See how it's possible to be transported at the speed of light!
Everyone knows the iconic phrase “Beam me up, Scotty”, made
popular from Star Trek. The real
question is whether it's possible to be transported at the speed of light. The
answer is yes…kind of. I will start by saying that it is not possible to send any
matter/mass/weight at the speed of light 186,282 miles/second (or 300,000 km/second).
The reason is simple, E=MC^2. Where E is energy, M is mass, and C is the speed
of light. According to this equation, mass and energy are the same
physical entity and can be changed into one another. Because of this equivalence, the energy an object has
due to its motion will increase its mass. In other words, the faster an object
moves, the greater it’s mass. So basically if an object has mass, as it
approaches the speed of light, its mass becomes infinite and so does the energy
required to move it. In other words, to move your 235lbs overweight body at the speed of light, you would need more power than all the stars produce in the universe.
That’s not going to happen, so now what?
So now what?
The trick is that radio waves have no mass, thus they travel at the speed of light. So even though we cannot send you, we can still send your information. Currently computers do not have the capability to scan every portion or atom that makes you who you are. However, computing power grows at an exponential rate, so in perhaps a few decades, computers will have the ability.So how will it work?
Let’s say you want to go from your house to Mars at the
speed of light. So you walk into your transporter and hit send. It would
immediately scan your body down to the smallest building blocks or atoms. It
would then take this computer model of your information and send it via radio
waves toward Mars. Mars is a long ways away, at its farthest distance it is
roughly 378 million km from Earth. So even though your information is traveling
at the speed of light, it still takes 21 minutes to get there. Not bad
considering. Once your information gets to Mars, another transporter
(comparative to a fax machine at the other end of a fax) would decipher
the information sent. It would then assemble you to perfection by using a sort
of grab bucket of elements (remember we couldn't send your actual atoms because
they contained mass). So there you are
in your vacation home on Mars after only a 21 minute trip.
So what’s the problem?
So let’s recap. We scanned you, we sent your information, and
then we assembled your exact you at your destination. Are you beginning to see
the problem yet? The original you is still at your house siting in your transporter
after being scanned! There is now you and the “new you” on Mars. Both
identical, both having the same previous thoughts and memories, both being the
same boring, overweight, underappreciated you. So now what? The only answer is
the transporter has to destroy the original you! You are now on Mars and there
is only 1 of you. For all intents and purposes you traveled at the speed of light...good for you! So here’s the mind shattering question: Are you the new you?
Or are you now gone and the new you is really not you, even though it is you down to the very last detail and thought (WTF)? Don’t kid yourself, in time technology will have the ability to get to
this point, the question is “Are you the man on Mars or are you the dead guy on Earth”?
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
-Gillplane
See more information at Click Here.
Interesting article but this theory is full of holes. This really isn't being transported so much as it is being replicated. It's sort of a "fax" of yourself. One of the problems is just because it can make a physical "facsimile" of yourself, does not mean it can replicate the mind, or the spiritual element of a person. We can replicate all kinds of things now here on earth but they are no where near as complicated as human being. We don't even fully understand gravity, let alone all the aspects of humanity, so I don't see how this particular theory would ever pan out.
ReplyDeleteI'm not against space travel and the speed of light is actually quite slow when it comes to the Universe, but there needs to be a lot of work before that is ever a reality. I'll close with my favorite physics rhyme:
There once was a woman named Bright,
whose speed was much faster than light,
she set out one day, in a relative way,
and returned the previous night!
Let that one sink in...
That's just it, you can replicate the mind. The mind is nothing more than neurons linked together in a specific order and neurons are nothing more than atoms strung together. If you make an exact copy of that order, you have made that exact mind and thought pattern. You have recreated that exact being. I believe what you really mean to say is that the new individual would have no "soul". And that would be a debate all on its own. And to ever think that an algorithm derived many years from now couldn't properly model a specific sequence would be a terrible assumption. After all, we put a computer into a single room for the 1969 moon lander.
Delete-Thanks for the comment.
I would think any theory of something that isn't possible yet would have holes. The bigger picture here is that technology has no limits and no end. We will never reach the end of what we can do. People are getting smarter and testing the impossible everyday.
ReplyDeleteLook at all the other things we have seen in movies that were thought to never be that are. Most of the crazy cool gadgets in old James Bond films are available to the everyday person today. Computers alone, what they were capable of in movies was unfathomable to people. Now computers are more powerful, faster and much smaller.
So sure, there may be holes and this could not be the exact way it may happen, but I do believe that someday it'll happen.
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