Friday, September 16, 2011

Teleportation … Real or Imagined?


Will It Ever Happen?

Science Fiction Teleportation Platform

Teleportation refers to a number of theories and notions concerning the transfer of some sort of ‘matter’ (living or otherwise) from one point to another without traveling across the physical space located between the two points.

The term teleportation was first used way back in 1931 by an American writer named Charles Fort when he described the strange disappearances and appearances of anomalies, which he suggested may be connected in some way; as opposed to the pilot episode (1965) of The TV Series, Star Trek.

It just depends on what your favorite science fiction story may be; teleportation is either a terrible idea as suggested in “The Fly or a really cool one as presented in nearly all “Star Trekflicks (TV or the big screen).

A 2009 experiment marks the first time in which information has traveled a significant distance … 1 meter, or a little more than 3 feet, between two secluded atoms. It's also the first time the powers of  photons, which are good at  traveling  over long  distances, and  an atom, which  is prized  for its ability to retain information, have been jointly used.

By using two charged particles, or ions, each of which researchers place inside a vacuum and then keep them in said vacuum position with electric fields; followed by an ultra-fast laser pulse which prompts the ions or atoms to emit photons at the same time. If the photons interact  in just the right way [for reason(s) unknown, this action is not always the same], the original two atoms enter into a quantum state known as “entanglement”, in which atom B accepts the properties (information) of atom A even though they're in separate chambers a meter away from each other. At the same time atom A has lost all of its information or properties. 

Current thinking is that because atom B is now entangled with atom A (it has all of A’s information), for all intents and purposes, teleportation has just occurred on the quantum level.

Most researchers currently believe that what we won't see soon and may in fact never see is a contraption that will teleport humans from one point to another.

Unfortunately, beaming up may be strictly reserved to atoms, at least for now.

Sources…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleportation              
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1874760,00.html                        http://www.google.com/search?q=Teleportation+public+domain+image&hl=en&biw=1024&bih=560&site=webhp&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=gyZsTp_LN-m0sQLj4a3mBA&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CAwQ_AUoAQ

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