Real life star trek in the making

[Dracus]

read about the latest in transporter development.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/teleport020617.html

[Ed Kolis]

You know the most annoying thing... there was this ad on that site you mentioned that would scoot around the screen as I chased it to close it... finally it gave up after a few seconds... weird!

OK, that had nothing to do with your post, but I had to mention it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[disabled]

The ehtical part of the way thier transporter works is that you must be killed to be transported. IE, your data must be destroyed so the scanners can read it. Then you are rebuilt on the other side.

[dogscoff]

And ofcourse the next and even more interesting possiblity would be the hacked transporter machines that didn't destroy the original, instead duplicating a person (I can see many evil uses of this possibility)
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Read "Schlock mercenary" for an exploration of this exact(ish) situation. S_J links to it, or you can go to my site and find the bookmarks/ Online comics page. It's a great read.

[Jmenschenfresser]

Sounds to me like this is another case of Chicken Little.

Perhaps the first philosophical book I ever read.

[disabled]

I wonder....

Suppose you were to pull a prank and make it so the transporter didn't transport clothing....

[geoschmo]

Of course everyone has a soul. But to make a transporter work you simply have to configure it to also duplicate the persons soul exactly. With numerous and overlaping data parity checks it should be a simple matter really. I suppose maybe God could tell the difference, but we can always hack into His mainframe and reset the database that He uses to keep track of all that stuff. Being omiscient He may suspect something unusual is going on, but He won't be able to prove it.

EDIT: Of course as an alternative we could use the transporter for the body and send the soul modulated on a high power carrier wave. Then you have no ethical issues to deal with because you aren't duplicating the soul. And you would not have any problems with non-destoyed duplicate bodies laying around, because it would be quite obviouse to everyone they are just souless shells. But that would limit the range of the transporter somewhat.

Geoschmo

[ June 20, 2002, 15:52: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[AeoN2]

Whatever... In any case I don't think I will ever travel with a means of transport that requires my body being sent to /dev/null http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[disabled]

The first thing I want to see is how many watermelons were destroyed, exploded, turned inside out, and defied the laws of the universe.

I also want to know the same for the pigs used in testing of it.

Anyone ever see Galaxy Quest? You know what I'm talking about...

[rdouglass]

Anyone remember "The Fly"?

[Jmenschenfresser]

The actual workings of it aren't really a transporter are they? Or am I functionally illiterate?

They destroy you on one end, and then recreate you on the other end, but not using the same matter.

If so, couldn't you make copies of yourself?

Like a print screen.

Number of Copies: 5
At: 150% of original.

[Wardad]

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
...If so, couldn't you make copies of yourself?

Like a print screen.

Number of Copies: 5
At: 150% of original.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Enlarge What???

[AeoN2]

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
Number of Copies: 5
At: 150% of original.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">LOL... but I think I'll stay away until I can download celebreties from warez sites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

(What I wouldn't give for a Christina Aguillera copy to walk around my place cleaning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

[Wardad]

Originally posted by AeoN2:
[QUOTE] ... (What I wouldn't give for a Christina Aguillera copy to walk around my place cleaning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Can we interest you in our Stepford model?

[Bman]

Yes the original is destroyed. If I remember the basic principal correctly, it is something like this:

You take 2 sets of quantumly entangled particles. Put one set at the "sender" and the other set at the "receiver". Each of the particles at the receiver is attached to a bunch of spare particles (think of it as spare parts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ). Now someone, we'll call him Aaron http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif , comes up and steps into the sender. One of the entangled particles is attached to each of his particles. Now each of his particles is manipulate (its spin and velocity are changed--I think it is changed to mimic the spare particle over at the receiver). This causes the particle attached to it to change in some predictable manner. This causes its entangled particle over at the receiver to change predictably (I think exactly the opposite of the entangled particle at the sender). This causes the "spare particle" attached to it to undergo the opposite change as Aaron's particle, thus ending up as a duplicate of Aaron's particle. Then you just unattach the particles and send the new Aaron on his way. Take the old mangled Aaron and throw him in the spare parts bin for when someone wants to come back.

Anyways...I remember reading a book where the transporter technology made a copy of you instead of destroying you. If I remember it correctly, they used it as either a punishment for crimes or maybe it was how you earned a living...I can't remember. But basically they would ship these transporter-receivers off on colony ships to far away planets while everyone stayed at home on earth. Then people would have to goto the transporter and then step off and go about their business. But a copy of them would appear at the receiver on the crappy hellish colony world where they would work as slaves. Quite interesting. I haven't thought of that book in over 10 years. I wish I remember what it was.

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
The actual workings of it aren't really a transporter are they? Or am I functionally illiterate?

They destroy you on one end, and then recreate you on the other end, but not using the same matter.

If so, couldn't you make copies of yourself?

Like a print screen.

Number of Copies: 5
At: 150% of original.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[AeoN2]

And the philosophical question would be "Will I keep my own consciousness after being transported?"

Since every atom gets identically duplicated, I would expect the person having been transported to say "Sure, I feel exactly the same"

But the question would still be, "Would I still be me? or would I die to let someone identical to me with my experiences live? is there a soul?"

And ofcourse the next and even more interesting possiblity would be the hacked transporter machines that didn't destroy the original, instead duplicating a person (I can see many evil uses of this possibility)

EDIT: or did the original have to be destroyed to transport?

--
AeoN2
--
Inside every small problem is a large problem struggling to get out.

[ June 20, 2002, 12:44: Message edited by: AeoN2 ]

[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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

[Quikngruvn]

Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made off. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

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