Whitestar

Well, the acceleration would be the main issue.

I'm not sure if this has been addressed previously, but there is an engineer who goes by the name of Dan who claims he can build a real starship Enterprise within the next 20 years. All he requires is the necessary funding, which is about $50 billion for each year, which I think is insane! Anyway, he has a website and while I found it an informative and entertaining read, I think this guy has lost his marbles. See link below: http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/ Granted, I'm no engineer, but I would imagine that the starship Enterprise design would not be spaceworthy at all, considering such design flaws (in the attached photos below) such as the thin neck section that connects both the outrageously huge saucer section and secondary hull, making it look very disproportional. Plus, I would imagine that those aforementioned parts would snap off once the ship travels at full impulse speed. What does everybody else thinks?

True, but science fiction has a habit of eventually becoming science fact, whereas fantasy has no chance of becoming reality. Whitestar

In Star Trek, the transporter is perhaps the most famous of all the technologies onboard the starship Enterprise. It's also the most absurd one of all because it involves separating crew members at the atomic level, converting them into energy, and the process is reversed at the appointed destination. In the excellent book entitled, "The Physics of Star Trek", author Lawrence Krauss explains why the transporter will never work in real life: "If you want to zap 10 to the 28 power of atoms, you have quite a challenge on your hands. Say, for example, that you simply want to turn all this material into pure energy. How much energy would result? Well, Einstein's formula E = MC2 tells us. If one suddenly transformed 50 kilograms (a light adult) of material into energy, one would release the energy equivalent of somewhere in excess of a thousand 1-megaton hydrogen bombs. It is hard to imagine how to do this in an environmentally friendly fashion. Finally, the binding energy that holds together the elementary particles, called quarks, which make up the protons and neutrons themselves is yet larger than that holding together the protons and neutrons in nuclei. In fact, it is currently believed, based on all calculations we can perform with the theory describing the interactions of quarks that it would take an infinite amount of energy to completely separate the quarks making up each proton and or neutron. Based on this argument, you might expect that breaking matter completely apart into quarks, its fundamental constituents, would be impossible and it is, at least at room temperature. However, the same theory that describes the interactions of quarks inside protons and neutrons tells us that if we were to heat up the nuclei to about 1,000 billion degrees (about a million times hotter than the temperature at the core of the Sun), then not only would the quarks inside lose their binding energies but at around this temperature matter will suddenly lose almost all of its mass. Matter will turn into radiation or, in the language of the transporter, matter will dematerialize." Krauss goes on about another problem with the transporter, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which states that one can measure an atom's position and velocity at 100% accuracy, but never both at the same time. To observe one cancels out the other and vice-versa. Simply put, you can't observe something without interfering with it. Sort of like playing soccer or shooting pool. Here is another quote from him on transporters: "In order to transport a crew member back to the ship, the sensors aboard the Enterprise have to be able to spot the crew member on the planet below. More than that, they need to scan the individual prior to dematerialization and matter-stream transport. So the Enterprise must have a telecope powerful enough to resolve objects on and often under a planet's surface at atomic resolution. In fact, we are told that normal operating range for the transporter is approximately 40,000 kilometers, or about three times the Earth's diameter. This is the number we shall use for the following estimate. Everyone has seen photographs of the domes of the world's great telescopes, like the Keck telescope in Hawaii (the world's largest), or the Mt. Palomar telescope in California. Have you ever wondered why bigger and bigger telescopes are designed? Just