I'm Right, Aren't I?

[Dog--]

Ok, me and my friend were arguing for an hour, and I just want some clarification.

Before you read, I should tell you that this sounds like another 0.999... = 1 argument. You are warned.


If they invented teleportation, and it used lasers to transfer your atomic properties to another part of the universe, say 1000 light-years away, since you are traveling the speed of light, would you age?

Like, I know you would age, but you do it so slowly it wouldn't even matter, right?

Since it's 1000 light-years away, it'd take you 1000 years to go there at the speed of light, but Einstein (I think) said something like "The faster an object moves, the slower time moves around it", so if your traveling at the speed of light, you'd barely age, am I right, or would you die as a laser before you got to your destination?

I say you wouldn't age, he says you would.

I'm not a math person, so please don't go into some stupidly long and complicated equations about this stuff.

 

[McGooTheWise]

You and your friend should stop being geeks, that'll end your argument real fast.

 

[Viperidae]

Relativity says you would age slower, but time would feel the same to you, only everything outside your 'field' (or whatever, usually the example is a spaceship) would be going much faster. Not sure about mass-energy conversion stuff though.

 

[Kakashi]

Sounds very interesting to think about, but can't really help you much there.

 

[Stigmata]

You wouldn't age at all. You'd be converting your physical body into a binary data-based medium. You wouldn't age because your body, while being teleported, isn't a physical entity.

 

[Muffin Man]

You wouldn't age at all. You'd be converting your physical body into a binary data-based medium. You wouldn't age because your body, while being teleported, isn't a physical entity.

That's what I was thinking. Traveling 1000 light years in a spaceship, however..

 

[Stigmata]

That's what I was thinking. Traveling 1000 light years in a spaceship, however..

Well yeah, in a spaceship you'd age But what Dog-- is talking about is more analogous to the aging of a paperback book versus the aging of a digital PDF file of the same book. No matter how many times you send that PDF file across the universe via laser communications, it doesn't age.

 

[MJ12]

But those particles are what MAKE you a physical entity, so eventually those particles would age, or deteriorate

 

[Top Secret]

But those particles are what MAKE you a physical entity, so eventually those particles would age, or deteriorate

With that logic, a single hydrogen atom in an endless vacuum would eventually deteriorate. Not so.

 

[AntiAnto]

But those particles are what MAKE you a physical entity, so eventually those particles would age, or deteriorate

You are made of the same subparticles (and probably atoms) that were present no longer after the universe was created.

 

[Dan]

At the speed of light, relative time is stopped. So you wouldn't age if you could travel at the speed of light. It would be as though you travelled instantly

 

[MJ12]

With that logic, a single hydrogen atom in an endless vacuum would eventually deteriorate. Not so.

So, your breaking me down to a hydrogen atom? Okay, I might as well be anything then during this "transportation" by a layser beam.

You might as well just collect atoms everywhere and assume you have the components to make a frog.

We have much more to us than just a bunch of atoms, even if it were to reassemble my atoms, what would I have more than that?

There are parts to us that break down, and once those do, all we are left with are atoms that cannot be randomly reassembled to make me again in a different location

 

[Muffin Man]

There are parts to us that break down, and once those do, all we are left with are atoms that cannot be randomly reassembled to make me again in a different location

Says who? 10char?

 

[lame-o]

You mean like a soul?? Not trying to turn this into "RELIGION SUCKS BALLS!" and "NO YOU SUCK BALLS!" debate or anything, but it's possible... though if we do have souls then i think it would take more than the disassembly and reassembly of our physical bodies to get rid of it, cuz that would be very gay. BTW, anyone read stephen king's "the jaunt" from his book skeleton crew? that put me off teleportation.

 

[<RJMC>]

mangos

the answer is mangos,the atomic composition of magos will stop the aging and if you are lucky you may get some superpowers or total erect disfuncionality

so if your choice

 

[lame-o]

mangos

the answer is mangos,the atomic composition of magos will stop the aging and if you are lucky you may get some superpowers or total erect disfuncionality

so if your choice

that was hilarious and of great use to all of our lives. :burp:

 

[Viperidae]

With that logic, a single hydrogen atom in an endless vacuum would eventually deteriorate. Not so.

Actually, atoms do supposedly decay, but at a ridiculous rate. Something like 10^60 years.

 

[lame-o]

arent we carbon based? and carbon's halflife is just a few thousand years, like 40000 i think. not 10^60.. just crossed my mind...

 

[Viperidae]

Er, crap. I meant a different kind of decay, as in literally evaporating, but not emitting radiation.

 

[delusional]

First of all the type of teleportation we are developing, scans your body and the information in every single atom, and in doing so destroys you, and through entanglement, the information is instantly sent to your destination, then you are recreated atom by atom. I'm pretty sure this is even faster than the speed of light as well.

 

[Kula Meenur]

You wouldn't age at all. You'd be converting your physical body into a binary data-based medium. You wouldn't age because your body, while being teleported, isn't a physical entity.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WEEEE HAAAVE AAAAA WINNEEERRR!




