Teleportation and the world getting smaller

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cowsmanaut
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Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by cowsmanaut »

It's quite likely that it may never happen. that a technology to transport someone great distances in a blink of an eye.. intact..

However, for sake of argument.. let us say that such a technology comes into existence next week... and like a new car, you could by a transporter pad and place it where your driveway used to be.

Much like any technology which expands our world, also changes it globally. I would imaging that benefits and dissadvantage would surround this technology as well. I was interested in exploring what those would be, and to start it off, I thought I'd point a few observations.

With the internet, I've made a number of friends, in many cases, the majority of my friends I only speak to via the internet, and I'm not sure if I would be talking to them if the internet did not exist. So it's certainly a positive for me.

With the ability to simply travel great distances in a blink of an eye, it might be possible I'd do more visiting of distant friends..

Airlines would most assuredly go out of business, with the exception of those who love to fly in planes for just the enjoyment of flight. 14-20hr flights are not joyful to ANYONE..

Local restaurants which serve ethic dishes would likely fall prey to it too.. after all why go to a cheap knock off when authentic is just a hop away. ( I realize greed would not allow it to be so.. but, let us dream)

Immigration would have it's hands full for certain.. after all, tracking people coming in and out of the countries.. terror.

what advantages and problems do you see? or other observations on technology making the world smaller.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by terkio »

In good Science Fiction novels, some have focused on teleportation. Drawbacks about privacy, other twists about vacations in new ways of life, plots in thrillers.
Much more interesting than "Scotty, beam us aboard".
Here is some fuel: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/teleportation
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Ameena »

If teleportation because super-easy and available to anyone (or anyone with a "reasonable" budget, like if maintaining a teleporter cost as much as maintaining a car, say, so the majority of people had access to it), I could see masses of people becoming generally more lazy, with all that that entails, not being arsed to walk anywhere when they can just teleport, etc. It'd be like fast travel in computer games - no-one knows how to get anywhere because they just step on a pad and "bing!" they're wherever they wanted to be. Plus, you know, various health-related issues from not doing so much walking and stuff.
On the other hand, it'd make getting a job much easier because no-one'd need to commute or relocate in order to work anywhere, even if it was the other side of the world :). Plus visiting friends and stuff would obviously be easier. And sending/receiving items and anything else that'd need transporting, even if the pads weren't big enough for things bigger than a person - at least it'd make sending parcels and stuff much easier :). No shipping costs for ordering games from America, yaay! :D
Meanwhile I imagine plenty of criminally-minded people would make use of the easiest getaway vehicle in the world, so there's that as well...
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by cowsmanaut »

Terkio, the hope was to engage conversation :) I've read a number of novels involving it and some hail it's benefits, while most only go negative when it comes to mishaps.. at least those I've read.. there are a few as Ameena says.. where they point out people using it for crime. Anyway, the point is, it's not about what's been written before.. it's about what YOU think.. do you agree with specific sentiments, or not?

Great response Ameena :) yes, lazy is probably true. That leads even more into the idea I presented above about businesses going under.. because not only will people not eat at the corner sushi, they'll go to Japan directly.. but the issue I had releasing my game, would be the same for new businesses.. no one knew it existed. Unless you walk by, how will you know.. they would need to do adverts in the teleporter panel !!

Also, what about the resale too.. I mean cars.. they break down over time.. but you can't have a device that breaks you into a billion parts.. just sort of fritz out.. people die.. or explosions happen and more people die.. if it's perfect the first time, you sell a bunch and then no one buys again, but if you have a planned life span.. well, one needs to work out how to deal with it in a way that people don't feel ripped off, but so that you don't kill people too..
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Ameena »

Better plan - give everyone an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (aka Portal Gun) and stick moondust panels in a bunch of places - then people still have to actually go there once if they want to be able to teleport there :D. Of course, there'd need to be enough space for everyone to have a portal up wherever they wanted it, so popular destinations might run out of space, not to mention it becoming rather difficult to work out which portal was yours (even if they were all different colours, with enough people you'd get several matching ones, I'm sure) and the fact that anyone could just go through it. So maybe not such a good idea ;). Plus, you know...well, if you've seen the ending to Portal 2 then you know what could potentially happen if someone fires their portal gun at a certain thingy...
Erm...so yeah...plenty of stuff to potentially go wrong with teleportation technology, even more so if any old idiot can access it ;).
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by terkio »

Amena raises a point I like.
For massive teleportation, we can' t go point to point, we need a network with gateways, routers, firewalls.....
Well, we would have all of the stuff that has been developped for the internet. And you' ll have hackers, pirates, virus, spams, pop ups, junk, updates, porn, etc....
This is going to be the best and the worst transportation.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by cowsmanaut »

Hacking one's destination has certainly shown up in scifi a few times and it's freaky to think that someone smart enough could use this for murder, or even just a robbery.. you'd step in, and end up in the ocean, or a wall, or in the middle of men with guns.. 0_0 I certainly think it's a likely outcome.

