Transported Light Years Away, in 10-foot Increments

Marquel, TPVs NYTimes What was that? correspondent, just read in — where else? – The New York Times about Quantum Teleportation. Scientists reported that they were able to teleport quantum information reliably across a distance of about 10 feet. They have no idea what to use it for because 10 feet appears to be the same kind of absolute limit as does the speed of light for material movement.

Marquel loves science. He loves the citric acid cycle and the mnemonic device that helps you learn the spinal nerves (“On old Olympic’s towering tops a Finn and German played the hops” for the olfactory and optic nerves and so on). But quantum mechanics always stumped him because it was so indecisive. And furthermore Marquel understood that teleportation is supposed to avoid the light speed limit because matter isn’t being transported, only its energy, to be reassembled at the destination.

So I went to the lab and talked to one of the experimenters about that very issue.

“Yes,” he said, “that is true of our experiment as well. The information is teleported beyond the speed of light but only ten feet.”

I looked disappointed and said, “that’s disappointing.”

“But it’s quite a ride,” he said.

“You did it?” I asked. He nodded.

“What did it feel like?” I asked, excited again.

“Very fast.” He said. “Like I was traveling beyond the speed of light.”

“But only ten feet,” I remarked.

“Yes,” he said. “From there,” pointing to a lab table, “to there” pointing to a table in the next room.”

“You passed through a solid object!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, assuming I went in a straight line  we really don’t know and I felt nothing. It was instantaneous.”

I examined the wall and it appeared undisturbed. This was amazing.

“What are you going to do with this?” I asked.

“Well, that’s the problem,” he admitted. “We have some investors and they want to see some results.”

“What could you show them?” I asked.

“Well, I could move them ten feet.” He said.

“Do you think they’ll see any profit in that?” I asked.

“Exactly, that’s what we’ve been beating our heads over.” We’ve come up with some ideas, but a lot of the experimentation has been a bit hazardous.

“For instance,” I asked.

“Well, when we didn’t know it was limited to ten feet, we tried to teleport one of the lab assistants from here on the second floor, down to their on the grass,” he said pointing to a rather nice garden right in front of the lab window.”

“So did he get hurt on the window?” I asked.

“Not at all.” he said. “But it’s more than ten feet to the grass. He materialized about six feet over the grass, and fell from there.”

“Hope he wasn’t hurt.” I said.

“No,” he said, “just a bit shocked. He wasn’t prepared for that. Lucky the investors didn’t see it.”

“Well, maybe you can eventually teleport people long distances, even to other planets.”

“We can do that already” he said.

“I thought you had a limit of ten feet.” I said.

“Ten feet per application.” He said. “We can put it on continuous, and the object can be transported any distance at all.”

“Then what’s with the ten feet?” I asked.

He looked sheepish. “Well, it’s still the limit, so the object would be transported as many as light years away, but in ten foot increments”

So you’d see somebody’s body appearing and reappearing from here to the moon, every ten feet?”

“Exactly,” he said, “and we’re not sure the human body can take it. That’s tens of thousands of rematerializations.”

“So what are you telling your investors?” I asked.

“We had a meeting. We had to give them something with commercial value. We brought them to Maleficient last night with a portable machine.”

“And what was the point of it?” I asked.

“Well, the line went around the corner. So we put our man at the end and turned on the machine from a car parked at the curb. He jumped ten feet forward. Then we jumped him another ten feet. And another. And another, and finally another.” he said.

“So he was at the head of the line?” I asked.

“No, unfortunately, he was standing in the booth next to the ticket seller. It was rather embarrassing.” he said.

“Maybe you didn’t measure well enough.” I said.

“Exactly,” he confirmed. “We convinced the investors that there was a possibility here. We can’t guarantee the very front of the line because you could end up, once again, in the ticket booth. But we can get you to the third or fourth person in line. People would pay for that.” he said.

“You think so?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t you?” he asked.

“Well, I think once the word got out, people would be wise to the fact that the guy in front of them who wasn’t in front of them a microsecond before, started out at the end of the line about three seconds ago.”

“We hadn’t thought of that. We are just on our second field trial tonight.” he said.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“The Stanley Cup playoffs.” he said.

“Those are rough guys.” I remarked.

“Yes, we are prepared to move the subject back, or even remove him entirely, in case of violence.”

“Wow,” I said. “science can be exciting.”

“But dangerous.” he said.

“Definitely.” I said. “Can you try it on me for the last game?”

“I’ll talk to the investors,” he said.

I thanked him, and leaving, walked right into the wall. Science can be frustrating, too.

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BY MARQUEL