Got it in one davo

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

You mean like a soul?? Not trying to turn this into "RELIGION SUCKS BALLS!" and "NO YOU SUCK BALLS!" debate or anything, but it's possible... though if we do have souls then i think it would take more than the disassembly and reassembly of our physical bodies to get rid of it, cuz that would be very gay. BTW, anyone read stephen king's "the jaunt" from his book skeleton crew? that put me off teleportation.

Assuming a soul existed, this is one of those pointless questions that may never be answered, sort of like what happens to the soul during cloning. I would imagine, since the soul isn't physical, it wouldn't break into atoms.
Assuming it doesn't exist, this disccusion is epic fail.

 

[Kester^]

First of all the type of teleportation we are developing, scans your body and the information in every single atom, and in doing so destroys you, and through entanglement, the information is instantly sent to your destination, then you are recreated atom by atom. I'm pretty sure this is even faster than the speed of light as well.

That is correct. It is faster than the speed of light. I won't go into how as it's covered by entire chapters in theoretical physics books and to try summarise it would be like slamming my face into a brick wall covered in shards of glass.

 

[Raxxman]

arent we carbon based? and carbon's halflife is just a few thousand years, like 40000 i think. not 10^60.. just crossed my mind...

Carbon 14s radioactive half-life you're thinking of I believe.

 

[lePobz]

I'm not even going to contribute to this argument for fear of getting rampant facial acne and needing glasses.

 

[Azner]

mangos

the answer is mangos,the atomic composition of magos will stop the aging and if you are lucky you may get some superpowers or total erect disfuncionality

so if your choice

You wouldn't age at all. You'd be converting your physical body into a binary data-based medium. You wouldn't age because your body, while being teleported, isn't a physical entity.

<3 you two

 

[Stigmata]

<3 you two

Just so we're clear, RJMC is the comic relief.

... Right?

 

[Danimal]

He got in fractioned. In case anyone else wants to be a hero.

D:<

 

[Crushenator 500]

It's never happened, so nobody knows, simple as that

You can make estimated guesses all you want, but untill it ever actually happens then that's all it is, guesswork

 

[<RJMC>]

arent we carbon based? and carbon's halflife is just a few thousand years, like 40000 i think. not 10^60.. just crossed my mind...

OMFG

*<RJMC> grabs crowbar and start smacking*

 

[mindless_moder]

it would depend on the nature of the teleportation device. the general theory is that you are scanned and destroyed on one end and then that information is sent over wires or optically (lasers) to a client machine that reconstructs you using resources and the digital information in which case you wouldnt age at all.

edit: somebody already got to this...

 

[cabbs]

Maybe i'm mixing up the definitions of particles/atoms/charges etc, but I have a question:

If your body is destroyed and then recreated using entanglement, would all the electrical signals in the brain be reproduced as well? is it possible for us to teleport in such a way that we dont end up as useless hunks of matter?

 

[The Monkey]

Time stands still when you're moving at the speed of light, so no.

 

[Stigmata]

Maybe i'm mixing up the definitions of particles/atoms/charges etc, but I have a question:

If your body is destroyed and then recreated using entanglement, would all the electrical signals in the brain be reproduced as well? is it possible for us to teleport in such a way that we dont end up as useless hunks of matter?

I would assume so. The electric signals are created by electrons

The problem, I suppose, would be recording and recreating the velocities of all the particles in your body. If the electric signals in the brain somehow got reversed during your reconstruction, your reconstructed self would probably have a seizure and a heart attack.

 

[Kester^]

Relativily yes, it stands still, but only to the observer on the who is not travelling at the speed of light.

But then you have to factor in the fact that perhaps you aren't travelling at the speed of light, and everything else is travelling away from you at that speed. That's where relativity and the speed of light gets confusing.

 

[Sulkdodds]

You wouldn't age at all. You'd be converting your physical body into a binary data-based medium. You wouldn't age because your body, while being teleported, isn't a physical entity.

You're winner.

But to answer the OP question if it was a spaceship instead of lasers (and I'm surprised nobody has said this):

To outside observers, it would look as if the traveller had taken one thousand years to reach his destination. But because of Einstein's theory of specific relativity, it would, for the traveller himself, take considerably less time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Einstein's theory states (to put it simplistically) that the closer one gets to lightspeed, time slows down exponentially for the traveller compared with outside observers. Presumably that would mean that actually reaching the speed of light would...well, stop time completely. So a traveller in a ship wouldn't age.

But the theory involves a number of equations - the correspondance between (outside) time and (inside) time is quantifiable, numerically expressable. Suppose that for a person travelling at half-lightspeed, time slows by half? This'd mean that 1000 lightyears would still take 500 years for him, so he'd die anyway. Thus, if the traveller doesn't hit lightspeed (or if hitting lightspeed doesn't stop time completely for him) then how much he ages is a matter of MATHEMATICS and you need to actually WORK IT OUT. So basically it isn't a pithy, simple hypothetical exercise that you can explain with merely your wits. It's not like the aeroplane-treadmill thing. It requires actual application of actual science - not just you and your friend getting stoned!

We need someone who actually knows about this stuff.