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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 02/18/2006 : 21:39:30
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A very big thanks to so many of you for the great help in naming, and explaining, "horizontal gene transfer" to me!
This next one has me reven more puzzled. I've read the article at Wikipedia...,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation
... and still understand it very little. Mainly, I guess, that's because just about everything involving quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive to me.
So my questions, bearing in mind that my quantum physics vocabulary is weak, are:
1) Is it likely that quantum teleportation, on a quantum level, either has been, or is likely to be, successful in the lab? That is, being able to extract all data from matter or energy at one place, in the process destroying that matter or energy, and then assembling its clone at another place?
2) Okay, if this can be done, does the distance between the destruction site and the assembly site matter?
3) If distance is not a problem, must the information, (etc.?), that is sent to the assembly point be limited by the speed of light in getting there?
4) If quantum teleportation works at the photon or particle level, is there no barrier to scaling it up to something that could be a practical mode of transportation?
5) In summary, what are the problems with this statement?: "A practical teleportation device, based upon quantum teleportation principles, may be become practical for transporting humans across astronomical distances, instantly."
Remember, I have no opinion on any of this, but I'd appreciate answers, if possible, as part of research for a science fiction novel. I've always had considerable problems with wormholes being used to get around Einstein's speed limit in science fiction. Is quantum teleportation a valid alternative?
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/18/2006 21:48:00
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2006 : 22:09:09 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
1) Is it likely that quantum teleportation, on a quantum level, either has been, or is likely to be, successful in the lab? That is, being able to extract all data from matter or energy at one place, in the process destroying that matter or energy, and then assembling its clone at another place?
Quantum teleportation has, to date, been done to single photons. All it is, is the transferrence of a quantum state from one particle to another. Neither particle is created or destroyed, though the quantum state being transmitted is destroyed at the source.quote:
2) Okay, if this can be done, does the distance between the destruction site and the assembly site matter?
Each quantum "bit" that is transmitted has to be accompanied by two regular ol' informational bits, so the distance is very much dependent upon whatever regular communications channel one decides to use.quote:
3) If distance is not a problem, must the information, (etc.?), that is sent to the assembly point be limited by the speed of light in getting there?
The regular communications channel is limited by the speed of light, so the overall teleportation is so limited, also.quote:
4) If quantum teleportation works at the photon or particle level, is there no barrier to scaling it up to something that could be a practical mode of transportation?
Indeed there is. If I remember correctly, The Physics of Star Trek showed us that to teleport a person from a planet's surface into orbit, one would need a lens some 50,000 km across (four Earths) just to be able to accurately measure the location of each atom within the person from just 300 km away or so.quote:
5) In summary, what are the problems with this statement?: "A practical teleportation device, based upon quantum teleportation principles, may be become practical for transporting humans across astronomical distances, instantly."
See above. There is no violation of the speed of light limit, and to rebuild a person atom-by-atom requires either huge freakin' lenses or a previously-established "teleportation booth" at both ends (and an extremely sensitive microscope within each booth, still).quote:
Remember, I have no opinion on any of this, but I'd appreciate answers, if possible, as part of research for a science fiction novel. I've always had considerable problems with wormholes being used to get around Einstein's speed limit in science fiction. Is quantum teleportation a valid alternative?
Nope, not a viable alternative. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2006 : 22:14:05 [Permalink]
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Oh, you damned spoil-sport, Dave! I'll have to come up with even more baffling gobblygook for my teleport devices, then. ; )
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2006 : 22:39:36 [Permalink]
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Hey, I most certainly did not say "don't use it in a scifi story," since most people - even most scifi fans - won't know that it doesn't work and/or (given the popularity of Star Trek) won't give a shit that it doesn't work. If your goal is "hard" scifi, in that everything in it is at least slightly plausible, you'll probably have to stick to this solar system, anyway.
But, if you just want to dazzle 'em with gobbledegook, then [cough, cough] "quantum restabilization self-interference" is a property of subatomic particles which won't be discovered for another hundred years or so, but it allows one to measure (via "holographic neutrino signatures") the position and state of every particle in a specified volume at once.
You've still gotta beam that information through a wormhole to get it to go FTL, unfortunately.  |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2006 : 23:06:27 [Permalink]
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Thanks, Dave, dazzling them is even better than baffling them.
But one further question: Could "quantum entanglement" possibly be of use in instant, distant, transportation or communication? Maybe "entangling" two quantum bits, them separating them via "conventional" sublight rockets?
