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Is Teleportation Possible? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:06
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you ever wish you could be in
0:09
Speaker 1: one place at one moment and then be in a
0:11
Speaker 1: totally different place the next moment. Well, since I live
0:14
Speaker 1: in southern California, I'm definitely often stuck in traffic and
0:17
Speaker 1: want to get somewhere faster. But are you talking about
0:19
Speaker 1: getting like a Lamborghini Uber? Yeah, like an instant uber.
0:23
Speaker 1: Instant uber. Yet be myself across town instead of having
0:27
Speaker 1: to sit on the four or five. That would be wonderful. Well,
0:29
Speaker 1: you know, I imagine a lot of the people listening
0:31
Speaker 1: to this podcast are listening to it in their cars,
0:34
Speaker 1: maybe subway, or while walking to work or walking to class.
0:37
Speaker 1: All those intermediate times right, otherwise wasted if you weren't
0:41
Speaker 1: listening to such an awesome podcast. Yeah, that's right. We're
0:44
Speaker 1: helping you not waste time. Wouldn't it be great if
0:46
Speaker 1: it's just pop over from one place in the other.
0:50
Speaker 1: That would be wonderful. Do you think that's even possible?
0:52
Speaker 1: I don't know that you're the physicist. Tell me is
0:54
Speaker 1: do you think something like that as possible or do
0:56
Speaker 1: you think there ever will be possible? Listen to this
0:58
Speaker 1: episode and you'll find up hi import and I'm Daniel,
1:20
Speaker 1: and this is Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, where
1:23
Speaker 1: we explain everything in the universe and outside of the universe,
1:27
Speaker 1: the impossible and the possible, the universe, the multiverse, the
1:30
Speaker 1: single verse, the nonverse, every verse, the verse, the lift verse,
1:36
Speaker 1: the verse verse. Today we're talking about whether or not
1:41
Speaker 1: something is impossible technology that everybody wants. At least everybody
1:45
Speaker 1: who's out there sitting in traffic or is wasted time
1:47
Speaker 1: in an elevator or climbing upstairs has wanted to get
1:51
Speaker 1: somewhere faster. Is it possible to get somewhere instantaneously? Is
1:56
Speaker 1: teleportation actually possible? So, as usual before we dive into
2:01
Speaker 1: this question and try to answer whether or not this
2:04
Speaker 1: incredible idea from science fiction could actually be science one
2:07
Speaker 1: day we went out we asked people on the street,
2:09
Speaker 1: do you think help ortation is possible? Here's what they
2:12
Speaker 1: had to say. I'm not sure. My gut says yes.
2:16
Speaker 1: There's a physical lot of preventive so maybe nor um No.
2:22
Speaker 1: That seems far fetched to me, even far in the future,
2:26
Speaker 1: even now, I think people are already coming up with
2:28
Speaker 1: ideas of it. But I just think that people are
2:30
Speaker 1: keeping it hidden and maybe secretive and fear of other countries.
2:36
Speaker 1: Are companies or other people just monetizing it before they
2:40
Speaker 1: do or something? So what do you think of people's answers?
2:43
Speaker 1: Forge So nobody seems to think that it's possible. Yeah,
2:47
Speaker 1: people seem to think like, wow, that's too far for
2:49
Speaker 1: even science to get to. I like the one that said,
2:54
Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody's working on it, but they don't want
2:55
Speaker 1: to tell anybody. I know that person has watched too
2:59
Speaker 1: many movies where the scientists are really smart and also
3:02
Speaker 1: evil scientists. And I've noticed this trend. By the way,
3:06
Speaker 1: excuse me for a digression of a rant that in
3:08
Speaker 1: recent movies scientists are always evil. There's no good science characters.
3:12
Speaker 1: They're always like out for the pursuit of knowledge, you know,
3:15
Speaker 1: and regardless of the consequences, and they just have to
3:18
Speaker 1: know this is a great opportunity, and I really want
3:20
Speaker 1: to develop this technology no matter what harm comes to humanity.
3:23
Speaker 1: And that frustrates me, because you know, scientists were out
3:26
Speaker 1: there trying to help people out, trying to improve the world.
3:28
Speaker 1: We're not just here to make weapons. They certainly think
3:31
Speaker 1: highly of themselves in their laptots and glasses. Yeah, I
3:33
Speaker 1: wonder where that stereotype came from, Daniel, I don't know.
3:37
Speaker 1: All the scientists I know are very humble. We're all
3:40
Speaker 1: excellent at being humble. There's no humors here. All the
3:43
Speaker 1: awesome scientists and me and my friends are We're all
3:46
Speaker 1: very humble. But you know, there is a complex relationship
3:50
Speaker 1: between scientists and science fiction or you know, the public
3:53
Speaker 1: in general, or the public thinks things like oh I
3:56
Speaker 1: wish we could have you know, um transponders, or we
3:59
Speaker 1: could talking to a little thing, or flying cars, or
4:02
Speaker 1: the internet, televisions or the internet. Yeah, a lot of
4:05
Speaker 1: these things came out of either popular imagination or science fiction,
4:09
Speaker 1: and then scientists picked it up and said, well, let's see,
4:12
Speaker 1: maybe that is possible. Let's try to make it work. Right.
4:15
Speaker 1: Have you seen those YouTube videos where somebody actually made
4:18
Speaker 1: like a real working ironman's suit? Oh my god, have
4:22
Speaker 1: you seen those? No, that sounds terrifying. This guy's trapped
4:24
Speaker 1: like a little turbine engines to his back, to his
4:27
Speaker 1: arms with his legs, and he's like literally flying around.
