• Question: is it scientifically possible to teleport?

    Asked by anon-270650 on 17 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 17 Nov 2020:

      Not yet, although some physicists are working on it (for photons)

    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 18 Nov 2020:

      My kids ask me this question, we have read about black holes and wormholes, which they have found fascinating, and may be a way to teleport. It’s not my area of science, but if you want to read about how you’d be turned into spaghetti if you got too close you can find more information here:

      https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-where-do-black-holes-lead-to-98557

    • Photo: Matthew Kelbrick

      Matthew Kelbrick answered on 18 Nov 2020:

      Yes, we have teleported very, very, very small things, smaller than even an atom. But we cant yet transport larger things such as humans, and its hard to know if we ever will be able to, but there’s a chance we could.

    • Photo: Christopher Marriott

      Christopher Marriott answered on 18 Nov 2020:

      Hi Alua, a really interesting question!

      As all of the other scientists have said, there are people working on teleporting very small things right now, but teleportation of things like a person would be very difficult. For one thing, people are made up of a lot of different atoms and molecules in a very carefully balanced chemical equation, so the teleporter would have to work absolutely perfectly otherwise we could get very sick coming out of the other end.

      Another problem is the actual transportation of the person, if we teleport the person as a whole then we’d probably have to start bending physics to make the teleport quick (which might be able to be done, but I think we’re a long way off yet!). We could reduce the person to their atoms and molecules and transport them, which would make things a bit easier in terms of the actual teleporting, but then we’d have to put them back together again on the other end which is very complicated indeed! Maybe one day, when we have a broader understanding of the science involved, we’ll be able to teleport, but not any time soon unfortunately.

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