(I can see why the New Age folks love quantum stuff. It's sounds scientific, and almost any kind of BS can be at least imagined when (mis)using it.)
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2006 : 23:58:03 [Permalink]
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Want a plausible sounding FTL alternative for your sci-fi?
Try this:http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18925331.200.html
Sounds to good to be true, but it seems like it is getting attention from some people, in a good way.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 00:09:38 [Permalink]
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Thanks much, Dude! I'm going there right now.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 01:17:01 [Permalink]
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Dude, the article you linked me to, and Wikipedia's article on Burkhard Heim ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkhard_Heim
... are both fascinating. Clearly Heim was a brilliant, eccentric, tragic, and controversial man. Losing his hearing, hands, and much of his vision in a Nazi explosives lab accident, he became a very strange, obsessed, paranoid, and withdrawn man. He'd doubtless get very high marks on the Crank Index, due to his secrecy, paucity of experiments, lack of much peer reviewed publication, his use of terminology unknown of others, and the generally physicist-baffling complexity of the mathematics of his theory of everything.
In brief, just my kind of mad scientist.
Yet he may indeed have been onto something, as it appears his theory was very predictive.
I've much more to read, and I'll probably only understand a tiny fraction of it.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/19/2006 01:19:16 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 01:40:11 [Permalink]
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Remember, scifi doesn't mean you have to use science in your fiction, it just means "sciency" stuff. Worm holes don't work? Have your characters use "mole holes." Like wormholes, only not discovered yet.
Fiction is the world you create, from the physics on up.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 01:48:52 [Permalink]
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H.H. huffed: quote:
Remember, scifi doesn't mean you have to use science in your fiction, it just means "sciency" stuff. Worm holes don't work? Have your characters use "mole holes." Like wormholes, only not discovered yet.
Fiction is the world you create, from the physics on up.
Thanks, H.H.! I was just hoping to at least half-convince myself of the tech background, when telling what is really a fable about people and talking animals. It's starting to look as though the science for the talking animals is the relatively easy part. ; )
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 02:21:34 [Permalink]
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Having now complete reading those articles, I'm now convinced of one thing: My lack of understanding of Heim theory and "Heim-Dröscher space" (though only that lack of understanding) puts me in the rarified company of most theorectical physicists. So this is starting to look like very viable space-drive, indeed, for science fiction. At least until the Dröscher and Häuser's expensive proposed experiment is tried.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 06:38:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
But one further question: Could "quantum entanglement" possibly be of use in instant, distant, transportation or communication? Maybe "entangling" two quantum bits, them separating them via "conventional" sublight rockets?
Orson Scott Card's "Ansible" from Ender's Game (and sequels) was such a communications device, using entangled particles to acheive FTL information transfer. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 08:19:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
Want a plausible sounding FTL alternative for your sci-fi?
Try this:http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18925331.200.html
Sounds to good to be true, but it seems like it is getting attention from some people, in a good way.
Hey, thanks! That helps a lot...
(and just for the records; my sci-fi relies more on biology and cyberpunk than on physics, but that helps Secret Project#489567 come true, I think.) |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 13:48:41 [Permalink]
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Okay, I think this is how I'm going to handle this aspect of my fable:
For plot reasons, I need some kind of teleport portal that must be first transported by "conventional" means to distant locations. A hyperdrive starship would not fit my plot very well. I've decided to have it so a single corporation has developed the teleportation device, and the corporation holds the secret of its basic mechanism very closely.
It'll just work. Most people in the story won't know why, nor care much.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 14:19:58 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
Okay, I think this is how I'm going to handle this aspect of my fable:
For plot reasons, I need some kind of teleport portal that must be first transported by "conventional" means to distant locations. A hyperdrive starship would not fit my plot very well. I've decided to have it so a single corporation has developed the teleportation device, and the corporation holds the secret of its basic mechanism very closely.
It'll just work. Most people in the story won't know why, nor care much.
Stephen Baxter used a teleport (quamtum entangled if I remember correctly) for transportation through vast distances in his novel "Space" (good book, by the way). Humans didn't even have to build the teleports, since extraterrestrial created them for a certain purpose aeons ago (and left the closest to Earth somewhere beyond Pluto). |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2006 : 14:37:19 [Permalink]
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I gotta read Space. Readings a distraction to novel-writing, though. So is posting on forums. ; )
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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