4:30
Speaker 1: Well in the movies. That totally changes the balance of
4:32
Speaker 1: power in the world and has massive geopolitical consequences and
4:35
Speaker 1: also rescues Robert Downe Junior's acting career. That's right, yeah, um,
4:41
Speaker 1: but often when scientists come up with this technology, it
4:43
Speaker 1: does have consequences, right. It does change the way society functions,
4:47
Speaker 1: and it changes the way politics work. And certainly when
4:49
Speaker 1: you develop a new kind of weapon, right, and the
4:52
Speaker 1: ideas for those weapons can change the way the world works.
4:54
Speaker 1: So it's it's fun to think about how the ideas
4:57
Speaker 1: come from the public and then end up in science
4:59
Speaker 1: and then go back and change the way society works. So, um,
5:03
Speaker 1: sometimes people think of stuff and we can't actually make
5:05
Speaker 1: it happen. Well, I would say probably teleportation is right
5:08
Speaker 1: up there with flying. Like, if they could get one superpower,
5:13
Speaker 1: most people would pick flying or teleportation. Laser eyes. Come on, man,
5:17
Speaker 1: it'd be laser eyes. Everybody wants to laser eyes. Is
5:20
Speaker 1: that really practical? Though? Your looks could kill? Okay, we're
5:25
Speaker 1: talking about superpower. Is not about practical stuff here, Jorge. Well,
5:29
Speaker 1: you know, I was walking to school the other day
5:30
Speaker 1: with my son and he's like, he asked me, like,
5:33
Speaker 1: which superpower would you like to have? And I was like, oh,
5:35
Speaker 1: I would love to fly. And he's like, I want
5:37
Speaker 1: to teleport. He said that, so I can be It's
5:39
Speaker 1: cool right now? Yeah, did you offer him laser eyes?
5:42
Speaker 1: I mean, did you understand that. I think we need
5:45
Speaker 1: to go back and make sure he's fully informed. Yeah. Well,
5:48
Speaker 1: time travel is probably another popular one, so I could
5:50
Speaker 1: go back and ask him. See. But there's a big
5:53
Speaker 1: difference between flying and teleprotation. The difference is that you
5:56
Speaker 1: can see other things flying. It's obvious why flying is
5:59
Speaker 1: something you want to do. You see birds fly all
6:01
Speaker 1: the time. It looks awesome, right, But teleprotation is a
6:04
Speaker 1: weird one because you've never seen anything teleport. Nobody has
6:07
Speaker 1: ever seen anything teleport. Where does the idea for it
6:10
Speaker 1: even come from? Right? Why is it that we can
6:12
Speaker 1: imagine these these things that could be impossible because they
6:16
Speaker 1: did it in movies, right, movies and TV shows. It's
6:18
Speaker 1: super easy to fake teleportation, you just cut right. But
6:22
Speaker 1: that's the opposite, right, they portrayed in TV shows and
6:25
Speaker 1: in movies, after somebody had the idea maybe this could
6:28
Speaker 1: be possible, right, that's the depiction of it. But where
6:30
Speaker 1: does the idea come from? I always think it's fascinating
6:33
Speaker 1: when as humans we think of a concept which is impossible, right.
6:37
Speaker 1: We think of an idea, an idea which is it
6:40
Speaker 1: can only exist in the abstract. You know, we've never
6:42
Speaker 1: actually seen. It's come from inside our own heads. My
6:45
Speaker 1: theory is that this idea of teleprotation came directly from laziness.
6:50
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty sure there was you know, caveman or
6:54
Speaker 1: cave woman sitting around and they're like, man, I'm really hungry.
6:57
Speaker 1: I need to go to that tree to eat, but
6:59
Speaker 1: I'm really lazy. I wish I so wish I could
7:02
Speaker 1: just be there without having to make the effort to
7:05
Speaker 1: walk there, you know, I see, I see. So teleportation
7:08
Speaker 1: is to laziness, the way time travel is to procrastination, right, yeah, Like,
7:14
Speaker 1: oh I wish I could go back in time and
7:16
Speaker 1: do this sooner or something. Yeah. Yeah, So I think
7:19
Speaker 1: it's very natural, right to imagine yourself just being there
7:21
Speaker 1: without having to expand effort to get there. It's totally unnatural.
7:25
Speaker 1: It doesn't exist in nature at all. There's no natural example.
7:29
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it's understandable, but it's like them some
7:32
Speaker 1: weird extreme version of flying or something. Anyway, I think
7:35
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. Actually did a bit of reading to figure out, like,
7:38
Speaker 1: when did teleportation first appear in science fiction or in
7:42
Speaker 1: literature kind of stuff? What did you find? Oh, it's ancient,
7:46
Speaker 1: you know, it's um I don't know if it goes
7:47
Speaker 1: all the way back to Caveman, but it appears, you know,
7:50
Speaker 1: in Greek mythology and all sorts of stuff, people appearing
7:52
Speaker 1: here and disappearing there. And so it's an old, old,
7:55
Speaker 1: old idea. It's basically magic, right, it's basically magic. He
7:59
Speaker 1: snaps her finger and they're gone. That's right. So science
8:01
Speaker 1: has had five thousand years to work on this idea.
8:05
Speaker 1: Where have we gotta We've got We've got handheld, little
8:11
Speaker 1: powerful computers. We have flying cars. You have a flying carrotation,
8:16
Speaker 1: Daniel K and I come over? Where is this flying car?
8:19
Speaker 1: I want to hear about. Yea, So is teleprotation actually possible?
