Scientists in Austria are happy to have pulled off a disappearing act once considered impossible by science guru Albert Einstein. (See, even Al can be wrong.) They managed to destroy pieces of light in one place and make perfect replicas appear in another place.
Called “quantum teleportation,” the process resembles the “Beam me up, Scotty” sci-fi technology from the “Star Trek” TV series. The thing is, it’s done by transferring an object’s physical characteristics between photons, nature’s tiniest particles. Scientists hope to achieve teleportation between atoms in a few years and molecules within a decade. The discovery will be used mostly for speeding data processing in quantum computers.
Scientists are still a long way from being able to “beam up” anybody. It’s one thing to replicate particles of light and quite another to replicate a human being.
Benjamin Schumacher of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, says human teleportation would be expensive and controversial. The process would “kill you and take you apart atom by atom so you could be reassembled at the other end. It doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
Not unless you want to donate your body to science.
