So over the years I've thought of many strange questions related to math, science, and physics, and there are way too many and they all go way too much into depth to all be put into 1 thread so I shall make separate threads for them all when I think of them.

This is my first question which I have been pondering for quite some time...

TELEPORTATION- As humans invent and discover newer ways of doing things and new technologies that change the world, teleportation doesn't seem like it could be that far away. I have read a few articles talking about an experiment where scientists actually teleport a beam of light. Now I'm not quite sure how they know they are teleporting that beam of light or it is a new light coming out, but I'm sure they have ways of figuring that out. But I am curious... what will happen when they get to the point of teleporting matter? Will it just make a copy of the matter and destroy the original? Will it send all of the atoms across some kind of tube to the "other side"? What happens when we have the technology to teleport human beings? What if it just copied our atomic structure and "rebuilds" us on the other side, and disposes of our "original" self? For this I need to go into cloning for a moment (not too long because that is what I am planning to write about for my next theoretical question), lets say we can clone a human but not from birth, that we can physically recreate an exact copy of you. Then imagine that YOU have yourself cloned. Your clone would have the same memories and everything that you have. And you keep living your life out through the clone, while your original self is destroyed? I would be fearful of teleportation in the future. What about people, like me, who believe in God? Are we just really animals and flesh and nothing more or do we have a soul? If we have a soul, is it left behind when we teleport?

So this brings me to my ultimate question for this thread....
When, and if, technology becomes so advanced that we could possibly have portable teleportation machines, what exactly would happened if we put one of the "teleporters" through the one it is connected with?

well, from what i have read in Discover, they have teleported things before. it may have just been light buy i think it was actually atoms too. so that is getting somewhere. i find it depressing that there could be a chance that it would just be a clone and the original destroyed, because that would just seem to take away from the meaning of life. i think that all of us will pretty much be dead by the time teleportation comes commercially (if it every does) so im pretty sure we wont have to worry about it. but our kids might, so copies, i would have to say, wont do. but the article in Discover said it was the same so....maybe it will be us, just moved. that would be pretty darn cool.

Yes you do make a good point, but even if people say it uses the same atoms and doesn't just kill our original, I still would be too scared to go through one of those things... One because I don't like myself being broken down into atoms and being rebuilt by a machine, and two... If you ever saw the movie "The Fly" you would be pretty freaked out too

What is we could create an artificial wormhole just for a few milli/micro seconds, we compress something (for now lets just say a milligram of iron)
and change it to an electrical signal (so we disintegrate it, store the individual atoms/molecules and data) then put it in the wormhole, on the other side the signals containing data will be recognized and reintegrated into the original thing. So this would go well with the stargate thing.
But consider this alternative. It would not require an artificial wormhole so it would be more possible.
A thing lets just say 1 milligram of iron is kept in a clean chamber with 100% vacuum, some wierd ray separates each atom/molecule and turns it into data. We store that data (for example in a RAM chip) and then transfer the data into radio signals, laser signal, infrared etc and it is received on the other side. Extra data stored will allow the receiving unit to change the signals and then store the data temporarily and change the data into the required molecules. The 1 milligram of iron will be copied exactly at th other end, and the original data is destroyed (also possible for a 'stargate' or similar thing).
Before we can start teleporting things, we'll need to create some sort of 'disintegration ray' so that the subject can be disintegrated into individual atoms/molecules and then be transported and/or cloned.
The atoms/molecules will also need to be contained so they don't go 'flying away'.
The cloning process must be perfect or else continued use will result in deformation. The teleportation process must also be perfect to insure that no atoms/molecules are lost during transportation/cloning.
I reckon that teleportation won't be possible for atleast 300 years, and the energy needed will be too much for Earth's current energy generation to handle.

Ah, the good old Star Trek transporter dilema... "If I'm transported with a transporter beam, is it still me?"

That's a hell of a good question... And here's my 2 cents about it...

In order for it to work, we need to have several processes:
1. Scan the life form that needs to be transported
2. Break down the life form, down to the tiniest atoms
3. Store the information of atomic and molecular bonds in some sort of a buffer
4. Send the contents of the buffer to another transporter device
5. Destination device stores incoming data in another buffer
6. Recreate atomic and molecular bonds from a buffer
7. Materialize a life form

Seems pretty simple, but in fact, the hardest part would be storing all that information, and keeping it enough to be sent... Let's face it, atoms are small, and there are I guess googol of atoms inside a human body, and I suppose googolplex bonds between the atoms... And I'm no medical expert, but I'm sure there's something else that needs to be done.

And, let's say we do somehow manage to get around all those technical obstacles, it leaves us with the question: "Is it really me?"
Person materialised with the destination device would be assembled from completely new set of atoms, because, let's face it, sending atoms across some distance would be tricky, so it'd have to be new ones, probably from some storage tank of a sort. So, technically, it wouldn't be you that's materialised, only a copy of you... And then, another question pops-up: "Who prevents operators of the devices, to create multiple copies of me?" Now that would be a tricky one, running into yourself in a trasnporter room...

This certainly is a subject that has many, many questions, and yet, very little answers, or at least, little practical, it's still all pretty theoretical... And I'm more of a practical person

But, if they do invent the transporter in my lifetime, I'll sure as hell use it, because I'm too lazy to go somewhere with my own feet

I have heard that in the Bermuda Triangle, there is a strange cloud that may actually be a wormhole. There is a man who flew a plane through it. He claimed that it opened up, and he could see the other side. The inner tube of the cloud was spiraling around the plane. While inside, the exit of the cloud seemed to be a mile away, then he suddenly felt much lighter and felt a sense of acceleration, then the exit was only a few feet away. Maybe we could use the technology of the cloud to make some sort of device.

This all comes down to the simple question, what is intelligence. Is our ability to think based on certain reactions between atoms in our brains, or is there something else (a soul) that actually makes decisions. If all of our actions are predetermined, then what gives the feeling that we are controlling ourselves? If everything is just based on chemical bonds, then I guess simply moving someone from one location to another instantly would keep the person's previous thoughts, even if it was not 'the same person'. In fact, how do we know that we are living at all? For all you know, you mind could be fabricated to make you think that you have already lived that many years of your life, but you could have in reality been born only seconds ago.

So, your question is, if there are two teleportation terminals, 1 and 2, what would happen if we put terminal 1 into terminal 2?

First of all, this has to be possible (i.e. terminal 1 has to be smaller than terminal 2). Second, if we do turn it on, whatever is in terminal 1 will fall into terminal 2. Therefore, you have to put something into terminal 1 before it will appear in terminal 2. So, I'm guessing the answer is: nothing.

Now, if you're talking about portal holes, like the ones in Portal, that's a different question. After the game, let's name the two portals Blue and Yellow.

You're asking what will happen if we put Yellow into Blue. Well, First that has to be possible. Let's say Blue is on one tablet (tablet 1), and Yellow is on another (tablet 2). You're asking what would happen should we insert tablet 1 into Yellow.

So, if we insert tablet 1 into Yellow, it would have to come out of blue, the portal that the tablet is situated on. So, the tablet basically comes out of itself. But it's still in the portal, so I'm guessing that if you looked into the portal, you'd see an infinite number of regressively smaller tablets protruding out of an infinite number of regressively smaller Blue portals.

What do you think?