Beam me up? Not in this universe!

[Astro_Bot]

It seems that "beaming" a la Star Trek is implausible even if a human could be disassembled and re-assembled faithfully. The problem is it'd take a ridiculously long time to transmit the data:

Beam me up? Not in the life of this universe (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/31/beam_me_up_not_if_youre_in_a_hurry/)

Shuttle craft it is, then.

[04Stefan07]

:eyepop: at the amount of data!

[tlgerdes]

As someone in the comments said "as anyone is acquainted with Star Trek technology knows, the transporters don't operate at a low 30 gHz range..........
..........the researcher's mental exercise was not only complete and utter WASTE OF THEIR TIME, they also wasted OUR time by publishing their 'results' without proper due diligence of the source materials"

[rally]

I am sure they had some fun doing that one.

Lots of assumptions ! lots of omissions !

If I was to put a quick counter argument forward - it'd go a bit like this . . . :P

Paper here btw
https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/558/380

Most of that data was stated as being required for the quantum level detail of the human brain in order to provide the tele-transported individual with all knowledge and memory.
2.6x10^42 b in fact

So if the "brain scan" had already been done beforehand and that data was already available locally then with a minor (rsync style) data update you can rebuild them with just that plus the additional physical information

Of course if that data was already locally available from a previous scan plus a current refresh of new pimples, scars and hair growth, dental plaque etc
We would have even less data to send - they say this in full was in the order of 1.2x10^10 b
32 orders of magnitude less than the brain data

A single serial data stream is pretty inefficient - so why not have a multi channel parallel data stream - surely the technologists of the day would have worked out how they can send multiple channels at once wirelessly on different frequencies
So lets say 10^6 channels and we are already so much faster

Ignoring all the other technology issues (which they do also - such as speed of scan, speed of rebuild, how does a partially assembled body function until its complete etc) it should now be possible in less time the the Universe is old !

The article also covers energy requirements but ignores Taxes - I am sure the government of the day will have worked out a way to tax you for such travel !

All in fun lest someone take me seriously !

[LewisM]

To coin and then paraphrase a Star Trek quote "It's technology Jim, but not as we know it".

Give it time. Things change, technology is exponential. When I was a kid, black holes were theoretical, and the Solar System consisted of 9 planets (let alone knowledge of any exoplanets).

Agree with Trevor - absolute and utter complete waste of time and effort. 20 years from now, I am sure people would look back and mock these 4th year students.

[sjastro]

Excuse my ignorance but how does one accurately scan down to the level of of sub atomic particles such as electrons without violating the uncertainty principle?

Ah yes I forgot in the world of Sci-Fi they have Heisenberg compensators.
How foolish for my oversight.

Regards

Steven

[Steffen]

I thought we're all just holograms on the skin of a bubble? Surely, one can recast a hologram someplace else, if one knows how to operate the projector? :P

[Kal]

From a computer software point of view, I can see the error in their ways. They forgot to compress the data before transmission, and given the vast amount of replicated data in a scan of the human body, I'm sure it would have a good compresion ratio!

[Barrykgerdes]

All development work on one of these matter transmitters stopped when the inventor ended up with a fly's head.

Barry

[el_draco]

Yep, and we will never build a mirror bigger than 5m. Sci-Fi today, sky-fact later on...

Maybe if we practice on Pollies, Lawyers and Tax agents to start with. Much less complex data streams and, if we lose a few... tut, tut .... :)

[Astro_Bot]

There was a good reason I put this in General Chat and not the science section .... ;)

[el_draco]

That being....

Sorry, BRB, Scotty is just beaming me a parallel, multiplex, holographic, di-lithium powered, multiphasic, quantum projected copy of Deanna Troi... Oh, happy days, (Whoops, wrong show)!! :D

[multiweb]

That's why scotty got stranded in the first place on that icy planet for beaming the admiral's dog when it never reappeared. :lol: