Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: RobotGymnast on 14/09/2009 05:51:35

Title: Quantum teleportation?
Post by: RobotGymnast on 14/09/2009 05:51:35

Okay, so there's that theory going around about quantum teleportation; where you essentially destroy the person in one location, and recreate a perfect copy in another location. My question is: would the original person be "killed", and would no longer be perceiving things, or would the original's life continue as though they had been teleported? In essence: would your original self cease to exist?

Title: Quantum teleportation?
Post by: PhysBang on 14/09/2009 16:10:59

Quote from: RobotGymnast on 14/09/2009 05:51:35

Okay, so there's that theory going around about quantum teleportation; where you essentially destroy the person in one location, and recreate a perfect copy in another location. My question is: would the original person be "killed", and would no longer be perceiving things, or would the original's life continue as though they had been teleported? In essence: would your original self cease to exist?

One of the fundamental elements of QM tied to quantum teleportation is that it is properties that are being transported from one particle to another. Another fundamental element of QM attached to quantum teleportation is that you can't copy properties, you can only transfer them. So if you could do quantum teleportation at the level of an entire person, you must necessarily change the properties of the original particles into some other properties. Since we want to transport those important properties that make a bunch of particles into a human being, it seems that the particles we would be left with at the original location would not be left with those important properties.

Title: Quantum teleportation?
Post by: BenV on 14/09/2009 16:18:22

If it were a perfect copy, there would never be any way to know between original and duplicate, even though the original would be materially destroyed.