As you may or may not have heard, some researchers in Australia have recently successfully teleported a beam of laser light.
According to Howstuffworks.com, Human teleportation, if even ever possible, is still many years off, but with the recent progress, getting closer. Currently, in order to teleport something, the original is completely detroyed and an exact replica of that is placed at the destination. So, if a human were to go, the original would be destroyed, or in this case, killed, and an exact replica of that person would be reconstructed else where. Every single detail would remain the same. Physical features, personality, emotion, memory, etc. but just in a "new" body. Scientists are hopeing to somehow get around this someday, since it doesn't sound too inviting for living things, but they just don't know how or when this can happen yet. Right now, they've just been doing small things. Atoms, etc. and now a laser beam of light. They keep refering to how things may someday be like Star-Trek for teleporting. However, somehow, I've always imagined the world of teleportation to be something more like a Mario thing, where you just jump into one of those warp pipe things and are instantly teleported to another warp pipe. That would be so cool. Anyway, I think that this is an interesting topic and I can't wait to hear your input. I just hope that I'm still around to see this happen, although its very doubtful. But hey, you never know!

Havent you seen the movie "The fly" ????
Its great, you should see it.

I think its almost impossible, withought a quantum computer it is impossible.

The human body is so complex with billions of cells that no computer today could process such great amount of information.

But with a quantum computer, which is so fast that there is no download time! would do the job.
But then again its not an easy thing to pull off.

Although I am an optimistic person in the development of new technology, I think human[/b] teleportation wont be around in the next hundred years. But we will be able to teleport non- living things, which should be pretty damn cool!!!!!!

Actually, according to howstuffworks.com, quantum computers are already begining to show a possibility of a reality. And, if they ever are developed, they will be hundreds of times faster than even todays highest speed computers!

Were talking about billions, or trillion times faster!

Yeah, they'll be pretty damn fast alright! Prices will be through the roof though, I'm sure.

Really big and fast computers are usually just for universities or other research facilities, until they start to shrink (and get cheaper).

It has always been like that, and quantum computers will probably be no exception.

I cant imagine how life will change with quantum computers!!!! I wonder what video games will be like Virtual reality probably..... something like the matrix

My dad loves the Matrix, and he is counting down the days until the sequal comes out. Its sometime this summer, and he can't wait. I don't know the exact date for sure.

I will just download it!

Download what? Do you have Kazaa? Great thing to have for downloads of just about anything you can think of. Software, Movies, Television Shows, Pictures, etc. and its all for free. You should download Kazaa if you don't already have it. It works best with high spead internet access (DSL or Cable) but I only have 56k and it takes forever for things to download, especially since I'm using No Charge and it only lets my long in at 36k! But at least its not a 28k or, even worse, 14k.

Yes I use kazaa.

I am currently trying to download my favorite Simsons episodes! I got like 10 so far...

My favorite episode is that sex scandle with Homer Simpson... Then they put him on Hardball and change everything he says ; its so funny I laugh the entire 25 minutes watching that....

Movies take like 40 minutes max to download a good quality version....

MY GOD YOU HAVE A MODEM CONNECTION?????????
I pray for you man, I was going to smash my computer up with a golf club when I had a 56k connection. Thank god I got cable before I went insane. Oh and by the way I made my first small amount of money working today, MY FIRST JOB!! I am going to buy a recording mic and make a cd, I can send you one if you like.

jgoo, you asked for our opinions so here goes. I don't think it can be done. What happens to the "life" of a living being during teleportation? Is "life" mere information? Maybe, maybe not. If you think of a human being, near death... one moment their physical being has life, a moment later death. There must be very little physical difference between a body that has just died and it's immediate former self. The same is easier to observe in plants. What's the difference between a plant that is alive and one that has recently died? They seem to be composed of the same exact matter. So if you teleport a plant does it reach it's destination dead or alive? If it reaches it's destination alive then it will seem THAT WE WILL HAVE FOUND THE SECRET OF LIFE. Dr. Frankenstein's dream.

The living person is destroyed all of his information is gathered, then is re-created on the other side, with past emotions, memories and everything.
The "dead" person is DEAD, If you transport a DEAD person it will arive dead on the other side.
Everything in our body is information.....

I guess what your saying is if a human is teleported and comes out alive on the other side then we have no souls?????? Because of course how could a computer possibly re-create a soul?? wow very interesting!!!! I never thought about that! Well the day we first try and teleport a human should be very interesting indeed!!!!

But I think teleportion CAN be done because I dont believe in souls.

I guess I'm asking this: what is it that makes us alive and is that something transported? Why would a live person being transported end up alive at the destination? Hm.

I agree with Bernard - there is more to life than a pile of elements. Call it what you will, a soul or whatever. Maybe I am wrong but I don't think anyone has ever taken a pile of ingredients and produced life, amoeba or otherwise. If you are not a believer in God then some event happened and started life, but we have never repeated this. If you do believe in God then you surely must believe that he is the only one who can create life from nothing.

Argh....kids are fighting, can't continue this..........................

The soul never dies. It just leaves the body when the body dies. But Bernard brings up an interesting question: What DOES make us live? What changes within us as we go from our final second of life into our first second of death? What makes us live? ARGH! Yet another forever un-answered question of the universe.

yah, i dont think that teleportation is going to happen any time soon, and im talking hundreds or thousands of years from now... i read about that laser beam experiment but i pretty sure that transporting a photon of light in that manner and transportin living matter differ greatly.... i suppose one of the biggest obstacles is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which i believe (im an english major not a quantum mechanics person at all) states that you can never know the exact location or orientation of an atom at any one time, the best you can do is estimate where roughly it is...the very act of observing an atom alters it state...so transporting atom (ie...matter) is not as simple as a giant computer keeping track of the location of every atom and moveing it somehow from one place to another, because there is no way to know the location of every atom or any atom...and theres no way around the uncertainty principle, its built into the laws of physics...
one possible way would be to create a worm hole and have the matter travel through it to a new location...this may actually one day be possible since worm holes are not the stuff of fiction but have actually been created in labratories....
if you put two very very powerful electromagnets very close together and run a tramendous amout of power through them a worm hole will open up between them..this is called the Cashmere Effect and has been measured by scientists in experiments, however to open up a hole big enough for anything larger than a sub-atomic particle to pass through you would need magnets powered by the total energy output of several suns....so we have a very long way to go before we can harness tht much power....still there are ideas at work here that may one day prove very fruitful.