as larger accelerators are needed if we wish to probe the structure of matter on ever smaller scales, larger telescopes if we want to resolve celestial objects that are fainter and farther away. The reasoning is simple: Because of the wave nature of light, anytime it passes through an opening it tends to diffract, or spread out a little bit. When the light from a distant point source goes through the telescopic lens, the image will be spread out somewhat, so that instead of seeing a point source, you will see a small, blurred disk of light. Now, if two point sources are closer together across the line of sight than the size of their respective disks, it will be impossible to resolve them as separate objects, since their disk will overlap in the observed image. Astronomers call such disks "seeing disks". The bigger the lens, the smaller the seeing disk. Thus, to resolve smaller and smaller objects, telecopes must have bigger and bigger lenses. We should therefore not be too disheartened by the apparent impossibility of the building a device to perform the necessary functions. Or, to put it less negatively, building a transporter would require us to heat up matter to a temperature a million times the temperature at the center of the Sun, expend more energy in a single machine than all of humanity presently uses, build telescopes larger than the size of the Earth, improve present computers by a factor of 1,000 billion billion, and avoid the laws of quantum mechanics. It's no wonder that Lt. Barclay was terrified of beaming! I think Gene Roddenberry, if faced with this challenge in real life, would probably choose instead to budget for a landable starship." Renowned science fiction writer Larry Niven expressed his views on the transporter: "I don't believe in bending space to order, and I wouldn't ride in a machine that annihilates me here, then beams away data that allows me to be exactly recreated somewhere else." Mr. Niven has wrote his theory on teleportation in one of his stories: "But I needed a theory that would allow instantaneous transportation and would still leave a passenger intact. What I came up with was a kind of super-neutrino. The displacement booth converts its cargo into an elementary particle of no rest mass, a relativistic mass equal to the weight of the cargo (for conservation of matter), an internal structure complex enough to carry the quantum states of every elementary particle in the cargo, and a neutrino's ability to penetrate almost any barrier. I called it a transition particle." Unlike the transporter which converts people into energy, Niven's theory involves converting people into another state of matter. While this may initially sound good, it still would kill the person undergoing the process. But there may be another way to theoretically create a teleportation device: a multi-spatial transverse system. In 1998, the UPN network aired a tv movie entitled, "Warlord: Battle For The Galaxy", starring Rod Taylor (H.G. Wells's Time Machine from 1960). Anyway, Taylor played a soon-to-be-retired General in charge of a starship that was equipped with a teleportation device called the multi-spatial transverse system that worked by bending and folding space around the people traveling in it. It was mentioned that an older and primitive teleporter worked by scrambling peoples molecules, but there were too many accidents. This new form of teleportation was proven to be far more reliable and safer. There is a scene where his crew teleported from their bridge and the space around the crew began to get distorted. Anyone within the distortion field is safe because they are within an invisible force field. The distortion takes place outside of the force field. However, any attempt to step outside of the force field as the teleportation process in operation, the results would be most unpleasant. One minute they were on the bridge and the next, they were on the surface of a planet on a specific floor in a building. I must admit that I'm not very optimistic about teleportation, but I can safely say that it definitely will not be the Star Trek transporter way. Personally, I don't like the idea of having my atoms scattered about, being converted into energy and vice-versa because the process would kill me and create a clone at the destination. I'm more willing to bet that the multi-spatial transverse system is a far more realistic and plausble theory, considering that it is a variation of wormhole theory. What does everybody else thinks? Whitestar