8:27
Speaker 1: It depends a little bit on what you mean by teleprotation, right,
8:29
Speaker 1: So let's get a little bit technical, Like, if by
8:32
Speaker 1: teleportation you mean take me my physical body and all
8:35
Speaker 1: the atoms that make me up, have we disappear and
8:37
Speaker 1: reappear somewhere else that we can pretty clearly rule out
8:40
Speaker 1: that breaks a bunch of laws of physics. Like, what
8:43
Speaker 1: do you mean, Well, if I'm gonna disappear from here,
8:45
Speaker 1: then where am I atoms going? Right? Like, the energy
8:49
Speaker 1: from those atoms can't just disappear. There's no physical process
8:53
Speaker 1: that makes somebody disappear, capture their their energy and move
8:56
Speaker 1: it somewhere else. But is it impossible or is it
9:00
Speaker 1: just very unlikely? It's impossible. You can't move energy or
9:05
Speaker 1: mass from one place to another instantaneously, not even at
9:09
Speaker 1: the speed of light. But maybe you know, thinking like
9:12
Speaker 1: if you're just one single particle, and there's a certain
9:16
Speaker 1: uncertainty about you, isn't there Like you can be here
9:19
Speaker 1: one instant and you can be somewhere else in another instant, Right,
9:22
Speaker 1: So why couldn't that apply to a whole bunch of
9:25
Speaker 1: particles all at the same time. One minute they're here
9:28
Speaker 1: and then the next moment there's somewhere else. That's true,
9:31
Speaker 1: and that can happen, But that's not really teleportation, right.
9:33
Speaker 1: Teleprotition says you're here and that's very definitive, and then
9:36
Speaker 1: you're there, and that's very definitive. What you're talking about
9:39
Speaker 1: is I don't really know where you are now, and
9:41
Speaker 1: then I don't really know where you are later. That's
9:43
Speaker 1: not exactly telepartition. That's like, if you wanted to, you know, say, oh,
9:47
Speaker 1: I want to go across town, and you wanted to
9:49
Speaker 1: use Heisenberg's certainty principle, you'd be like, well, we're not
9:52
Speaker 1: really sure where we're going to get you. You're gonna
9:54
Speaker 1: be somewhere near the four h five, but we can't
9:57
Speaker 1: really tell you. And then you end up in traffic
9:59
Speaker 1: and you're dead, and the lawsuits and it doesn't end. Well, Okay,
10:02
Speaker 1: I have another idea. Okay, what if because quantum particles
10:06
Speaker 1: can just appear out of nothing, right, not just out
10:09
Speaker 1: of nothing, they can energy from the vacuum can get
10:11
Speaker 1: turned into particles mass. Yeah, and the converse is through
10:15
Speaker 1: like particles can just disappear. That's right. Yeah. So isn't
10:18
Speaker 1: there in the infinity of probability the chance that all
10:22
Speaker 1: of my molecules could suddenly disappear, and all of them
10:25
Speaker 1: could suddenly appear somewhere else in the same exact order.
10:29
Speaker 1: Would they be the same molecules? We're talking about the
10:32
Speaker 1: same physical particles that make you up disappearing and appearing
10:36
Speaker 1: somewhere else, right, those same molecules actual telebrotation of the
10:40
Speaker 1: stuff that makes up jorhe. Yeah, that I think is impossible.
10:43
Speaker 1: But you raise an interesting question, which is, like, what
10:46
Speaker 1: is teleprotation. What if we could disassemble you and they
10:50
Speaker 1: rebuild you somewhere else out of other particles that were
10:53
Speaker 1: in that other location you want to go to Alpha centauri.
10:56
Speaker 1: There are electrons over there, There protons over there, there
10:58
Speaker 1: neutrons over there. We can make you out of that
11:00
Speaker 1: stuff over there if we just know what the recipe
11:03
Speaker 1: is for Jorge, Right, Like, if my molecules are here
11:06
Speaker 1: now and they're in powers the next moment, how do
11:10
Speaker 1: we know they're the same molecule? Yeah, exactly, Like molecules
11:13
Speaker 1: don't have little ideas on them, right, They certainly don't write.
11:16
Speaker 1: All electrons are identical. You can't tell one from another.
11:19
Speaker 1: And as you say, particles are disappearing and appearing all
11:21
Speaker 1: the time. So it's not even really well defined question
11:23
Speaker 1: to say, like, what is the stuff that makes up me?
11:27
Speaker 1: These particles are me. So in that sense, teleportation is
11:30
Speaker 1: really just the transformation of the arrangement of the particles.
11:34
Speaker 1: You know, you can think about the thing that you
11:36
Speaker 1: about you is the arrangement of the particles. I mean,
11:39
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this the other day, Like, you know,
11:41
Speaker 1: if you are out there, you're the listener you weigh.
