Thoughts on Teleportation, Time Travel and the perfect Hot Dog...

Hey ya,

This is something that I have been thinking of for a couple of years. Both Teleportation and Time Travel seem on the face of it to be hand in hand, with all these dimensions that are supposed to exist along side our own. Im not a scientist, nor do I have any degree in Science or Maths, this is only my own ponderous speculation. I am familier with the whole John Titor saga, but in my humble opinion that was a spectacular hoax. There have been other threads posted on ATS about this subject matter, but I was wondering what us, the dear public have to think about this.

( Im rushing through this, so not very well written..sorry.)

"The really interesting question for us was whether we could do this outside a lab setting." - Rupert Ursin, University of Vienna

Ive trawled through the internet looking for articles on this, and have found a few.

For example,

Teleportation goes a long distance

Quantum Teleportation

A favourite:

Howstuffworks: How Teleportation Will Work

All this though seems to deal with computers and super fast calculations.

And on Time Travel:

Everything you wanted to know about Time Travel

A very good site for Time Travel

By now you have got the gist..(spelling?)! All mere speculation at the moment, excluding our esteemed John Titor of course! So, to get to the point of the matter (excuse the pun, couldnt help it), I wanted to put forth my theories on both Time Travel and Teleportation.

Ok, simply, with Teleportation I see two possible ways to do this. This is at its most basic form though, Im not going to go into the maths of it, or the quantum physics, but Im sure we all agree that it will have to do with matter. Now, like Star Trek we are going to stand in some "Phone Booth", and some scanner is going to scan our entire genetic makeup, every single little atom and then it is going to transmit this data to the recieving end, say, the moon. Once all this information is sent, what to do with the person still standing in the "Phone Booth", well that person would be incinerated! On the other side of the moon, the "Phone Booth" will then essentially remake our body with all the information it has...(yes, this has to be far in the future)..Bingo! You step out onto the moon. For me this raises ethical issues as im not into cloning, because thats what I think will happen. Is it really you stepping out of the other side, or just a copy? If you are a atheist, then this poses no problem. So thats one theory.

The next involves a stupendous amount of energy and Im going to combine Time Travel and this form of Teleportation in one. You step into said "Phone Booth" and some huge machine begins to generate a massive gravity field that begins to bend space. Essentially a door opens and you step through to the moon. This involving the curvature of space of course. Now as I said before, space is multi-dimensional and therefor this method could be used for time travel, why not just step onto the moon in 1969 and we could see for ourselves if old Neil was there! My beef with this though is that the amount of energy needed to bend space would probably have to be huge!! More then the Sun! So Im thinking that if the machine was not run correctly then a huge back fire could happen and our world and possibly this solar system would be obliterated!

Now this is only my musings, so I would love if anybody else could add to this discussion, as it is really interesting. Im sure that in 100 years we will have highly advanced technology.( if we havent blown ourselves up ).so these thoughts might be reduntant. So from a 21st Century perspective, any thoughts?

and how would we make the perfect Hot Dog? Or if we had our time machine, where would we go to get it?

Although you do bend space-time to teleport using the second method you speak of, you have to remember that time is still a constant, and so even though the information of what/where/when you are is travelling faster than light, it's not travelling faster than time (since time isn't a speed).

So you would appear on the moon at the precise moment that you left your Phone Booth.

Now, if you want to time-travel using this phone booth, then you have to make multiple extreme gravity fields, and bend space-time in such a way that the place where you're walking to is the same place you were in prior to walking through the phone booth but which hasn't sent the information through it yet. Even then, it's not a sure thing that you can twist space-time in such a way.

But, yeah, not only are the energies for all this astronomical, but the process itself has a really good chance of tearing you apart. It might be possible to send signals or messages through (since it'd be a beam/path), and you might be able to modify the original teleporter idea for that kind of purpose, but overall I don't think we'll be seeing controlled time travel anytime within the next 5000 years. After that... who knows.

in your first scenario you suggest a clone is made the original "mold" is destroyed.

cloning can reproduce cells but it cannot reproduce memories, knowledge etc so the "new you" on the moon would be, most likely a blithering idiot (unless the original cloned individual is already a blithering idiot, then the cloning will work perfectly).

now, about that hot dog.

Personally, I would rather use a Stargate window. Granted, it sends you to fixed locations, but it seems more doable than the Star Trek idea.

Anyway, rather than fuss and argue over whether you can convert a solid body into
energy and send it over a space or through time and reassemble it on the other side, the focus should be first to start on energy itself and learn to transport it through space and time.

For instance, lets say I have a special antenna for my radio or TV. And this antenna conditions a signal from the future or past to play in the present. Because technically, those signals should be occupying the same space as any current signals. We don't hear them because we are not in the same reference of time, even though we occupy the same space. So our antenna conditions the signal for us to see and hear. Sort of like an IR or thermal camera showing us what we can
see visually. Since all these time travel arguments revolve around matter to energy conversion, lets focus on energy to energy shifting. It would be extremely interesting to watch tomorrow's news or even surf tomorrow's web.

cloning can reproduce cells but it cannot reproduce memories, knowledge etc so the "new you" on the moon would be, most likely a blithering idiot (unless the original cloned individual is already a blithering idiot, then the cloning will work perfectly).

crakeur, i think im correct in writing that scientists are now saying that memory and experience are stored in the brain on a molecular level, so that these memories can be scanned and reproduced. Thats why I mentioned the whole ethical thing as I dont believe that it would actually be you that would walk out the other side. I dont like this method and personally I would not use it.

yeah the question of what to do with the copy is a big issue of teleportation... I for one woulden't be comfortable even as an atheist killing myself

As Crakeur said, you would have your original copy at the point of departure. I suppose once we are doing all this, why not just freeze it and if you need it later you can use it!! hmm, i dont know about that!

the whole killing yourself on one side is a bit much for me. Hell, I won't even get laser surgery for fear some shnook bumps the laser and I wind up blind. stepping into a cloning booth, knowing that I am going to be killed, whether the clone works or not, is not a risk I want to take.


I wonder if anyone has done any testing on memory of clones. someone needs to clone a sign language speaking gorilla and test this.

Originally posted by Crakeur
someone needs to clone a sign language speaking gorilla and test this.

That might beat the "cotton candy" quote.

I remember reading a great short story about teleportation called "The Jaunt" in Stephen King's "The Skeleton Crew". Worth looking for.

Farmer's "Riverworld" series has some interesting views on "us" essence, too. One of the plot points is that if you die or kill yourself on Riverworld, you're immediately resurrected at another place on the world. Turns out though, it's only a copy of your former "self" with conciousness and memory replicated. The previous "you" is gone forever.

I'm the same way about lasik surgery as you, Crakeur. I'll stick with contact lenses.

As for hot dogs, never boil. Steam or grill lightly an all-beef frank. Add some diced onion, kraut or relish, mustard. Simplicity rules. Ironically, the perfect all-American hot dog is best achieved with a Zen sensibility.

Of course, I could be wrong.

yes yes yes on the hotdog. do NOT boil!!!

grilling is exceptionally delightful. german sausages rule!!! i remember being up in austria on a ski slope and this little place served amazing hot dogs. where is that teleportation device now?!?!!! hmm, is the world worth it!!

just had a nice kosher dog from Ben's in NYC. steamed to perfection and not in the used homeless body wash water that is so prevalent in NYC hot dog vendor carts (that's what gives the dirty dogs their "flavor")