The fear of this would likely lead to suggestions of government tracking systems in your arm :P After all take advantage of the fear mongering after a few bad events (real or made up) and then when they are primed, offer up some trackers.. make sure you and your family are safe and they have arrived at their chosen destination.. meanwhile we'll track all your movements..
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

I guess it would be a problem if two teleports to the same place at the same time. teleporting is a form of time travel, it'd mess everyone up :P
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by terkio »

This would be an issue in the very firtst age of teleportation with point to point uncontrolled transportation.
It would arise the need for security, routing, protocols leading to network solutionas as of that has evolved in the internet.
For the best and the worst.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

yes, but even with all that security, the universe is a big place, that'd be a job for god :lol:
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by johnnystorm »

Interesting debate...I imagine some sort of permit & cost would be involved, like not every man and his dog could do it. But yeah airlines would most likely go extinct, unless of course people can't afford to transport.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

instant time travel I think is impossible, however saving time is possible. I'm like Bones on Star Trek, damn them teleporters.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by cowsmanaut »

Just a side comment to keep this all going, but often teleportation is linked to time travel. That if you could bend the rules of time to your will, you could also place yourself in any location you wished.

The thing I always have trouble with in time travel is never discussed.. at least not that I've sen.. but the issue is this (and telelportation may suffer from this too) the rotation of the world, and the expansion of the universe. If you were to teleport yourself to the same physical space, after a 1 second delay, the earth will have moved 460 meters in rotation alone at the equator. It will also have moved and additional 48280.3 meters based on it's orbit around the sun. Add 200km roughly for the orbit of the sun around the galaxy. plus 600km for the movement of our galaxy due to universe expansion.. so, roughly 848740 meters distance in one second..

Now consider time travel sending you back to the same location over years... billions of miles from earth..
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

" the rotation of the world, and the expansion of the universe" yes, of course. which is why when we hear the comment, compare apples to apples, it's not possible. even if things appear the same, they can't be, the particles change their position from what it is made of, so there would be up and down quarks in different positions, the electrons, the energy output etc are all in flux. general relativity does not cover this very well, and quantum mechanics is the opposite to everything. there are no constants, they keep changing the equations. so you're right cows, it's impossible. time and position are moving all the time.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Paul Stevens »

When I teleport, what happens to the space that
I used to occupy? If I teleport instantly, the atmosphere
will collapse into that space rather violently. And the
atmosphere in the space I newly occupy will have to
expand, causing a shock wave.

So it seems I will have to teleport more slowly. A little
at a time, allowing the air to fill my space and allowing
the air at my destination to to get out of my way. But
if my mass occupies the new space a few molecules at
a time, what is to keep the first few from falling to the
floor? Do I have to teleport in slices starting at the floor?
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Ameena »

Good point. Maybe you could teleport like they do in Discworld, where you have to swap the thing you're teleporting with something at the destination which is of equal mass so that the same amount of space/mass is taken up in both places or something.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Paul Stevens »

If the masses must be equal, then there must be an identical (integer) number of
carbon atoms of the same isotope at both ends of the trip. And the same
number of oxygen atoms of the same isotope in my lungs, and etc.....
You cannot substitute two atoms of hydrogen and an atom of oxygen for
an atom of water because their mases are not equal (binding energy).
Sounds complicated.

Perhaps we can swap equal volumes of space. Like the two-foot
by seven-foot cylinder of space around me, including a bit of air
and floor. Teleporting into solid rock? No problem. Remind me to
keep my arms close to my body.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Sophia »

Paul Stevens wrote:Perhaps we can swap equal volumes of space.
That's how the transport rings on Stargate worked, anyway. It seems to be a pretty sensible approach for teleportation, if such a thing could be said.
Of course, it doesn't really solve the air pressure issue, if you're teleporting from sea level to the top of a mountain or the like.... maybe transporter rooms are just drafty places.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Paul Stevens »

Sophia wrote: it doesn't really solve the air pressure issue
But at least the implosion/explosion is a 'normal' event that will occupy
non-zero time. Moving a mass of air out of the way in zero time might
be very exciting.

Now that we are exchanging 'volumes of space', we need to worry about
neutrons that are partially within the volume and partially outside of
the volume. Shades of a black hole's event horizon? A bit of radiation?

And I wonder if electromagnetic fields (and electric fields) will be swapped
along with matter. Volumes of space certainly contain such things.
What does it mean to have a refrigerator magnet with a piece missing
from its magnetic field? Might it result in pairs of magnetic monopoles,
something that has been discussed but never observed.