11:43
Speaker 1: I don't know. Seventy kilos, right, I don't know. I
11:46
Speaker 1: don't know what that means. I can't I can't do
11:48
Speaker 1: the matter. It's a flattering number for us. Yeah, right,
11:55
Speaker 1: our listeners are really good looking. Um, anyways, say this
11:58
Speaker 1: is the seventy kilos of you? Okay, Now, what is
12:01
Speaker 1: the recipe for making you? Well, it's protons, neutrons, and electrons,
12:06
Speaker 1: and the recipe is actually pretty simple. It's one to
12:08
Speaker 1: one to one, the same number of protons and neutrons
12:11
Speaker 1: and electrons to make up joorhe. Now what's the recipe
12:13
Speaker 1: for making up sevent ice cream? Well, it's still one
12:17
Speaker 1: to one to one protons, neutrons and electrons, is just
12:20
Speaker 1: differently arranged. Let's it's radioactive ice cream. That's right. Let's
12:25
Speaker 1: it's really far off the isotopic heavy ice cream, but
12:29
Speaker 1: heavy ice cream. But basically the difference between joge and
12:32
Speaker 1: a big pile of ice cream is just the arrangement
12:35
Speaker 1: of those particles. Right, So what you're saying is like,
12:37
Speaker 1: what makes me me is my arrangement of molecules, not
12:40
Speaker 1: the actual molecules. It's sort of philosophically bold thing to say,
12:44
Speaker 1: but yeah, basically that's the only difference between you and
12:46
Speaker 1: ice cream is a bit of tweaking. So when we're
12:49
Speaker 1: talking about totleprotation, you're really people are really wondering if
12:52
Speaker 1: it's possible to send my current arrangement, have that arrangement
12:56
Speaker 1: appear somewhere else sort of. I mean it would be
12:59
Speaker 1: a bit of a heart cell. I mean, what if
13:00
Speaker 1: I told you, hey, or hey, I'm gonna chop you
13:02
Speaker 1: up in the little rip bits and remake you somewhere else,
13:05
Speaker 1: all right? You'd wonder is that are you killing me
13:08
Speaker 1: and then creating me? And is that really the same
13:11
Speaker 1: as teleporting me? Is that really what you want? What
13:13
Speaker 1: you want to say, smooth continuous experience. You want the
13:15
Speaker 1: experience of traveling somewhere with minus the traveling, right, you mean,
13:20
Speaker 1: like my current arrangement in my brain of all my
13:23
Speaker 1: neurons and all the thoughts process. You want the frozen
13:27
Speaker 1: and then you wanted to appear somewhere else so that
13:29
Speaker 1: your thoughts are sort of continuous. That's right. I think
13:31
Speaker 1: you want a continuous conscious experience, Right, you want to
13:34
Speaker 1: get into teleportation box, press the button, and then get
13:38
Speaker 1: out of the teleprotation box on Alpha Centauri or in
13:41
Speaker 1: the valley, or in St. Louis or whatever, and be there.
13:45
Speaker 1: I don't think you want to get in the teleprotation box,
13:47
Speaker 1: press the button and die and then be born somewhere else. Right.
13:52
Speaker 1: I think you're giving my current arrangement of neurons a
13:54
Speaker 1: bit of a headache here thinking about these things. But
13:58
Speaker 1: what's the difference? Right? Is there friends to being disassembled
14:01
Speaker 1: and reassembled somewhere else with the same memories. I have
14:04
Speaker 1: so many questions for you, but before we dive in,
14:07
Speaker 1: let's take a short break. So if we were to
14:22
Speaker 1: define teleprotation just which is what I think you're trying
14:24
Speaker 1: to do, is it's the wish that you could have
14:27
Speaker 1: a continuous experience of being one place and then being
14:29
Speaker 1: another place in this next moment. That's right. And I
14:32
Speaker 1: don't think we know enough about consciousness to know whether
14:36
Speaker 1: what I just described would accomplish that. Take the particles
14:38
Speaker 1: and make a joorge, tear them apart to learn where
14:41
Speaker 1: they are, reassemble them somewhere else in exactly the same configuration.
14:45
Speaker 1: Would that new reassembled Joge version two think it's the
14:48
Speaker 1: same Joge? Would it know there's been reassembled that. I
14:51
Speaker 1: don't think we know enough about consciousness to know, but boy,
14:53
Speaker 1: that would that be a fascinating experiment. Right, So you're
14:55
Speaker 1: saying that physical toleprotation is impossible, like me, myself, the
15:00
Speaker 1: exact molecules that make up me right now, making them
15:04
Speaker 1: up here somewhere else is impossible. But you're saying, maybe
15:07
Speaker 1: we can recreate the arrangement somewhere else, and then you
15:11
Speaker 1: get into all these philosophical questions about whether that's really
15:14
Speaker 1: near or my consciousness is continuous. But that's that's one
15:17
Speaker 1: way you see teleportation being possible, is if you recreate
15:22
Speaker 1: my arrangement somewhere else. That's the only way I see
15:24
Speaker 1: it being possible, because the physical teleportation of objects, as
15:28
Speaker 1: far as I understand, it's totally impossible. Even the person
15:32
Speaker 1: we interviewed on the street who believes that somewhere there's
15:34
Speaker 1: a scientists who's figured it out and is looking to
15:36
Speaker 1: make money off of it, I'm sorry, I think that
15:38
Speaker 1: part is actually impossible. But but you know, the second
15:42
Speaker 1: bit is pretty good, right, Beaming the information and recreating you.
15:45
Speaker 1: That could work, That could really accomplish what we want. Well,
15:49
Speaker 1: let's think about that. So, like if you were to
15:51
Speaker 1: tell me, hey, horr, I'm gonna deconstruct you, save you
15:54
Speaker 1: to a hard drive or a flash drive drive that
15:57
Speaker 1: using an ups trug to the other side of town,
16:00
Speaker 1: you know, and start the USB thing. Hold hold on
16:03
Speaker 1: a second, if we're gonna put you in traffic anyway,
16:05
Speaker 1: what was the point just climbing the ups track corp
16:08
Speaker 1: He seriously, Now, the idea is decode you in the
16:11
Speaker 1: information beam you across a laser beam or the internet
16:16
Speaker 1: at least, right, so it's really fast, and then rebuild
16:19
Speaker 1: you somewhere else. Okay, so that's that's one way till
16:21
Speaker 1: reportation would be possible. But then that's the crazy thing.
