically sound.

Example?

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

Example?

Cars. We buy them and use them despite the current state of the oil industry. We still buy them because they are more convenient than walking. If we had teleportation, people would spend money on it because it is more convenient than anything else, despite it being unsound economically.

 

[Norseman]

Cars. We buy them and use them despite the current state of the oil industry. We still buy them because they are more convenient than walking. If we had teleportation, people would spend money on it because it is more convenient than anything else, despite it being unsound economically.

You drive because it isn't that expensive and it saves you time. Time is money, so in fact you might be saving money by using a car. Conversely, teleportation at the moment would take perhaps (this is a guesstimate here) the entire power demand of New York city for a month to move you even 5 ft (although, with teleportation distance doesn't matter, but you get the point). The only place it would be remotely feasible in would be in interplanetary transport. That's it. Even then, I think half your mass in entagled atoms would first need to be sent to your destination, so it still might not be feasible.

 

[Locrian]

Agreed, cars can be very economical.

However, making statements about how much energy would be involved in teleportation doesn't make any sense. No one has any idea how much energy would be required, because no one has proposed a method of teleportation that is feasible by our current laws of physics.

The instant someone mentions wormholes it should be a clue that they are discussing fiction and not fact.

 

[Norseman]

Agreed, cars can be very economical.

However, making statements about how much energy would be involved in teleportation doesn't make any sense. No one has any idea how much energy would be required, because no one has proposed a method of teleportation that is feasible by our current laws of physics.

The instant someone mentions wormholes it should be a clue that they are discussing fiction and not fact.

Quantum teleportation, while possible, would require deconstructing your entire body and scanning every particle from it in a timeframe short enough to be considered nearly instantaneous. I don't see how you could do that with a small amount of energy.

 

[Locrian]

Quantum teleportation, while possible, would require deconstructing your entire body and scanning every particle from it in a timeframe short enough to be considered nearly instantaneous. I don't see how you could do that with a small amount of energy.

Actually, what you describe hasn't been shown to be possible and probably isn't possible at all; that kind of reductionist thinking is losing favor in scientific circles because it simply doesn't represent the way the universe works. This is a very different method of teleportation than the one mentioned in the OP.

There are many things done today whose description sounds rediculous. However, many times they can be done making use of physical principles that make them far more efficient than they might be if you did them as they were initially described. Quantum computing (such as it is), chemical vapor deposition and superconductivity all come to mind.

There is no way to make a judgement about the energy requirements of a process that has no physical basis in reality. You'd sooner guess how much gasoline is required to make Gandalf's staff glow, or the effects of Narnia on the heating needs of a large old mansion.

 

[Stellar Vision]

Fax machines anyone? Aren't those technically teleportation devices for documents? Nevermind that I've never even used one.

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

Actually, wormholes are not necessarily science fiction. They are still highly theoretical, and no one even really knows if they exist or are possible by the laws of physics (at least as far as i know). And just so you know, this is pretty reliable infomation. This comes from my AP physics teacher who reads physics books over weekend and breaks.

 

[Locrian]

No wormhole has ever been observed. No mechanism for creating a wormhole that uses current, experimentally backed science has ever been presented. Is it unfair of me to call them fiction until one of those changes? I'll let you decide. However I will toss out one word of warning: if you get a degree in physics and study the field, you may very well look back one day and feel your AP teacher may not have been as reliable source on this particular topic as you feel now.

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

No wormhole has ever been observed. No mechanism for creating a wormhole that uses current, experimentally backed science has ever been presented. Is it unfair of me to call them fiction until one of those changes?

Completely understandable, and I agree. Until they have been observed or otherwise proven, fiction is pretty much all they are. I was mearly pointing out that in reality they are not just goofy things that star trek people made up, there is a chance that they could be real.

 

[Yamialpha]

No wormhole has ever been observed. No mechanism for creating a wormhole that uses current, experimentally backed science has ever been presented. Is it unfair of me to call them fiction until one of those changes? I'll let you decide. However I will toss out one word of warning: if you get a degree in physics and study the field, you may very well look back one day and feel your AP teacher may not have been as reliable source on this particular topic as you feel now.

I don't have a degree in physics but I can certainly tell you how unreliable anyone affiliated with a high school is. You have to question every word that comes out of their mouth, and it's not difficult for one to be more knowledgable about subjects that they teach.

Anyways, it would be interesting if we could design a machine that could read the information from a human and interpret it as the human being one particle instead of a body made of a multitude of different particles. Instead of reconstructing the human body particle by particle, it would only have to reconstruct one particle-the body itself.

 

[Illuminatus]

I do remember an interesting article in (I think) Discover, back in (again, I think) the fall. Apparently, some physicists have come up with a possible method for creating a wormhole, but it's effectively impossible to test. It involves making two perfect spheres, one ever-so-slightly smaller than the other, and putting the smaller one inside the larger one. Apparently, the Casimir effect (a kind of wonky quantum effect caused by vacuum fluctuations) will cause...something. I really don't rember past that.

Curse you all, now I'm going to spend my lunch tomorrow digging through old Discover magazines in the library.

 

[Yamialpha]

Curse you all, now I'm going to spend my lunch tomorrow digging through old Discover magazines in the library.

muahahaha