> It's cool to think that technology like this might be around someday.

Based on how fast technology is advancing, and what I've heard of the technology*, I'd say we'll be able to teleport in around 50 years.

>But it's scary, too... I'm pretty nerdy most of the time, so whenever I think about transporter beams, I think about HOW, technically, they could be done.
>
> The most practical thing I can think of is a machine that scans every molecule in your body and stores the information digitally inside it. Then it sends the information to the transporter in the place you wish to go (kind of like e-mail) and that transporter begins to decode it all.
...
> So that raises the question: Wouldn't that *kill* the old you? And even if the new person looked and acted exactly like you, would it really *be* you?

Scientifically I'm pretty sure you couldn't tell the difference between an exact molecule-by-molecule reprodution. It wouldn't be the original, but it might as well be. You wouldn't have to kill the original, more efficient to just have a replica of yourself...but that's another subject.

> And if there is a such thing as a "soul," does this artifically created person get one? How would a human without a soul behave? Zombie? Maybe... Speculating about untestable things is fun. :-)
>

I personally don't believe in souls, but if a soul is a part of life, it would go along with the cells (artificially created or not).

> I don't know how else a transporter beam would work. I suppose there are a couple of other ways to quickly transport a person:
> - By putting the person in a comfortable, airtight container and sending it into an elaborate network of small underground tunnels that will propel it at a high speed to a receptacle in its destination.

If cars ran only on one-way roads you could achieve the same thing (maybe not quite as fast).

> - A person could drive a car or take a plane, or any other old-fashioned method of transportation, then travel through time to arrive at the very same moment he departed, so the trip, for all practical purposes, was instant.

Scientific American has a special September Issue about time. Very cool. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm articleID=0004226A-F77D-1D4A-90FB809EC5880000&catID=2


> - By creating a movable, realtime animated hologram of the person, a la Star Wars (this was a favorite tool of the Emperor). Granted, the "transportee" wouldn't really have gone anywhere, but the illusion might be good enough depending on the circumstance.

Video conference or just text instant messaging.

> - By creating a real-life version of The Matrix, where nobody actually goes anywhere, but they all THINK they have working transporter beams. Uh, yeah. Anyway...
>

rox0r!


> -useless"Don't beam me ANYWHERE, Scotty"ness

Normal"Is now interested"Asylum



* "In 1998, physicists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), along with two European groups, turned the IBM ideas into reality by successfully teleporting a photon, a particle of energy that carries light. The Caltech group was able to read the atomic structure of a photon, send this information across 1 meter (3.28 feet) of coaxial cable and create a replica of the photon. As predicted, the original photon no longer existed once the replica was made." -http://www.howstuffworks.com/teleportation2.htm (Though apparently this involves destroying the original...)

Also, more recently: http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/768248.asp