Teleportation is the process of moving objects from one place to another more or less instantaneously, without passing through the intervening space.
The word was coined in the early 1900's by American writer Charles Fort to describe the strange disappearances and appearances of anomalies, which he suggested may be connected. Fort suggested that teleportation might explain various allegedly paranormal, though, as is typical of his proposals, it's sometimes difficult to tell if Fort to his own "theory" seriously, or instead used it to point out what he saw as the inadequacy of mainstream science to account for strange phenomena.
With present techniques, exact (quantum) teleportation is possible only with photons and atoms. Inexact teleportation, where quantum states are not preserved, is possible by encoding information about an object, transmitting the information to another place, such as by radio or an electric signal, and creating a copy of the original object in the new location. The copy may be sufficient even though destruction of the original is not required in the latter case. Teleportation has also been proposed to explain various anomalous phenomena, and the concept has been widely used in science fiction.
Similar is apport, an earlier word used to describe what today might be called teleportation; and bilocation, when someone is said to occupy two places simultaneously. The word "teletransportation" as part of a thought exercise on identity.
Science
Although the use of teleportation has traditionally been found only in science fiction, the theory and experimentation of quantum teleportation has been of interest to physicists.
Davis report
In 2001, the United States Air Force commissioned Eric W. Davis, Ph.D., FBIS, to do a scientific study of teleportation. He submitted his report (AFRL-PR-ED-TR-2003-0034) in August 2004. The Davis report has been very controversial due to its recommendation of further studies of p-Teleportation:
A research program improving on and expanding, or implementing novel variations of, the Chinese and Uri Geller-type experiments should be conducted in order to generate p-Teleportation phenomenon in the lab.
The report classified teleportation concepts into five sections:
sf-Teleportation
"the disembodied transport of persons or inanimate objects across space by advanced (futuristic) technological means." The report does not further define sf-Teleportation, and has no further comment on it than to dismiss it from the scope of the report. This type of teleportation could use a physical connection between the two locations, such as a wire. Using existing technology, such as the Internet, or telephone lines, could be the means for this type of teleport. However, this means it would be extremely slow, since a typical living animal is approximately equal to 600YB (yottabytes). Compression could be utilized, but would have to be effective in keeping all data intact.
p-Teleportation
"the conveyance of persons or inanimate objects by psychic means."
vm-Teleportation
"the conveyance of persons or inanimate objects across space by altering the properties of the spacetime vacuum, or by altering the spacetime metric (geometry)." This category includes the use of wormholes for transport, and the modification of the speed of light.
q-Teleportation
"the disembodied transport of the quantum state of a system and its correlations across space to another system, where system refers to any single or collective particles of matter or energy such as baryons (protons, neutrons, etc.), leptons (electrons, etc.), photons, atoms, ions, etc." The report explicitly includes in this category a process essentially the same as that envisioned by the fictional transporters of Star Trek. It also includes quantum teleportation by means of quantum entanglement.
e-Teleportation
"the conveyance of persons or inanimate objects by transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes."
The report did not investigate sf-Teleportation other than to define it. The report recommended further study in all other types of teleportation .
Teleportation scenarios
The use of teleportation as a means of transport for humans still has considerable unresolved technical and philosophical issues, such as exactly how to record the human body sufficiently accurately and also be able to reconstruct it, and whether destroying a human in one place and recreating a copy elsewhere would provide a sufficient experience of continuity of existence. Believers in the supernatural, such as religious people, might wonder if the soul is recopied or destroyed, and might even consider it murder. Likewise, someone with a secular worldview who considers the body synonymous with the self might also see the disintegration of a given corpus as the killing of a human being. The reassembled human would be a different sentience with the same memories as the original. Many of the questions are shared with the concept of mind transfer.
It is not clear if duplicating a human would require reproduction of the exact quantum state, requiring quantum teleportation which necessarily destroys the original, or whether macroscopic measurements would suffice. In the non-destructive version, hypothetically a new copy of the individual is created with each teleportation, with only the copy subjectively experiencing the teleportation. Technology of this type would have many other applications, such as virtual medicine (manipulating the stored data to create a copy better than the original), traveling into the future (creating a copy many years after the information was stored), or backup copies (creating a copy from recently stored information if the original was involved in a mishap.)
Another form of teleportation common in science fiction sends the subject through a wormhole or similar phenomenon, allowing transit faster than light while avoiding the problems posed by the uncertainty principle and potential signal interference. In both of the examples above, this form of teleportation is known as Displacement or Topological shortcut .
Displacement teleporters eliminate many probable objections to teleportation on religious or philosophical grounds, as they preserve the original subject intact — and thus continuity of existence.
In religious, occult, and esoteric literature, teleportation is the instantaneous movement of a person or object from one place to another, by miraculous, supernatural or psychic means rather than technological ones.
Teleportation lab experiments
In June 2002 the Ph.D. project of Dr. Warwick Bowen led by Dr. Ping Koy Lam, Prof. Hans Bachor and Dr. Timothy Ralph of the Australian National University achieved (quantum) teleportation of a laser beam.
It was a successful quantum teleportation experiment involving the use of 'entangled' photons. A target photon was successfully 'scanned', its properties 'copied' onto a transition photon, and finally the photon was recreated at another location of arbitrary distance, proving in essence the theorems proposed by Einstein to explain his 'strange action at a distance'.
Scientists teleported atoms in 2004
Historical accounts of teleportation
Philip the Evangelist
The following is recorded in Acts 8:36-40 in the New Testament, and apparently describes the teleportation of Philip from Gaza to Azotus.
"As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?" And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea."
Gil Perez
There have been many alleged accounts of teleportation. One of the best known is said to have occurred on the evening of October 24, 1593, to Gil Perez.
A Guardia Civil, Gil Perez, is said to have appeared suddenly in a confused state in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City, wearing the uniform of a Philippine regiment. He claimed that moments before finding himself in Mexico he had been on sentry duty in Manila at the governor’s palace. He admitted that while he was aware that he was no longer in the Philippines, he had no idea where he was or how he came to be there. He said the governor, Don Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, had been assassinated.
When it was explained to him that he was now in Mexico City, Perez refused to believe it saying that he had received his orders on the morning of October 25 in Manila and that it was therefore impossible for him to be in Mexico City on the evening of the 24th. The authorities placed Perez in jail, as a deserter and for the possibility that he may have been in the service of Satan. The Most Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition questioned the soldier, but all he could say in his defence was that he had travelled from Manila to Mexico "in less time than it takes a cock to crow".
Two months later, news from the Philippines arrived by Manila Galleon, confirming the fact of the literal axing on October 23 of Dasmariñas in a mutiny of Chinese rowers, as well as other points of the mysterious soldier’s fantastic story. Witnesses confirmed that Gil Perez had indeed been on duty in Manila just before arriving in Mexico. Furthermore, one of the passengers on the ship recognized Perez and swore that he had seen him in the Philippines on October 23. Gil Perez eventually returned to the Philippines and took up his former position as a palace guard, living thenceforth an apparently uneventful life.
This account has received wide circulation, but historian Mike Dash notes that there are some problems with the story which call its accuracy into question. Perhaps most importantly, he notes that the earliest extant accounts of Perez's mysterious disappearance date from more than a century after the supposed events. Though Perez was supposedly held for some time on suspicion of witchcraft, no records of his imprisonment or interrogation have been found.
Other claims of teleportation
Connor Bloomfield, nationally recognized magician and medium , claims to have experienced many successful teleportations, but it's unclear if his assertions have been observed or validated by others.