16:25
Speaker 1: To reconstruct the exact state of all of my atoms
16:29
Speaker 1: and molecules and neurons. What sort of technology would you need?
16:33
Speaker 1: You need like a crazy three D printer. Yeah, you
16:35
Speaker 1: certainly would. But let's um, let's do the particle physics
16:38
Speaker 1: approach to this. Let's say, let's figure out how to
16:40
Speaker 1: do it first for one particle and then for two particles,
16:43
Speaker 1: and then try to generalize to however many particles make
16:46
Speaker 1: up a person or a hamster, because if it's not
16:49
Speaker 1: possible for a single particle, then it definitely won't be
16:51
Speaker 1: possible for a whole person. But if it is possible
16:53
Speaker 1: for a single particle, then it's just sort of an
16:55
Speaker 1: engineering question for how to do it for lots of particles. Okay,
16:59
Speaker 1: so um, and you're talking about beaming the information down
17:02
Speaker 1: to the quantum state, right, that's important. It's not just
17:05
Speaker 1: like I have an atom of carbon here in my hand.
17:09
Speaker 1: Let's just make a carbon atom over there. You're talking
17:12
Speaker 1: about the actual exact quantum state of that carbon atom.
17:15
Speaker 1: That's right. We're talking about copying a person or a
17:17
Speaker 1: cat or a hamster or whatever. We want to capture
17:19
Speaker 1: everything about it. We want to get every atom, every
17:22
Speaker 1: molecule exactly correct because we don't know which bits are important. Right,
17:26
Speaker 1: Maybe the thing that makes you you is in some
17:28
Speaker 1: particular arrangement of sodium atoms in your brain. And if
17:31
Speaker 1: we say whatever, we'll just put some sodium in there
17:33
Speaker 1: in the right mixture. We don't really care where it
17:35
Speaker 1: is or what the quantum state is, then we might
17:37
Speaker 1: get a different horry. Right, one is funnier or grumpier
17:40
Speaker 1: saltire exact spicierum exactly, and so we want to get
17:45
Speaker 1: it exact right. We wanted perfect copies. Okay, is it
17:48
Speaker 1: possible to take the quantum the one particle with all
17:51
Speaker 1: its quantum state copy that somewhere else. So that is possible,
17:54
Speaker 1: and that has actually been done right. People have teleported
17:58
Speaker 1: information about particles across more than a thousand kilometers. They've
18:03
Speaker 1: teleported it up into a satellite in space and back.
18:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say something which sounds incorrect, but and then
18:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you what it means. We can teleport
18:12
Speaker 1: single particles. We can tuport the information about it exactly.
18:16
Speaker 1: We can say I have an electron over here. Um,
18:19
Speaker 1: let me capture all the information about that electron that
18:21
Speaker 1: I need to get another electron over there to be
18:25
Speaker 1: an exactly the same quantum state as you say, which
18:27
Speaker 1: means it's a perfect copy, right, because electrons are all
18:30
Speaker 1: the same. There's no difference between electron number one electron
18:33
Speaker 1: number two, there's no difference between electrons. If I get
18:36
Speaker 1: an electron over there to be an exactly the same
18:39
Speaker 1: quantum state as it was over here, that I can
18:41
Speaker 1: say I've teleported that electron, you copied it, you created
18:44
Speaker 1: an identical copy somewhere else. It's not a copy. Um
18:48
Speaker 1: I've teleported, And the reason it's not a copy is
18:51
Speaker 1: that you can't copy a quantum state. In capturing the
18:54
Speaker 1: information you need to recreate it, you destroy that state,
18:58
Speaker 1: so you can't copy. You can only transfer. Oh what Yeah,
19:04
Speaker 1: so if you want to teleport and electron from here
19:07
Speaker 1: across your living room, you have to give up that
19:09
Speaker 1: first electron. There's no backup copies. And so if you're thinking, hey,
19:13
Speaker 1: teleportation is a great way to make multiple copies of myself,
19:16
Speaker 1: you know I can get all so much work done
19:18
Speaker 1: because I can make ten versions of me, and I
19:19
Speaker 1: can do ten comic strips at a time. It doesn't
19:22
Speaker 1: work because copying the information also destroys the original. But
19:26
Speaker 1: it destroys it not and like it disappears, it's just
19:29
Speaker 1: it collapses the quantum information. It changes it. And exactly
19:34
Speaker 1: if the definition of being you is this arrangement of
19:37
Speaker 1: quantum states of all the particles in your body, then
19:39
Speaker 1: it changes those states in a way that's no longer
19:41
Speaker 1: you write, oh, I see, so when you hear the
19:44
Speaker 1: words quantum teleportation, It actually doesn't mean that you teleport
19:49
Speaker 1: something using quantum technology. It means that you teleported the
19:54
Speaker 1: quantum information exactly. Information is sent using classical technology. You
19:59
Speaker 1: can get on some drive, you can use a laser,
20:01
Speaker 1: you can use a telegraph, but you're teleporting the information
20:04
Speaker 1: about a quantum particle. Because we're all made of quantum particles.
