Real life star trek in the making

[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