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I’m a bit of a nerd/geek/(insert similar identifier you like.), and due to the nature of my job, in my downtime I tend to look up some stuff to appease my inner nerd. So in this thread, I will share some of my more surprising findings for your perusal.
So in this reply, I will explain how we are now 1 step closer to having a transporter!
Apparently, in Japan, scientists were able to “teleport” a single particle 100km (we science adept people use the metric system due to ease of information recording) without the particle crossing the space between the origin and destination points. How did they do this? I’ll explain!
The thing that makes this work is something Quantum Entanglement. Basically, this means that 2 particles share a “connection” that neither space nor time can affect. This connection is important to this due to the fact that if 1 of the particles changes, the other instantly changes as well. Nothing travels between them, they just change along with each other instantly.
The first thing the scientists did was to create 2 entangled particles and put them each at the end of a 100km long fiber optic cable. (Used only to hold them in place, nothing traveled along the cable.) A third particle from a laser pulsing in steady rhythm was then added into the mix. The researchers had encoded it with a single piece of binary data. Analogous to the one or zero stored in a bit in today’s computers, the pulse could be either exactly in time with the laser’s beat or delayed by a trillionth of a second.
That data particle then met up with one of the entangled particles. As the particles got mixed up together, the data sometimes transferred.. A quarter of the time, the data particle and its new friend ended up in opposite states: one on time, one delayed. When that happened, the entangled particle far away down instantly adopted the state of its partner, the state opposite to that of the data particle.
Now I know it’s not even close to our favorite way to get from our ships to our planet, but even an infant has to learn how to crawl before it can win a marathon!
Oh noes, I know this will be another “my original is getting killed and my clone lives on” debate again. 🙂
http://www.cracked.com/article_19626_6-realities-teleportation-star-trek-didnt-warn-us-about.html
"Boldly bashing Borg to bits since 2012..."Indeed. The only way teleportation like this can work is to break you down, particle by particle, send that information along entangled particles, then reassemble exactly on the other end.. The “original” you is destroyed to make the “new” you.
Yeah I never liked the tear-you-down-then-rebuild-you Treknology on that. It would make more sense to me to create a type of stasis/forcefield ‘bubble’ around you and push/pull that ‘bubble’ and anything in it through ‘subspace’ (good drinking game; watch any TNG episode and have a drink whenever the word subspace is mentioned).
Chief O’Brien always commented that filters and scanner would A: render any weapons useless and B: remove any hazardous materials and/or dangerous viral infections (which often failed in several stories). Plus the human body (never mind various alien ones) is filled with all kinds of bacteria and acids, and removing those would kill you.
On a more serious note, the entangled particles could have revolutionary applications, primarily in the transfer of energy and of course communications – having a pair of entangled ‘bongo’s would make unlimited and near-instantaneous global (interstellar ?) communications possible.
"Boldly bashing Borg to bits since 2012..."Considering there is nothing that affects the entanglement, you could cover any distance instantly. (At least, as far as we know). So Voyager could keep in contact the whole time with no problems. Worldwide communications are obviously very possible.
Maybe there’s something like “subspace” that we just cant see yet with our current tech , and the quantum entaglemented particles comunicate through this weird unknown fabric instead of time and space ? this way we won’t have to decompose ourselves to tranport – only move our bodies somehow to this weird “space” . Just thinking though , no reliable data on it .
I know it sounds riddiculous but a century ago, people thought that protons neutrons and electrones are the smallest particles , and know we can distinguish a lot of subatomic particles like quarks and bozons. It’s just a matter of time when we realize there’s much more to see than we thought it is .
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