Maybe it will be best to teleport to/from shielded spaces in near vacuum.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by cowsmanaut »

Another obvious concern, is how does one deal with the expressed energy from breaking down cells, or is it simply moving organic components where we swap one item of even volume of like components for another.. do we hand someone a pig and say, hold this, we're swapping you with a big guy, so you need the pig to make up the difference? Suspension in organic liquid and holding our breath a few seconds?

splitting an atom seems to be a bad thing to do, so rearranging things seems the more likely.

or perhaps just transfer of our mental state to another for the day.. like getting into a taxi..
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Paul Stevens »

cowsmanaut: I see you have a different model of this phenomenon.
I see it as bringing the two volumes of space close together and simply
reconnecting the surfaces of the volumes. In six-dimensional space,
our four-dimensional space would be a lot like a string. If we wanted
to swap two segments of string, we might bring them close together,
cut the ends and reconnect the ends. This should require near-zero energy
since the two segments can be infinitely close together and the space
at the boundaries contains near-zero volume.

Image
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by cowsmanaut »

I've heard a number of theories of what would seem as instant travel. Space folding, matter rearranging, and matter/energy conversion. The matter conversion is the one most commonly expressed in the TV shows, and probably the least likely given storing the amount of energy and data to contain a whole person as energy. It also seems impossible for them to send that person without some form of capturing that data, processing it and the energy to reproduce that human, plus the energy loss issues.

your string theory I think is where people ask questions about tearing/breaking and scarring our universe through the use of such a process. how do you know you[ve put things back together right.. given this is not just a person anymore..

then rearrangement..

I doubt any of it could be really done, but a part of me hold out some level of hope. :) The issues surrounding if we SHOULD is still interesting though.. does the cost outweigh the benefit?
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

When I teleport, what happens to the space that
I used to occupy? If I teleport instantly, the atmosphere
will collapse into that space rather violently. And the
atmosphere in the space I newly occupy will have to
expand, causing a shock wave.
to solve this problem the object must be in a vacuum, that to and from both must be in a vacuum and would help to be at absolute zero. not much life frozen in a vacuum. but there still exists the time factor, two things at once. life is orderly, set in a series of motions, to have an instant happen twice at the same time is just impossible, UNLESS, we can stop time itself, then everything is possible. we can save time, slow it, but we can't stop time or create more of it as of yet.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Ameena »

I think another thing with the breaking-you-up-and-putting-you-back-together form of teleportation (as shown in stuff such as Star Trek) is that if you've been broken up and put back together again, are you really still you? Is it still the same you that stepped into the teleporter in the first place, or is this a different you that just looks (and thinks, and feels, etc) like the you who just got disintegrated?
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by terkio »

I like your points about not breaking laws of physics.
A major law is energy conservation.
Teleporting from the top of the hill downward, asks for a decrease in energy, likely this enrergy will be absorbed into heat. So going downhill will warm you. You will burn going down too far.
On the other hand, going upward will cool you. You might freeze going too far up. Further up, at some height, you' ll reach absolute zéro ( -273° C ).....What about teleporting higher....You can' t cool below zéro, so what will happen to you ?
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

that's a good point Ameena, would the trekporter be able to capture our spirit, is spirit energy? are thoughts able to be captured in energy form?
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Ameena »

I wasn't really referring to a spiritual side of it, more that if you teleport by being broken down and reassembled, is the original version of you then "dead" and is the teleported version then technically a clone?
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by zoinkers »

Ameena wrote:I wasn't really referring to a spiritual side of it, more that if you teleport by being broken down and reassembled, is the original version of you then "dead" and is the teleported version then technically a clone?
There's an episode of the Outer Limits about this, where it goes wrong.
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by cowsmanaut »

Teriko, interesting idea.. but i question it in that high and low are not relevant in space. You're speaking in terms of fighting gravity. Electricity has no mass and thus no effect from gravity. So if we talk conversion to energy, I assume electricity and not, light, heat, or kinetic. However if we're bending the universe .. I've no idea what impact that has on gravity either :D
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Re: Teleportation and the world getting smaller

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

electrons have a small amount of mass but very small

The electron (symbol: e−) is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge.[8] Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,[9] and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure.[2] The electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton.[10] Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of a half-integer value in units of ħ, which means that it is a fermion. Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle.[9] Like all matter, electrons have properties of both particles and waves, and so can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons is easier to observe with experiments than that of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a higher De Broglie wavelength for typical energies.

it clearly states in theory that no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state. so it's in a series for the events to take place. that's why a vacumm is needed and at absolute zero.
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