Teleportation Gets a Boost 405
saavyone writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that while teleportation may not quite be a reality yet a team of Danish scientists have raised the bar on this line of research. From the article: "The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further. 'Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago by two teams but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a millimeter,' Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics, explained. 'Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement,' he added."
You know... (Score:2, Insightful)
We all know what we expect from an article talking about teleportation, and it definitely doesn't involve crypted conversation technologies.
Ok I will do it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just the information? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you create a perfect atomic copy of a living being and then destroy the original, is the copy really the same as the original? What if you just never destroyed the original? Is destroying the original tantamount to murder?
I think questions like this will mean that even when we have the technology to do this with large objects (even living objects,) it will never be used on humans. The ethical risks, and our inability to determine an answer to the philosophical questions (if the copy has the exact same memories, when you ask it if it is a copy, it will say no) mean that we're going to have to find some method of instant transportation that does not involve deconstructing and reconstructing things on a molecular level.
Wormholes, anyone?
Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ok I will do it (Score:5, Insightful)
One question worth asking, is whether the relative position of the atoms are maintained through "teleportation". I would assume not. So at this stage, even if you did succeed in transporting a human, they would end up as a pool of water and carbon atoms I guess.
This is more of a philosophical question, I think. Hypothetically speaking, you could see it as killing the person, and re-assembling their likeness. But "their likeness" would know no different, and he/she would feel and act like the real person. Equally, as you say, an outsider would know no different. Would you be willing to kill yourself, knowing that an exact replica of you is about to be re-created.
It goes further, too. Does the soul exist as something other than the collection of atoms and particles that comprise us? If so, does this get left behind, or somehow carried across?
[1] This is how I understand it, at least. Maybe someone could clarify, and explain if anything other than spin would get replicated.
Re:Please... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most people's concept of "teleport" is something else entirely. What the physicists are doing is something more aking to "faxing". Granted, it's really high-quality faxing, but faxing none the less. But "quantum faxing" doesn't have the same ring to it.
Fundamental to the concept of "teleport" as all non-physicists know it is that the matter being teleported moves from one place to another. In this case they "teleported" atoms of Cesium. But they started with Cesium atoms on both sides of the "teleporter" at the beginning and the end. They didn't "teleport" the Cesium any more than a FAX machine "teleports" paper.
Re:Please... (Score:3, Insightful)
$ cp source target ; rm -rf source
(actually, I think mv does exactly this, but just to be explicit
Re:Ok I will do it (Score:2, Insightful)
They couldn't, because you are not the atoms "you" are made of. You are a collection of information in the state of the atoms.
Which is a good thing for you, because most of the atoms you are made of today won't be the same atoms you'll be made of next week. That's why you die if you don't drink some water now and again; and maybe a bit of a nosh.
KFG
Re:SciAm article (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know why people keep calling it "teleportation" or any other quantum crap. A very simple way of describing what happened is that they figured out a way to beat the uncertainty principle by creating multiple copies of the same information and measuring amplitude and phase of different copies. Because both copies are identical, any information obtained about one copy is valid about the others, so a complete set of parameters can be determined. It should be pointed out that this experiment clearly demonstrates that the uncertainty principle is not some fundamental property of the universe, but rather an artifact of our measurement instruments. This is the very point that Einstein tried so hard to prove back in 1927, and the one so throughly disputed by the evil Niels Bohr. Unfortunately, Bohr won the argument for some reason, perhaps just out of stubbornness, and the present unsightly state of the science of physics resulted. Perhaps now the quantum heretics can be brought back to the one true faith of objective reality!
Re:Please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please... (Score:3, Insightful)
When Captain Kirk gets beamed down to the surface of a planet, where does all that matter come from which constitutes his body in the new location? There is no transporter on the receiving end with a stockpile of matter. How big of a vacuum would it leave behind if you just sucked up surrounding gas until you had enough? Put another way, if you tell somebody you are going to teleport a block of gold from box A to box B and then announce "and to begin, I will place a block of gold in each box", they will cry foul. Are you saying you wouldn't?
Re:Please... (Score:4, Insightful)
2: Your stuff about the balance of matter and energy is something you made up (unless you can cite me a reference) and has no bearing on reality.
Please don't confuse the contents of your head with either science or reality. It's stupid.
Please explain (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please... (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the meat in the cow has a flow of glucose and oxygen coming in through the circulating blood, and the cells have been metabolizing these to maintain their cell walls and growth processes. There are also hormones, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals.
The meat at the butcher's has lost its source of energy and is unable to metabolize any longer, so it has begun to break down chemically, but the chemical processes are essentially the same. The processes of living matter are a subset of chemistry.
So I would say the difference between the two is merely their circumstances.
But then, you know this and choose to see something more anyway. Be sure to give the Nobel Prize folks a call when you manage to pinpoint the unique non-chemical nature of "life."
Re:Please explain (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please... (Score:3, Insightful)
I liked the explanation, but this seems great for non-burning objects. What about fire? I mean, you can 'teleport' a log or a charcoal briquette, but will the fire go with it and will the fire retain flames or will it be a exact copy of a log but no 'phlogiston' in it?
Dude: state is state. If you teleport an object's entire state, you end up with an object with the same state in a different location. Consciousness is just a property of (certain kinds of) matter in (certain kinds of) motion. It's nothing magic.
Alternately: when you move your head, does your consciousness or memories or "life force" or "soul" somehow "leak out" or get left behind? What would move with your brain but not teleport with it?
Mystical, no. But I'd say mysterious (Score:3, Insightful)