1) But which one seems to be the most plausible? 2) Also, if it turns out that extra dimensions are real, how do we go about finding them? Whitestar

So, if the matter/energy conversion teleporter and the quantum tunneling teleporter are not the best ways to teleport, what are the other theoretically possible options for teleportation? Through wormholes, interdimensional wormholes, extra dimensions, or quantum teleportation? Whitestar

Just like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, correct? Whitestar

1) Do you think we will never be able to remove the randomness of all the atoms in a human body, regardless of extremely advance technology/physics in the far future? 2) Is this randomness a law of nature? Whitestar

A while back I posted a thread on Teleportation: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2939 I discussed about how the transporter in Star Trek operates and why it would never work. Any procedure that convert matter to energy would be deadly and reconstruct person from this energy is a clone, not the original. In addition, the disassembly of crew members at the atomic level is not a viable option either due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. However, there may be a way to teleport a human: quantum tunneling. There is an article on the net about quantum physics and in one section, the author mentions about quantum teleportation. Here is a quote from the author: "Teleportation: As the probability wave suggests, you can get from Point A to Point C without necessarily passing through Point B. Small particles can jump from one location to another without actually moving through space between points, which is sometimes called a 'quantum leap'. In theory, this could be extended to larger particles." And here is the link: http://www.rotten.com/library/religion/quantum-physics/ In quantum tunneling a particle can bypass a barrier and appear on the other side of it without traveling thru it. The process is responsible for radioactive decay of elements where an alpha will tunnel out of the nucleus of Uranium atom and then under go beta decay. Electronic use quantum tunneling of electron in certain transitor (such as a tunneling diode). Now quantum tunneling is due to the fact that particles have a wave function. This wave function is the possibility of a particle being at specific location. If you could control this possibility wave you can transport a particle to any location that it could have travel to or will travel to. Do this with a person, and you could teleport him without turning him to energy or breaking him down into his basic molecules and beaming him. All you would need is to know his wave function (yes, people have a wave function, and even the universe can be express as one) and alter it in a manner (how I have no idea) that alter his possibility of his location to place him where you wish him to be. He would suddenly be at that location, in a instant. All that is require is finding a way to manipulate the wave function of the particles involved. We do this all the time to beams of particles like photon and electrons. Take the double slit experiment for example. By closing and opening a single slit we can determine whether particle like a photon, proton,neutron or electron behave like wave or steams of particles. Not only can we effect the path the particle take but actually where it impact on the target, without applying a physical force to the particle itself. Basicly we are shaping the possibility wave in a manner that defies common logic and how this is done is one of the mysteries of modern physics. What causes the quantum wave form to collaspe, determining when or where a particle appears. We know when we attempt to measure a particle it happen, but the mechanism of how it happen is unknown. If we knew how the wave function is force to collaspe then we may be able to effect the outcome. We could at will make a collection of particles like a human behave like a wave and then change the location by forcing the wave function to collaspe with the possibility that he some where else. The chance of any particle under QT is very rare, in order to actually teleport an object we would need to work with the the combine waveform of the object. Treating the macro object as a single particle. This is not unknown since there are cases of macro quantum tunneling of molecules and collection of particles. Using quantum tunneling as a means of teleportation depends on being able to control the quantum waveform of an object directly. As it stands, we do not know what kind of wave (whether if a real wave or just not) it is exactly, but if we could then the whole chance thing goes out the window. We can alter the chance of an object being on Mar instead of being on earth and boom it would appear there. All real cases of quantum tunneling is over small distants like nanometers, but in theory if one had the abilities to alter quantum wave form like we can do with sound wave the change in distant would only depend on the amount of energy needed to perform the change. The fact is that we usually alter wave forms thru the use of resonent chamber, alter possibilities waves may require the use of ghost particles. Ghost particles was a result of a method of looking at interaction of subatomic partcles called scatter matrix. Basically it look at the input of particles into a collision and the output and assigned them values according to charge, spin, baryon number, etc and finally the possiblitily of this particle actually being created in the reaction. Some outputs would have a negative possibility, which indicated a particle called a ghost. These ghost could alter the possibility of other particles quantum functions. These ghosts is basically what killed S matrix as a tool of particle physicists, but ghost do still appear in many attempt to create super gravity theories or grand unification theories. So it would most likely be ghost radiation that would be used. Ghost particles and state are the subject of many papers on theorical physics especially invovling quantum gravity. While many physicists cannot deal with particles with negative possiblitilies, this should not be a problem. As it stand negative energy and antimatter were concepts that made physicist uncomfortable also. Therefore, ghost radiation seems to be the best candidate. Such ghost particles would allow us to alter the possibilty waves of systems of particle. What does everybody else thinks? Whitestar

