Real life star trek in the making

[Bman]

Yes the original is destroyed. If I remember the basic principal correctly, it is something like this:

You take 2 sets of quantumly entangled particles. Put one set at the "sender" and the other set at the "receiver". Each of the particles at the receiver is attached to a bunch of spare particles (think of it as spare parts ). Now someone, we'll call him Aaron , comes up and steps into the sender. One of the entangled particles is attached to each of his particles. Now each of his particles is manipulate (its spin and velocity are changed--I think it is changed to mimic the spare particle over at the receiver). This causes the particle attached to it to change in some predictable manner. This causes its entangled particle over at the receiver to change predictably (I think exactly the opposite of the entangled particle at the sender). This causes the "spare particle" attached to it to undergo the opposite change as Aaron's particle, thus ending up as a duplicate of Aaron's particle. Then you just unattach the particles and send the new Aaron on his way. Take the old mangled Aaron and throw him in the spare parts bin for when someone wants to come back.

Anyways...I remember reading a book where the transporter technology made a copy of you instead of destroying you. If I remember it correctly, they used it as either a punishment for crimes or maybe it was how you earned a living...I can't remember. But basically they would ship these transporter-receivers off on colony ships to far away planets while everyone stayed at home on earth. Then people would have to goto the transporter and then step off and go about their business. But a copy of them would appear at the receiver on the crappy hellish colony world where they would work as slaves. Quite interesting. I haven't thought of that book in over 10 years. I wish I remember what it was.

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
The actual workings of it aren't really a transporter are they? Or am I functionally illiterate?

They destroy you on one end, and then recreate you on the other end, but not using the same matter.

If so, couldn't you make copies of yourself?

Like a print screen.

Number of Copies: 5
At: 150% of original.

[Dracus]

It is the start of the idea. the first ic was not really an ic either. I see it everyday hanging in our display case in the jack kilby building.

[geoschmo]

Dracus,

True to a point, the first integrated circuit does not compare to what we have today, and it may not have even been very integrated, but at least it was a circuit.

But this isn't really the same thing. There are fundamental differences between what this breakthrough actually is and what the press and the uneducated among us think of with Sci Fi.

This "transporter" really isn't. It's more of a 3 dimensional fax machine. But that would not make the papers or the evening news.

It's a great thing, and has many possible applications, but it ain't transporter.

Geoschmo

[capnq]

There was a series of stories by Ray Brown in _Analog_ in the '80s, in which such a teleportation system played an important part.

The thing that bothered me the most about these news stories was repeated mentions that the process destroyed and recreated the laser, when they obviously meant the laser beam.

[ June 21, 2002, 01:50: Message edited by: capnq ]

[Dracus]

Yes, it is not going to be a transporter like on star trek due to many facts which I could go into in great detail but will not. The idea of transporting non living matter by copying is a cool idea in it self.
I just thought it was a cool article and decided to share it.

[ June 21, 2002, 03:30: Message edited by: Dracus ]

[geoschmo]

Don't get me wrong, I agree. It's a very exciting prospect.

Actually it might end up in technologies not to far from the replicators on trek. If an object can be deconstructed and copied a distance away in a "transporter", why couldn't that object be deconstructed and recorded, and reconstructed later as many times as wanted. At the atomic level. It's quite mindboggeling to think about. It would radically alter our perceptions of value of materials that's for sure. The Alchemists were not off by much. You can't make gold from lead, but you can make it from the atoms that make up everything around us, including lead.

Geoschmo

[Quikngruvn]

Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made off.

Theoretically, I would think the quantum 'code' of something could be saved in this fashion... assuming there were a storage medium large enough to hold the image. Figure you'd need quintillions of bits just to record the spin of each particle, before even getting into each's position and orientation. (I may be off a couple orders of magnitude, but still!) But were it to become a practical reality... it'd be nothing short of revolutionary.

Incidientally, the spin of quantum particles is also the basis for theories about faster-than-light communication. Suppose you have a particle with positive spin, and its anti-particle is light-years away with its negative spin. If you change your particle's spin to negative, the anti-particle's spin will immediately change to positive, at any distance-- the magic of the law of Conservation of Momentum (quantum mechanical style). How the two particles manage to communicate instantly while so far apart... now that's the trick!

Quikngruvn