Teleportation

[tkdguy]

I just saw on Headline News that the USAF is looking into teleportation. It's not yet in the website, but here are a few links about teleportation:

http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/

http://www.howstuffworks.com/teleportation.htm

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0%2C1282%2C47191%2C00.html

[Dust Raven]

So we can transport light at the speed of light now?

I know it's a marvelous discovery, but when they learn now to teleport something I can hold in my hand I'll be impressed.

[Curufea]

You misunderstand the usage of the word teleport.

In Trek, they 'beam' people at the speed of subspace (which is close to, but not exactly instantaneous). On a side note - I hate matter/energy conversion - the first time you step into a Trek teleporter, you die from disintegration. At the other end, they recycle the energy of your death into an exact clone with all memories...

The usual meaning associated with teleport is instant transport. Instant meaning faster than light, of course.

[tkdguy]

An old astronomy instructor once commented on the Star Trek transporters. He said disassembling your atoms and rejoining them elsewhere is possible in theory, but you'd need a really powerful electromagnet to keep your atoms from scattering. The size of such a magnet as well the cost in energy and money would make such a device impractical, if at all realizable at this time.

[Curufea]

Trek goes a step further than simple disintegration (ie breaking molecular bonds) - it turns the matter into energy, stores it (occasionally not), beams it (occasionally missing), stores it (occasionally duplicates it, or corrupts it) , then converts it back into matter (occasionally not the correct kind of matter). So there are never any 'your atoms' in their process.
BTW - there are less accidents if you get in a spacesuit and have someone throw you at your destination out an airlock, than Trek teleportation. Only actually exceeded by holodeck accidents. If in a holodeck - pray really hard.

[Zeropoint]

The "official" explanation of a Star Trek transporter, as described in the "Start Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual" breaks the subject into subatomic particles after scanning them "at the quantum level", then sends the particles down an "annular confinement beam" and reassambles them at the destination based on the original scan. Writers are, of course, free to completely ignore this explanation if it is dramatically necessary.

Zeropoint

[Curufea]

That's weird - I assumed it was matter/energy conversion. Same as the replicators. I also assumed they used 'subspace' the same as their communications and scanners, which lets them get FTL information. Mainly because transport from orbit never seems to take any time :)
Are the replicators not matter/energy? Are they like Transmet's Makers and use Base Blocks/raw material to construct their food and items?

But then, I am kinda trying to see science in a non-science fiction show, so feel free not to answer :)

(replace [technobabble] with [magic] - the plot still works. Hence, it's fantasy. Plus there is the whole if A did B here, A does C elsewhere because its more convenient for the characters)

[Dust Raven]

As for teleportation I like to see in SF, I think I'll always be a fan of space folds and wormholes. Unless you have these, or something that works like them, you can never have teleportation that's actually FTL. You'll always be limited by how fast you can send the information.

[Nyrath]

Interested parties should track down a copy of Larry Niven's essay "The Theory And Practice Of Teleportation."

There are a few problems. For any "scanning" type of teleportation, there is no good reason why a teleporter is not also a matter duplicator. Endless copies of Spock, which is the "real" one?

If you have a teleporter that does not require a transmitter and there are no anti-teleport force fields, Government A can use it to steal top secret info/material/war weapons from Government B, until Government B got angry enough to launch its nuclear warheads and destroy all life on earth in an atomic armageddon.

If you have a teleporter that does not require a reciever, you just teleport nuclear weapons into the centers of the cities of Government B, which will cause them to launch their weapons at you, with the same result as above.

Only if the teleporter requires both a transmitter and reciever (or there is an anti-T force field) does the planet avoid a nuclear war.

[Dust Raven]

Only if the teleporter requires both a transmitter and reciever (or there is an anti-T force field) does the planet avoid a nuclear war.
I'm thinking that with T-Port tech, we'll have made numerous advancements in other areas as well and won't need nuclear weapons any more. Perhaps we'll just have orbital scan beams, that quantum scan enemy cities, destroying them, and simply fail to rebuild them elsewhere. No fallout! Yeah!

Or we can just use our teleporters to place in military command locations. Nothing nuclear. When you have the ability to accurately place any type of bomb any place you like, you can save all the civilians and just kill the leaders and take over in the chaos.

[Curufea]

As long as you don't rely on "military intelligence" to determine the teleport co-ordinates.

Otherwise it will be 1 bomb in four delivered to a random hotel or embassy :)