Hello. I'm an aspiring science fiction writer and the type of science I would like to write is "hard sci-fi". That is, I want to create fantastic technologies that obey the laws of physics. I'm just trying to decide if teleportation is one of those things. Let's examine the six possibilities: quantum teleportation, matter/energy conversion, extra dimensions, wormholes, hole teleportation and space warp teleportation. A. Quantum teleportation - has already been accomplished by teleporting a photon's properties, however, not the actual photon itself. For more information, check out the following website: http://www.aip.org/physnews/graphics/html/teleport.htm It is the ability to take the state of a simple quantum system and move it from one place to another without physically moving the system. So in some sense you're transporting the information in the state and not physically transporting the state itself. This kind of teleportation can be seen as a form of photocopying. If this form of teleportation were to be used on humans, it would no doubt stir up some philosophical and ethical implications. We all think about the teleporters that we remember or see on "Star Trek." It's not like that at all. The question is, are living objects are only the sum total of the properties of the particles from which they are constructed? In that case quantum teleporting the properties of the particles from one set of atoms to a new set of atoms should be enough to teleport living objects. According to quantum mechanics, this should be the case. The initial and final states of the atoms in the object are, in principle, totally indistinguishable and therefore identical. Of course if you believe in a soul, and also believe that the soul does not reside or is not encoded in physical matter, then teleportation of this type will not work. 1) Are human beings the sum total of the properties of the particles from which they are constructed? 2) Could a person theorically survive the quantum teleportation process? B. Matter/energy conversion - Einstein has stated in his equations that matter and energy are interconvertible. An experiment at Stanford University was accomplished at S.L.A.C. (short for Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). Michael Pidwirny, the guy who wrote it claimed that it might one day be a useful means of teleportation like in Star Trek. Here is a direct quote from him: "In 1998 researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center successfully converted energy into matter. This feat was accomplished by using lasers and incredibly strong electromagnetic fields to change ordinary light into matter. The results of this experiment may allow for the development of variety of technological gadgets. One such development could be matter/energy transporters or food replicators that are commonly seen in some of our favorite science fiction programs." Here is the website: http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6a.html Here are some links to SLAC's statements released to various publications concerning the experiment: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/e144/nytimes.html http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/e144/science1202.html Personally, I don't think that there will ever be a conventional use for converting energy into matter because of the amount of energy contained in one human being. Think about it: if one human can produce thousands of hiroshimas bombs, then you would need thousands of atom bombs worth of energy to create a turkey sandwich. That just doesn't seem practical to me. If that amount of energy were to be released when turning a man into energy, well let's just say there wouldn't be much left of anything for a few thousand miles! In any conversion of matter, some energy is inevitably lost. In addition, such conversions of particles to energy are called annihilations, that is, they are like explosions: the explosive material is completely destroyed and no memory of its original form remains. But let's play with this thought experiment for now. The atoms that compose our bodies are replaced every (7 years?), I've heard (I don't pretend to know the exact figure, but it seems reasonable). If this is the case, then after 7 years, you are physically completely different than you were at the beginning of the 7 year period. Then, in introspect, I realize to myself that I have a continuity of experiences, at least, my stream of consciousness is not noticeably interrupted. Now imagine for the sake of arugment that teleportation were to be accomplish by converting a person into energy and you had the technology to reverse the process. In addition, you send the information along with the energy. The question is, would the person survive the procedure, or would the individual cease to exist and be replaced with a replica, who was literally born into existence once the energy was reconverted back into matter with the information? In my view, when your body is destroy, you die. End of story. What comes out of the teleporter is an exact copy, with all your memories etc, and no knowledge that it isn't you, but it isn't. No one would ever notice the problem, so it only affects you when it happens. Unless, if you believe in souls, there are "conservation of souls" problems to deal with - does the same soul follow the body around? While in an energy state, there is no consciousness, no heart to beat, hence the person who first underwent this form of teleportation has cease to exist and replaced with a replica. 3) What does everybody else thinks? (Note: I know this question sounds a bit philosophical but I'd be very interested in everyones' opinion anyway.) In addition, there is another problem with the matter/energy conversion teleporter. The thing that always bothered me about this method of teleportation is that once a crew member is converted into energy, that energy is something akin to plasma. Meaning that that energy has to go somewhere. And the only way to get rid of it is to blast a hole in the ceiling for all the energy to escape before it destroys everyone on the ship! When Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry created the transporter, he did so because he couldn't afford on his television budget to land a huge starship or shuttlecraft on a planet every week. So, the transporter was born. In addition, he also invented Subspace, where once the crew member is converted into energy, it is sent through subspace and exits at it's appointed destination and the process is reversed. 4) Any thoughts? C. Extra dimensions - Teleportation may also be theoretically possible by means of traveling through extra dimensions. 5) The question is, if dimensions actually exist, where can we go about finding them? D. Wormholes - This form of teleportation seems somewhat more plausible because until quantum teleportation, there is no need to disassemble a person at the atomic level. The individual would travel within a very brief time and remain fully intact. E. Hole Teleportation - Now I have an idea for teleportation. I call it hole teleportation. Atoms are mostly empty space, right? What makes a wall solid is not the existence of the particles but of the electric fields between the particles. For example, my hand is stopped from going through my desk when I slam it down primarily because of the electric repulsion felt by the electrons in the atoms in my hand due to the presence of the electrons in the atoms of the desk and not because of the lack of available space for the electrons to move through. Hence, the way to accomplish teleportation is to overcome the electric forces between atoms. Let's say a crew member wishes to teleport from the ship to his house. The teleport system first has to send a particle scanner that can penetrate the ceiling of his house without punching a hole in it. Think of it like infrared vision or something similar. Next, a beam of light peers through the floor of the ship (as well as the ceiling of the teleportee's house) by overcoming the bonds between the atoms themselves. A secondary beam envelops the teleportee. This secondary beam protects the teleportee by preventing his electrical bonds from breaking apart, unlike the floor on the ship and the ceiling of his house. The teleportee is then send through this beam and enters his house with no problems. Finally, the beam deactivates and the electric charges that hold the ceiling, as well as the floor of the ship reattaches itself. I would like to stress that the secondary beam operates by overcoming the electric forces that hold the atoms together, but not so much that the matter of the floor on the ship and the ceiling in the house collapses, just enough to permit entry and exit to and from the ship/planet. F. Space Warp Teleportation - Here is my other theory on teleportation. Picture this: a crew member steps onto the teleporter pad and the space around him or her begins to get distorted. The teleporter folds space which in turn allows the teleportee to teleport from the ship to the inside of a building without punching a hole in it. 6) Based on what I listed here, which form or type of teleportation seems to be the most plausible for humans? Quantum teleportation, matter/energy conversion, extra dimensions, wormholes, hole teleportation or space warp teleportation? Whitestar

