# Teleportation problem #1-Matter disassembly and reassembly **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 24, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757 "2019-09-24T15:32:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/21 "2019-09-24T23:15:14Z")
In addition to the transporters, the Star Trek universe also includes [replicators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek)), which seem to present a closer analogy to the OP’s question. According to the linked article, the replicators assemble food and other products from “pure energy” (whatever that means), but there seems to be no reason they couldn’t use existing matter instead - even the matter broken down from your original Mountain Dew bottle. For what it’s worth, the replicator article contains a link to [this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler), describing real-life research regarding using microbots to assemble materials on the molecular (though not atomic) level. I didn’t understand most of it. But it’s a start, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/22 "2019-09-25T01:09:58Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > In addition to the transporters, the Star Trek universe also includes [replicators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek)), which seem to present a closer analogy to the OP’s question. According to the linked article, the replicators assemble food and other products from “pure energy” (whatever that means), but there seems to be no reason they couldn’t use existing matter instead - even the matter broken down from your original Mountain Dew bottle. > > For what it’s worth, the replicator article contains a link to [this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler), describing real-life research regarding using microbots to assemble materials on the molecular (though not atomic) level. I didn’t understand most of it. But it’s a start, I guess. Replicators have associated hardware, and can’t replicate alive things, I believe. Though I’d love to know how they replicate stuff with the energy of a cup of Earl Grey Tea, hot. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/23 "2019-09-25T01:37:37Z")
All the objections noted upthread are why I agree that transporters can’t work classically; I believe it would have to work quantum mechanically. You would have to somehow be able to treat a macroscopic object (including its mass) as a wave function probability, and “recollapse” it in a different location. I don’t think such a scheme could work through open space, it would require connecting source and destination with a closed waveguide- essentially a pipe- and would probably have to be able to totally isolate the interior of the system from the entire external universe, if only momentarily. To prevent huge energy conservation problems your traveler would have to switch places with an equal mass at the destination point. IIRC, the Known Space stories of Larry Niven envisioned such a system. Not usable in space but great for getting around planets at lightspeed. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/24 "2019-09-25T02:55:57Z")
I think replicators are a different manner of beastie. If a replicator gets 10% of its tea molecules going in the wrong direction, no one would even notice, as long as they still are tea molecules. Since there’s no original cup of Earl Grey around to compare, it doesn’t even matter if there are replication errors. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/25 "2019-09-25T03:01:58Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I think replicators are a different manner of beastie. > > If a replicator gets 10% of its tea molecules going in the wrong direction, no one would even notice, as long as they still are tea molecules. Since there’s no original cup of Earl Grey around to compare, it doesn’t even matter if there are replication errors. Oh, it certainly does matter! That’s the approach the Sirius Cybernetics corporation took to save money, and look where it got them: > [@](#): > > After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur’s mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with. > He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. > The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/26 "2019-09-25T03:31:01Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Reassemble it? I’ve never heard of technology, even conceptually, that is remotely capable of taking a pile of pure elements and turning it into something resembling a can of soda. At the risk of running afoul of the OP’s strict terms, this is really at the crux of it. The OP is lumping the breaking down and re-assembling as one step apart from the transport. I would argue that whole process is a three part affair. Because, really, if you had the ability to assemble a soda from a pile of raw materials why even disassemble the original? Just map the original and jet that info to the desired location, grab some local atoms and build another one. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/27 "2019-09-25T03:33:06Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > At the risk of running afoul of the OP’s strict terms, this is really at the crux of it. The OP is lumping the breaking down and re-assembling as one step apart from the transport. I would argue that whole process is a three part affair. > > Because, really, if you had the ability to assemble a soda from a pile of raw materials why even disassemble the original? Just map the original and jet that info to the desired location, grab some local atoms and build another one. Which is how the long-distance transportation system worked in _Dark Matters._ ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/28 "2019-09-25T05:46:47Z")
