IS IT POSSIBLE TO INSTANTLY TRANSPORT PEOPLE AND
OBJECTS INTO SPACE?
Nienke Adamse
5/31/11
Introduction:
In the early twentieth century (1911-1916), Ernest Rutherford and his assistants
discovered the subatomic part of the atom, the nucleus. They also discovered that the
atom consisted mostly of empty space. The nucleus was surrounded by electrons;
however, the nucleus was ten thousand times smaller than the whole atom!
According to the laws of physics of that time, the electrons should crash into the nucleus
within a split second, but this obviously did not happen. The big question of that time
therefore became the following: “Why do atoms not collapse?” Niels Bohr, a Danish
scientist, studied the spectra of various elements and came to the conclusion that each
atom does not behave like a planetary system with the electrons surrounding the nucleus,
but that the electrons behaved as in a multi-floored building: When electrons jumped a
’floor’ down, they emitted light, or a quantum of light. Bohr called this jump a quantum
jump. Many scientists at that time did not believe this theory, because they could not
visualize these jumps. And according to them, everything in nature should have some sort
of understood and therefore visualized order. Einstein himself could not wrap his mind
around this concept. Bohr’s theory led to another big question: “WHY would there be
quantum jumps in an atom?”
Young and ambitious scientists such as Schrödinger and Heisenberg could not wait to
solve this problem. Schrödinger came with his waves equation, in which he described the
electron behavior around the nucleus as vibrating waves. With this waves equation, he
could completely describe the atom and its electrons and he was able to visualize the
atoms in simple terms. However, Heisenberg was not satisfied with this theory: It still did
not explain the quantum jumps. In 1925, Heisenberg retreated to Helgoland, a German
island in the North Sea off the Danish coast. There, he realized in “his night on
Helgoland” that the atom was so unique that it could not be visualized. It was too strange
to be explained too simply. Heisenberg developed a new kind of mathematics, matrix
mechanics. With the help of Max Born, he was able to predict the behavior of atoms. The
new matrix mechanics required a certain order of multiplied quantities, whereas in the
traditional mathematics the order of multiplying does not matter.
Werner Heisenberg then developed the theory of improbability: there was no way to
know both the position and the speed of an electron simultaneously. The theory contents
that there was fundamentally a limit as to what we can know about the subatomic world.
This fundamental truth became Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. He concluded that
atoms can only be understood mathematically and that they behaved contradictory,
sometimes like particles and at other times like waves. This theory was very unsettling
for most scientists, because it meant that atoms, although very visible in mass, were
willfully obscure when studied as a single unit.
Most people either do not understand this theory or they have not yet heard of it. That is
why science fiction writers have been keeping the fantasy alive that in the future it will be
possible to have a device that can transport individuals and objects through space and
even through time. This transporter, or teleporter (from Star Trek) is not possible. Since
we cannot predict the behavior of each individual atom, nor its position, nor its speed at
any given moment, how can you combine these particles (or waves) back into a person,
animal or object after we have taken them apart atom for atom?
Teleportation
Teleportation, or the ability to transport a person or object instantly from one place to
another, is a technology that could forever change the destiny of our civilization.
Teleportation can be found in texts as early as the New Testament and it is part of every
magician’s bag of tricks and illusions. In 1877 in “The Man Without a Body”, by Edward
Mitchell, a scientist was able to disassemble the atoms of a cat and transmit them by
telegraph wire. In 1927, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, wrote
the novel “The Disintegration Machine”. It was a machine that could disintegrate a
person in one place and then reassemble him somewhere else. In the 1958 film “The
Fly”, a scientist successfully teleports himself across a room, but unfortunately his atoms
mix with those of a fly that was also in the teleportation chamber! In the Star Trek series,
teleportation became a prominent feature. It was said that the Paramount Studio budget
did not allow for the expensive special effects needed to simulate rocket ships going and
coming from distant planets. Therefore, it was cheaper just to beam the people of the
“Enterprise” to their destination! According to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, you
cannot know both the exact location and the speed of an electron at the same time, and to
teleport someone, you would have to know the precise location of every atom in a living
body. To solve this problem and to acknowledge the critics, the producers of Star trek
introduced the Heisenberg Compensators in the transporter room! (Kaku, 2008)
Interestingly enough, there are scientists today who do believe that teleportation might be
possible in the future. One of them is Michio Kaku. He classifies the teleporter in his
book, “Physics of the Impossible,” as a class 1 impossibility, which means that it is a
technology that is impossible today but that it does not violate the known laws of physics,
so that it might be possible in the future in a modified form. Kaku explains that according
to the Newtonian theory, objects do not move until they are pushed and thus objects do
not suddenly appear and reappear somewhere else. The introduction of Heisenberg’s
uncertainty principle, however, violated all the basic laws of common sense: Electrons
can disappear and reappear elsewhere and electrons can be at many different places at the
same time. These developments of improbability are indeed paradoxical. As Niels Bohr
said: “How wonderful that we have met with paradox. Now we have some hope of
making progress”. (Kaku, 2008)
This paradoxical theory explains both why teleporters cannot exist and why, at the same
time, they, perhaps, can exist.
The quantum theory also explains why our molecules and atoms stay together. Chemistry
is based on the idea that electrons can be at many places at the same time and that this
sharing of electrons between two atoms holds the molecules of our body together.
Kaku’s philosophy is that teleportation is allowed at the atomic level, but because large
objects such as people consist of trillions of atoms, their overall motions average out and
that is why our substance seems solid and permanent. It would take longer than the
lifetime of the universe to witness the teleporting of large objects. However, according to
Kaku, it might be possible to design a machine that can teleport something on demand.
He describes this possibility through the principle of quantum entanglement--the concept
that particles vibrating in coherence have some kind of deep connection linking them
together. (2008, Kaku)
In 1993, scientists, led by Charles Bennett, showed that it was physically possible to
teleport atoms, or more precisely, the information contained within the atoms. Since then,
physicists have been able to teleport entire cesium atoms and photons. Maybe within a
few decades, scientists will be able to teleport entire molecules!
So would it be possible to transport people instantly into space? Theoretically, yes, but
unfortunately this person would die in the process and only the informational content of
his body would appear elsewhere. But … “If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then
there is no hope for it.” (Einstein)
References:
Al-Khalili, J. Atom. Clash of the Titans.
Discovery Education Movie. Retrieved from
http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com
Kaku, M. (2009). Physics of the Impossibilities. A Scientific Exploration in the world of
Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel.
New York, NY: Anchor
Krane, K. (1996) Modern Physics.
USA: Wiley