Hi everybody. I have always been intrigued by the concept of teleportation and with the recent advances in quantum teleportation at the University of Innsbruck, the results are encouraging. However, it should be noted that this form of teleportation doesn't allow physicists to teleport the photon itself--only its properties to another, remote photon. Here is the site: http://www.aip.org/physnews/graphics/html/teleport.htm I'm an aspiring science fiction writer and what I want to do in my story is achieve teleportation by actually teleporting the people themselves, not their properties. So, I began thinking about how I was going to do that. I thought about creating a teleporter that works by converting matter into energy and reconverting the energy back into matter and being able to pass through walls and ceilings, sort of like radio signals. Speaking of matter and energy, in 1998 researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center successfully converted energy into matter. This feat was accomplished by using lasers and incredibly strong electromagnetic fields to change ordinary light into matter. The results of this experiment may allow for the development of variety of technological gadgets. One such development could be matter/energy transporters or food replicators that are commonly seen in some of our favorite science fiction programs. For more information, check out the following site: http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/conted/on...10/210_2_2.html The thing that concerns me about this concept has some philosophical issues to address. For instance, if the mass of a person is converted into energy in an uncontrolled way (eg, collision with a very large amount of antimatter, destroying every proton, neutron and electron in your body) then the information that is encoded on the gamma rays (usually) released will be lost. In a controlled conversion, you could in principle convert the entire body to energy one particle at a time, and then read off the whole state and transmit it. But there are two problems with this: 1) A tremendous amount of data needs to be sent. In the book entitled, "The Physics of Star Trek" author Lawerence Krauss calculates the approximate amount, about 10,000 light-years to the center of the galaxy! 2) The amount of time this takes. However, current thought in neuroscience is that the "personailty/consciousness" is not at all QM, and thus there is no need to break someone down to a subatomic level and read their Quantum State. Instead, it is simply enough to know there chemical structure - and copy it at that resolution. This means there are no "no cloning" problems, much less data to handle, and no need to destroy the original (given sufficient technology to do the scanning). This would allow you to create "clones" - you could send copies of yourself "over the radio", while you stay safe at home. (Greg Egan's Diaspora talks about this at an AI level - the AI programs clone themselves and send themselves all over the place) Now if you turn each person into energy, you get a cloud of gamma rays expanding outwards. There is nothing that would make them spontaneously reform the person - even if you reflected them backwards, they would not neccessarily create the original particles. It is much more likely that teleportation would involve sending the information that can be gleaned from the gamma rays, and then having the information used by a base station to construct the person, more mechanically. In my view, when your body is destroy, you die. End of story. What comes out of the teleporter is an exact copy, with all your memories etc, and no knowledge that it isn't you, but it isn't. No one would ever notice the problem, so it only affects you when it happens. Unless, if you believe in souls, there are "conservation of souls" problems to deal with - does the same sould follow the body around? While in an energy state, there is no consciousness, no heart to beat. Hence, once matter has converted into energy, the person who first underwent the procedure has cease to exist and once the energy is reconverted back into matter, that individual will be replaced by a replica who will literally be born into existence. What does everybody else thinks? Whitestar