I think the most intractable problem would be to make it look like “teleportation”. I can see future technology being able to scan or disassemble a person well enough to create a copy elsewhere (perfect fidelity is unlikely to be necessary, it’s not like our body is static in the first place); and I can see technology being developed that lets us build a body from raw elements. What I don’t think can be done is doing it _quickly._ The result would be more “slowly grow a person in a vat” than “person appears in sparkling lights on a teleportation pad”. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Reassemble it? I’ve never heard of technology, even conceptually, that is remotely capable of taking a pile of pure elements and turning it into something resembling a can of soda. Nanotechnology. Being able to build things atom-by-atom like that has been part of the concept since the beginning. > [@beowulff](#): > > Which is how the long-distance transportation system worked in _Dark Matters._ And elsewhere; for example Frederik Pohl used the concept on occasion, such as in\* Farthest Star.\* Including sending copies on suicide missions. ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/29 "2019-09-25T12:16:56Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > For example, [this review article](https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2009.347) (from 2009) is called “Atomic force microscopy as a tool for atom manipulation” and explains how they are able to push and pull atoms, as well as swap atoms between the surface and the tip, by bringing the tip close to the surface and scanning it across the surface in certain directions. Now that is one hell of a meal and (I’m only partially ashamed to admit) that’s gonna take me some time to properly digest it…and that was just the conclusion! The system they’re using to do this sounds like a far cry from the old AFM I’m familiar with. Thanks for the info and giving me sneak peak behind the paywall. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/30 "2019-09-25T13:16:05Z")
In Trek’s established tech terms, it would likely be easier to just create a warp field, extending from the ship down to the planet, and people just walk through a warp portal to arrive at their destination. None of this de/rematerialization nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/31 "2019-09-25T13:38:30Z")
How would you _actually_ teleport humans, if you had sufficiently advanced technology and a need? Well, the exact position of every atom in their entire body clearly doesn’t matter, because they are shifting relative to each other all the time. Nor does the entire body matter, organ transplants work. What you would likely do is work out exactly which properties of the human brain matter, and ignore all the rest. Current rough theories suggest it is _likely_ parameters in the synapses. The number of receptor molecules, the type of receptor, the state of those receptor molecules. If the count is one 32 bit number, and the type is a 16 bit number, and there are another 16 bits or so for various other factors, that means roughly you need to transmit 64 bits of information per synapse. Will assume the number is 256 to account for unknowns. (this is not a complete ass-pull, computer models of the brain do replicate many lower level neural processes with less information than this). So 32 bytes per synapse, about 86 billion total neurons, average of 1000 synapses per neuron. 2.75 petabytes. (2750 terabytes) What would you do with this data file? Emulate their mind using synthetic computational hardware. Probably stacks of synapse-emulating ‘cells’, similar to the design of modern TPUs and other ‘neural’ processors. What good is it to be a disembodied mind in alpha centauri? Obviously they would have bodie(s), these bodies could be humanoid robots or they might ‘live’ in a virtual environment that emulates a normal human living space (with faux sky and fresh air and all that) while in reality the computer emulating them is part of some gigantic asteroid or moon industrial plant in vacuum swarming with robots. How would you transmit such a file? Free space lasers. Using high visible light or UV wavelengths (maybe soft x-rays if you can build focusing mirrors). Really, really bright lasers aimed precisely at receivers light-years away, with a corresponding focusing mirror on the other end. How would you deal with data transmission errors? You would have to wait years for a resend. Algorithms exist to fix this problem. In short, if you send N bits of data + M redundancy bits, as long as **any** combination of valid bits are received slightly greater than N, the original valid message can be reconstructed. Using ‘coherency’ math, I am unsure of why this works and the equations look nasty. Wouldn’t you be dead if your brain was ripped apart to construct this computer file? Arguably, yes. But other people who are still ‘living’ would not be able to tell that you are dead. And it wouldn’t feel like you are dead to yourself. Also you only die once - you would continue to “live” on earth while you send copies of yourself to other stars, and later those copies are sent back as deltas from the original. (just which bits changed, not the whole file, obviously) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757/32 "2019-09-25T14:17:01Z")
Can we take the “teleportation” part of this to another thread? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-problem-1-matter-disassembly-and-reassembly/840757.md?page=1)