20:08
Speaker 1: So you want to teleport me, you better teleport all
20:10
Speaker 1: my quantum particles with all their quantum information. And quantum
20:13
Speaker 1: information is different than regular information like ones and zeros,
20:16
Speaker 1: because it's just quantum weird stuff, right, that's right. It
20:20
Speaker 1: follows totally different rules. Right, there's uncertainty you can know
20:23
Speaker 1: this and not that it can be yeah, and then
20:26
Speaker 1: uncertainty is maintained. I feel like physicists pulled a fast
20:30
Speaker 1: one on the public there. You know, they call it
20:32
Speaker 1: quantum teleportation. That's like, that's like that's like telling people, hey,
20:36
Speaker 1: we can do teleportation if we use quantum stuff. But
20:39
Speaker 1: it's really just teleportation of quantum stuff, right, and everything
20:43
Speaker 1: is quantum that it's really just tession. I think you're
20:50
Speaker 1: trying to pull a fast one on us again. But
20:55
Speaker 1: you know, let's make it concrete like people thinking, oh,
20:57
Speaker 1: what does this mean to be an electron? Like, instead
21:00
Speaker 1: of an electron, think of like a little black bag
21:02
Speaker 1: that has some marbles in it, and you don't know
21:04
Speaker 1: what the colors are, right, So, because there's always something
21:07
Speaker 1: hidden about a quantum particle. So you know, say that
21:10
Speaker 1: your electron is a bag of marbles and you don't
21:12
Speaker 1: know how many blues and how many reds are in there.
21:15
Speaker 1: Teleporting the electron means creating another bag in another place
21:20
Speaker 1: that has the same probabilities of red marbles and blue
21:23
Speaker 1: marbles in it inside of it. Inside, So you want
21:26
Speaker 1: to capture the uncertainty of that quantum particle and recreate
21:29
Speaker 1: that uncertainty. Somebody out there is thinking, oh, but you
21:32
Speaker 1: can't measure everything about a particle and then copy it.
21:34
Speaker 1: The quantum mechanics says you can't. You're right, quantum mechanics
21:37
Speaker 1: says you can't. You can't measure the speed and position
21:39
Speaker 1: of a particle and recreated somewhere else. That's impossible, and
21:42
Speaker 1: that's not what you want. What you want to do
21:44
Speaker 1: is copy the uncertainty of the particle and copy that
21:47
Speaker 1: uncertainty somewhere else. So, like a random electron that I
21:50
Speaker 1: have here and a random electron you have over there. Um,
21:53
Speaker 1: they have different uncertainties. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so then the
21:58
Speaker 1: goal is, like, how do I make my tron have
22:00
Speaker 1: the same uncertainty as your electron over there, because you
22:04
Speaker 1: can't just like look at uncertainty. If I look at
22:06
Speaker 1: the uncertainty, it's no longer uncertain that's right. If you
22:09
Speaker 1: open Shortinger's box, you find out if the cat is
22:12
Speaker 1: dead or alive. That's not what you want. If you
22:14
Speaker 1: have a box with the catinet that has a seventy
22:16
Speaker 1: percent chance of being alive and you want to teleport
22:19
Speaker 1: that box, what you want to do is create another
22:21
Speaker 1: box somewhere else with the same chance of being alive
22:23
Speaker 1: or dead. You don't want to open the box and say, oh,
22:25
Speaker 1: it's dead, build a dead cat over there, right, that's
22:29
Speaker 1: not what you want to do, And I transport the
22:30
Speaker 1: same unopened box with the same uncertainties. Yeah, it's like,
22:34
Speaker 1: we're all sure than in your box. But what makes
22:36
Speaker 1: me unique is the probability that the cat is going
22:39
Speaker 1: to be alive or than inside of my box. And
22:41
Speaker 1: to copy myself over there, it means I have to
22:43
Speaker 1: create a box over there with the exact same probability
22:46
Speaker 1: is my box. The Daniel box is different than the
22:48
Speaker 1: whore hip box. That's right, different dead cats inside Daniel's
22:53
Speaker 1: sum up, which you just think. And so that's what
22:58
Speaker 1: quantum teleportation of a single particle means, right, And and
23:03
Speaker 1: how you do it is pretty tricky, encounterintuitive. You can't
23:06
Speaker 1: use um classical ideas to do it because it's not
23:09
Speaker 1: a classical thing, right, And I want to talk about
23:12
Speaker 1: that some more, but first let's take a quick break. Okay,
23:27
Speaker 1: So how would describe the experiment with the one you
23:30
Speaker 1: said they beamed the space and back. Yeah. So the
23:32
Speaker 1: way you do it is you use something called quantum entanglement, right,
23:36
Speaker 1: And as we said before, particles can have uncertainty, right, say,
23:40
Speaker 1: you know, electron is a seventy chance of being this
23:42
Speaker 1: and a thirty percent chance of being that, right, And
23:43
Speaker 1: so what you want to do is transfer that for information,
23:46
Speaker 1: not uncertainty, somewhere else. And the way you do it
23:48
Speaker 1: is by entangling two particles. Entangling means that the particles
23:52
Speaker 1: are related, right, like that the probabilities for them to
23:55
Speaker 1: be one thing or the other are connected to each other. Say,
23:58
Speaker 1: for example, you only have one red marble and one
24:00
Speaker 1: blue marble, and you don't look at them, but you
24:02
Speaker 1: put them in different bags. Now, if you look in
24:04
Speaker 1: one bag and you see it's red, you know instantaneously
24:07
Speaker 1: the other one has to be blue. Right, Or if
24:09
Speaker 1: you looked into one bag and it was blue, the
24:11
Speaker 1: other one has to be red. So these two bags
24:13
Speaker 1: are entangled because you know there's only one red and
24:15
Speaker 1: one blue, because there you created a process that ties
24:18
Speaker 1: them together, Like you created a rule that says, if
24:21
Speaker 1: this one's red, then deal one has to be blue.
