Beam me up Scotty?

Question

I want to know if any Scientists are working on a technology that will transport matter. I am not sure what this process would be called other than matter transportation. (Duhhh).. It sure would be nice one day to order something online and have it sent immediately. Does anyone out there know if someone is seriously considering such technology?

Answer 1

There is some work being performed, but "true" matter teleportation is difficult to achieve. Thanks to Al Einstein, we know that the amount of energy produced through complete destruction of a given mass is huge. Mass to energy conversion is the basic principle of a nuclear weapon- which achieves nothing near 100% efficiency. Harnessing the energy released when converting a, say, 70 kg human into energy and back again isn't even possible at this point.

The best we can achieve today is single atom or single photon teleportation- although scanning tunneling electron microscopes are fairly common these days. How an electron "tunnels" through mass is fairly creepy, but hardly qualifies as teleportation.

See also reference 1.

Answer 2

So far "they" cannot even do it with microscopic matter, the only thing close to it has been done with a photon.

The Startrek transporter and the replicator actually were one in the same animal. The transporter would read the matter, annihilate it and reconstruct it at a remote site. of course once this "read had been done the same matter could be replicated again and again. The real trick was recreating the matter at a remote location.

The whole concept of a transporter was a big stretch... even for Startrek, however without it they never could have beamed around at will and any excursion from the ship would have involved a great deal of preparation and equipment which would have greatly complicated the story line.

Answer 3

There actually is a device that looks like a large microwave oven. You put an object into it, like a statue or a vase, and hit the [send] button. The object inside is scanned by lasers. It connects to another device on the other end where it is reconstructed using lasers and resin and makes an exact duplicate of the 3d object instantly, and this can be all the way across the country. The purpose of this is to help engineers send models of things like gears and such to distant locations very quickly.

This has to be a couple of years old already.

Answer 4

Some scientists have been messing around with teleporting small particles, but until they invent an actual Heisenberg compensator, I'm going to say no.

Answer 5

they have transported electrons from one spot to another. this is actually at a sub-atomic and not microscopic. beats me how they can actually tell...

Answer 6

I would LOVE to be beamed places. That would be SOoooooooooo awesome. I am not sure if somebody is considering it - maybe you should! :)

Answer 7

Yes, but the only out come is two dead flies

Answer 8

yes they are but so far they are only able to transfer microscopic matter