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ConfusedUs
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http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5238136.htmlTeleportation--"sending" atoms, or at least their properties, through space without any physical movement--is possible, according to scientists at the National Institute for Standards and Technologies. Woo! Beam me up, Scotty! Forget that daily commute to work! 
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Genialus
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I think you will find that the "beam me up" part will scare a lot of religious people and other non-pragmatic people. Nano technology in itself will most likely provide us with the answers to certain questions about life itself.
What is life? We could possibly find out by attempting to create life with nano tech. This is where some people would claim that creating life is impossible even if we were to manipulate matter on a sub-molecular level. These claims would be based on the assumption that there is more to life than just quantum states and molecular bindings.
It would be likewise with the concept of soul. Is a soul something that can be measured? Most would probably say no, but if so would the soul be transported along with the quantum states? Would you risk your soul (if you think you have one) and are you certain enough that you don't have one to be willing to teleport?
btw: wouldn't This technology mean that we would have to have a copy of our body that could recieve our "stats" whenever we wanted to teleport somewhere?
I think I'm rambling, don't mind me if I am...
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Dicion
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yes, the question is, would your 'conciousness' be teleported with you? or would a new conciousness be formed, that just thinks its you. We'd never be able to tell, even after it happens.
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Hollowpoint
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This reminds me of a book I have, Hopscotch by Kevin J. Anderson. In this book, the people can switch bodies with other people. I haven't read it in a while, so I can't come up with a real entertaining summary of it.  I thought it was a good book tho, of course I really like that author. As for that actual article, it doesn't really sound like they've gotten very far at all, I read something similar had been done like this a few years ago. |
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shambler
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What if the first body was not destroyed in the transfer process? there would be 2 of you then.
This leads me to believe that the consciousness part would only be copied, with both thinking they were the real one.
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Genialus
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what if you then get two persons with united concience? HIPPIE TIME FOR EVER! An entire buttload of me sitting in a cirkle smoking... well stuff...
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Hollowpoint
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Well, they need to get to the point where the can do "true teleportation", so can they do it like on Star Trek, and have no problems. Of course, there were a few fairly rare instances where the trek teleporters malfunctioned.
I read about worm-hole generators a while back, those sound pretty cool, dunno if they'd be helpful in producing quantum computers tho.
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shambler
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Remember: The world is just a big computer ran by the mice. 42  |
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Lopson
Elite
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Still Going In Circles
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"...At the end of a week's work, when God was tired, I took His place and finished his job."
Hitman: Codename 47 Will this kind of things happen when Nano Technology has evolved? Will Humanity be substitued by robots? Only time will tell. |
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Vadertime
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Another problem besides losing a soul is what happens when you reach the other side? Can they reassemble living creatures alive and healthy yet or do they recombine as nondescript red puddles? 100 pounds of solid lead would be much easier to send than something with any complexity to its structure.
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Lopson
Elite
Posts: 1133
Still Going In Circles
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They'll find a way to make everything perfect... At least I hope so...Only time will tell.
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Naoscaire
Imp
Posts: 27
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Woo! Beam me up, Scotty! Forget that daily commute to work! You mean no more reason to be late for work. = |
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Phoenix
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The way a transporter works on Star Trek is much different from this "quantum teleportation" everyone's talking about. A Star Trek transporter uses a molecular imaging scanner to derive a quantum-resolution patten image of the transport subject while the primary energizing coils and phase transition coils convert the subject into a subatomically debonded matter stream. The matter stream is held within a pattern buffer, which compensates for doppler shift between the ship and the destination. It is then sent from the pattern buffer to the transporter emitters located on the ship's and oneward to hull to a planetary surface, starbase, or other star ship, etc within the confines of an annular confinement beam. This beam keeps the pattern intact until materialization is completed.. A less technical version of that is it breaks down the molecular structure of an object, confines it within an energy beam, and reassembles it at the target destination. In essence, you're still using the same matter and energy that makes up the person.
Quantum teleportation involves transfering the quantum state of the original particles, not the particles themselves. It also requires the particles to be "entangled", which presents a problem if you're wanting to beam someone to a remote location. Entanglement is an interesting phenomenon that science does not readily understand yet as entangled particles exchange quantum states instantaneously, with no respect to distance between them. The easiest measurable version of this involved the creation of antiparticles. If one was positlve, the other was always negative. Change the state of one, and the other instantly changes state as well. This could happen across light years, which would violate relativity. The question that presents itself is, how does one particle "know" it needs to change its state? This is why they call it entanglement. Somehow the particles are linked to each other by an unknown mechanism. Particles can be re-linked to other particles, which is how this quantum computing they're talking about would work. It woud involve forced entanglement of particles and modulating their quantum states.
The fact that they've done this with beryllium atoms is rather nifty, but this is hardly useful for teleportation. Even if you transfer properties of one thing to another you're only doing it one atom at a time. You also need an equal mass of identical particles on the other side, already identically arranged to inherit these properties. In short, you already need a 100% exact duplicate of the person to be at the other location for the quantum states of the original to be properly inherited, then you have to force entanglement between the two! That doesn't mention what to do with the original copy in the first place since it is still present and not used up in the process at all.
Sorry to burst anyone's bubble on this one, but don't expect to be beamed anywhere any time soon. On the bright side, if you ever do manage to get faster than light travel up and running and in the public domain you're looking at the potential for some rather useful long-range communications arrays. If you can get this working you could have real-time communications and control over space probes, and let's not forget what this could do for ping times for playing Generations! Zero Ping for all!
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  I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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Lopson
Elite
Posts: 1133
Still Going In Circles
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*clap clap clap* *cheers* Great speech Pho. You're a smart bird  . You deserve a cookie for that . Maybye a fortune cookie!! |
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« Last Edit: 2004-07-10, 22:09 by [KruzadeR] »
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Vadertime
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But does that mean the person will be ALIVE when they beam across? The process of entanglement sounds complicated, but worse it sounds like it could still kill a living organism.
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