24:23
Speaker 1: That's what you mean by entanglement exactly. That's right. So
24:26
Speaker 1: now say you have one red marble one blue marble.
24:28
Speaker 1: You don't look at them, but you put them in
24:29
Speaker 1: different bags. You take one to China, right, and one
24:33
Speaker 1: you live here in the US. Then you know instantaneously
24:36
Speaker 1: something about the one in China, even if it's really
24:38
Speaker 1: really far away. So like you know, you know before
24:41
Speaker 1: I know what's in my bag, that's right, yeah, And
24:44
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how far away I am. Right, instantly,
24:47
Speaker 1: I know you're thinking, all right, but it was either
24:50
Speaker 1: red or blue the whole time, right, it's just about
24:52
Speaker 1: what you know. That's true. For the marbles, but in
24:55
Speaker 1: the case of quantum particles, they exist in these superposition estates,
24:58
Speaker 1: which means that they are either red or blue or
25:01
Speaker 1: their red and blue. Whether they're actually red or blue
25:05
Speaker 1: is not determined until you open the bags shrouding yours cat, right,
25:08
Speaker 1: it's both alive and dead with some probability. And so
25:12
Speaker 1: in the quantum version of this, when you open your
25:15
Speaker 1: bag and you see the quantum blue ball, it was
25:17
Speaker 1: either red or blue until the moment you opened the bag,
25:20
Speaker 1: and then it became blue. The other bag, which is
25:22
Speaker 1: now in China really really far away, was also either
25:25
Speaker 1: red or blue. But then when you opened the bag
25:27
Speaker 1: in the US and found that it had a blue ball,
25:28
Speaker 1: the one in China had to be red, and so
25:31
Speaker 1: it went from being maybe both to only being read.
25:34
Speaker 1: And so that's quantum entanglement, right. You have this probability
25:37
Speaker 1: of these things, and then they collapse when you look
25:39
Speaker 1: at one of them, which also collapses the other one,
25:41
Speaker 1: which is really really far away. Essentially the way it
25:44
Speaker 1: works without getting too technical, Matthei, now that one thing
25:47
Speaker 1: you should know have a quantum mechanics is it's always
25:49
Speaker 1: mad because it doesn't make any sense Okay, it just
25:53
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. Like you can't use logic, you can't
25:56
Speaker 1: use your intuition, you can't use common sense to think
25:58
Speaker 1: about quantum mechanics because it doesn't follow a common sense.
26:01
Speaker 1: It only follows the map. You want to teleport the
26:06
Speaker 1: Jorgete cat box to China, you would take two cat boxes,
26:10
Speaker 1: entangled them, ship one of them to China, and then
26:14
Speaker 1: and then do something to them. Right, that's right. Whatever
26:16
Speaker 1: the thing is that you want to teleport, you put
26:18
Speaker 1: that in the box with a cat Okay, you have
26:21
Speaker 1: to entangle that with your set of entangled partners, okay, yeah,
26:26
Speaker 1: and that will cause some information to be transmitted to
26:29
Speaker 1: the other box. So you learn something about the local
26:33
Speaker 1: cat box, and that tells you what you have to
26:35
Speaker 1: do to the other cat box to create the state
26:39
Speaker 1: that you want. So I need like a coreer cat
26:41
Speaker 1: box that maybe talks to my cat box in a
26:44
Speaker 1: quantum way, and then you send that to China, and
26:47
Speaker 1: then you interact that one with the other cat box,
26:50
Speaker 1: and suddenly the original cat boxes are the same quantum
26:55
Speaker 1: mechanically exactly. And there's a critical step there, which is
26:58
Speaker 1: you have to send the information to China because it's
27:01
Speaker 1: not instantaneous. Right, These two objects, these quantum entangled objects
27:06
Speaker 1: are connected via entanglement, and the entanglement does collapse instantaneously
27:10
Speaker 1: when you interact with one. But in order to do
27:13
Speaker 1: the teleportation to recreate the original state that you want
27:16
Speaker 1: in another place, you have to send some information about
27:19
Speaker 1: what happened with your entanglement over there, okay, right, And
27:23
Speaker 1: so that sending of information can't happen happen instantaneously. You
27:27
Speaker 1: beat it with lasers and you send a via pony Express,
27:29
Speaker 1: you do something to get that information over there. You're
27:32
Speaker 1: still limited to the speed of light. So even though
27:35
Speaker 1: quantum teleportation is possible, I mean, you can transmit the
27:38
Speaker 1: information necessary to recreate a quantum states somewhere else, you
27:42
Speaker 1: can't do it faster than the speed of light, okay,
27:45
Speaker 1: which is which is disappointing. So we'll never have instantaneous teleprotation.
27:51
Speaker 1: It's still limited by the speed of light, still limited
27:53
Speaker 1: by the speed of light. Even if we had teleportation,
27:56
Speaker 1: it would still be as slow as the speed of light,
27:58
Speaker 1: that's right, which is, you know, lot faster than l
28:00
Speaker 1: a traffic, but it would still take a long time
28:04
Speaker 1: to get to a neighboring star system. Right, So teleportation
28:06
Speaker 1: solves your traffic problem and your laziness problem, but doesn't
28:09
Speaker 1: solve the problem of trying to get to the stars faster.
28:12
Speaker 1: And then the question is like, what is it like
28:14
Speaker 1: to be you? Why you are beamed information? Right? We
28:18
Speaker 1: talked about the experience of consciousness, right, So you get
28:21
Speaker 1: in the box, you press the button, we decompose you
28:24
Speaker 1: and tangle you, etcetera, etcetera, um and get the information
28:27
Speaker 1: needed to send you to a far away place. But
28:30
Speaker 1: that still takes millennia, right, what is that like? Are
28:33
Speaker 1: you do experience? Do you still make puns even though
28:38
Speaker 1: you're on board this ship? Maybe you make quantum puns,
28:42
Speaker 1: which are sort of funny and not at the same time.
28:45
Speaker 1: Usually kills a cat, always kills the cat. Um. And
28:49
Speaker 1: the other thing is, you know you need something over
28:50
Speaker 1: there to receive it. So you want to teleport things
28:53
Speaker 1: to Alpha Centauri, you have to build a receiving station
28:56
Speaker 1: with quantum entangled particles over there, um, and that you
28:59
Speaker 1: need the phone booth over there exactly. So somebody's got
29:03
Speaker 1: to get there the old fashioned way first and build
29:06
Speaker 1: like a telebrotation receiving station before you can go down.
29:10
Speaker 1: So we'll never have a Star Trek beam like in
29:13
Speaker 1: the movies. Yeah, they were. I was never really clear
29:15
Speaker 1: on that because in Star Trek they need to be
29:17
Speaker 1: in the transporter room to get beamed. But they can
29:20
Speaker 1: get beamed to anywhere, right or from anywhere. So why
29:24
Speaker 1: can't they beam from one place to another place without
29:27
Speaker 1: using the transporter room as an intermediate I never understood that. Well,
29:30
Speaker 1: then Scottie would be out of the job, that's right,
29:33
Speaker 1: probably because that would fix too many of the Okay,
29:42
Speaker 1: So for our listeners sitting in traffic or in the
29:45
Speaker 1: subway or board at work listening to this um, unfortunately,
29:50
Speaker 1: they may might never teleport. I don't know. I think
29:53
Speaker 1: it's I think we should summarize that it is possible.
29:56
Speaker 1: My summary of that is it's possible for non fast,
30:00
Speaker 1: the light teleportation of individual particles. That's been done. It's
30:04
Speaker 1: been done over great distances and over more and more
30:06
Speaker 1: complicated objects. The first thing they did was a photon,
30:09
Speaker 1: and then an electron. Now they've done like an entire atom. Really,
30:12
Speaker 1: so now the question is, yeah, the question is how
30:15
Speaker 1: much can you do right to do this kind of teleprotation?
30:18
Speaker 1: You need to have the quantum state of an object
30:20
Speaker 1: entangled with something else. That's possible for tiny quantum objects
30:23
Speaker 1: like particles, it's harder to imagine how it might work
30:26
Speaker 1: for you know, hamster or a person um. That doesn't
30:29
Speaker 1: mean it's impossible. It's no physical loss thing. You can't
30:32
Speaker 1: do this, but it just sounds extraordinarily complicated and would
30:36
Speaker 1: require a massive amounts of energy. Well, you know what
30:38
Speaker 1: I usually tell my son when he tells me he
30:40
Speaker 1: would love to teleport, I always tell him that teleportation
30:43
Speaker 1: is possible. It just kind of depends on your state
30:47
Speaker 1: of mind. You know, Like this morning, I just teleported
30:50
Speaker 1: from Louisville, Kentucky. You know, technically, I walked into this
30:55
Speaker 1: giant metal box, sat down, I did what I usually did,
30:59
Speaker 1: which was leap right on my emails on my computer,
31:02
Speaker 1: watch some TV. And then the next thing I knew,
31:05
Speaker 1: I was in Los Angeles. You know, like you're just
31:08
Speaker 1: gonna shift your mental state. Um, teleportation is kind of possible.
31:12
Speaker 1: You're saying, if you're not really aware of your surroundings,
31:15
Speaker 1: then it feels a lot like teleportation. Yeah, I mean
31:17
Speaker 1: just kind of reorder the re order the sequence of
31:20
Speaker 1: events in your head. That sounds like a typical dad answer.
31:22
Speaker 1: Was he satisfied with that? Nothing you say is satisfation.
31:27
Speaker 1: But you know, in a way, it's sort of it
31:29
Speaker 1: just kind of depends on your point of view. You know,
31:31
Speaker 1: like if you were sitting in traffic while you were
31:33
Speaker 1: listening to us, you know, you were engaging what we
31:35
Speaker 1: were saying, and then suddenly you were in a different place.
31:38
Speaker 1: So in a way, I feel like teleportation, at least
31:42
Speaker 1: kind of mentally as possible. That's maybe the lesson to
31:45
Speaker 1: you folks out there sitting on the four or five
31:47
Speaker 1: or you know, taking a long walk. Maybe you can
31:49
Speaker 1: use this podcast to teleport yourself from one place to
31:52
Speaker 1: the other so you don't notice the experience of your
31:54
Speaker 1: actual travel. You just get in press play, listened to
31:57
Speaker 1: too hilarious dudes talking about science, and then all of
32:00
Speaker 1: a sudden you're at your destination. Yeah, it's not wasted
32:03
Speaker 1: time if you don't waste it. That's right. Well, I'm
32:07
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and halt my teleprotation research program now
32:11
Speaker 1: because you've solved the problem. Yeah, we saved a lot
32:14
Speaker 1: of cats absolutely. Um. And so until that day when
32:19
Speaker 1: teleprotation becomes an option for you to zip across the valley.
32:23
Speaker 1: I hope you can just enjoy listening to our podcasts.
32:26
Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you so much for listening to this.
32:29
Speaker 1: I hope you get to your destination in a timely manner.
32:41
Speaker 1: If you still have a question after listening to all
32:43
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to
32:47
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,
32:49
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or
32:53
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.