Teleportation is the hypothetical transfer of

matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic parti ...

or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction literature and in other popular culture. Teleportation is often paired with time travel, being that the travelling between the two points takes an unknown period of time, sometimes being immediate. An

apport Apport may refer to: * Apport (paranormal) In parapsychology and spiritualism, an apport is the alleged paranormal transference of an article from one place to another, or an appearance of an article from an unknown source that is often associ ...

is a similar phenomenon featured in parapsychology and

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) b ...

. There is no known

physical Physical may refer to: * Physical examination, a regular overall check-up with a doctor * ''Physical'' (Olivia Newton-John album), 1981 ** "Physical" (Olivia Newton-John song) * ''Physical'' (Gabe Gurnsey album) * "Physical" (Alcazar song) (2004) * ...

mechanism that would allow for teleportation. Frequently appearing

scientific papers : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scient ...

and media articles with the term ''teleportation'' typically report on so-called " quantum teleportation", a scheme for information transfer which, due to the

no-communication theorem In physics, the no-communication theorem or no-signaling principle is a no-go theorem from quantum information theory which states that, during measurement of an entangled quantum state, it is not possible for one observer, by making a measurem ...

, still would not allow for faster-than-light communication.

Etymology

The use of the term ''teleport'' to describe the hypothetical

movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

of material objects between one place and another without physically traversing the distance between them has been documented as early as 1878. American writer

Charles Fort Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold ...

is credited with having coined the word ''teleportation'' in 1931 to describe the strange disappearances and appearances of anomalies, which he suggested may be connected. As in the earlier usage, he joined the Greek prefix '' tele-'' (meaning "remote") to the root of the Latin verb '' portare'' (meaning "to carry"). Fort's first formal use of the word occurred in the second chapter of his 1931 book ''

Lo! ''Lo!'' is the third published nonfiction work of the author Charles Fort (first edition 1931). In it he details a wide range of unusual phenomena. In the final chapter of the book he proposes a new cosmology that the earth is stationary in space ...

'':

Cultural references

Fiction

Teleportation is a common subject in science fiction literature, film, video games, and television. The use of matter transmitters in science fiction originated at least as early as the 19th century. An early example of scientific teleportation (as opposed to magical or spiritual teleportation) is found in the 1897 novel ''

To Venus in Five Seconds ''To Venus in Five Seconds: An Account of the Strange Disappearance of Thomas Plummer, Pillmaker'' is a science fiction satire written by Fred T. Jane, the author of the original ''Jane's Fighting Ships'' and the founder of what would in time be ...

'' by

Fred T. Jane John Fredrick Thomas Jane (6 August 1865 – 8 March 1916) was the founding editor of reference books on warships ('' All the World's Fighting Ships'') and aircraft ('' All the World's Airships'') and the namesake of what would become Jane's In ...

. Jane's protagonist is transported from a strange-machinery-containing gazebo on Earth to planet Mars – hence the title. The earliest recorded story of a "matter transmitter" was

Edward Page Mitchell Edward Page Mitchell (1852–1927) was an American editorial and short story writer for '' The Sun'', a daily newspaper in New York City. He became that newspaper's editor in 1897, succeeding Charles Anderson Dana. Mitchell was recognized as a ...

's "The Man Without a Body" in 1877.

Quantum teleportation

Quantum teleportation is distinct from regular teleportation, as it does not transfer matter from one place to another, but rather transmits the information necessary to prepare a ( microscopic) target system in the same quantum state as the source system. The scheme was named quantum “teleportation”, because certain properties of the source system are recreated in the target system without any apparent quantum information carrier propagating between the two. In many cases, such as normal matter at room temperature, the exact quantum state of a system is irrelevant for any practical purpose (because it fluctuates rapidly anyway, it " decoheres"), and the necessary information to recreate the system is classical. In those cases, quantum teleportation may be replaced by the simple transmission of classical information, such as radio communication. In 1993, Bennett ''et al'' proposed that a quantum state of a particle could be transferred to another distant particle, without moving the two particles at all. This is called quantum state teleportation. There are many following theoretical and experimental papers published. Researchers believe that quantum teleportation is the foundation of quantum calculation and quantum communication. In 2008, M. Hotta proposed that it may be possible to teleport energy by exploiting quantum energy fluctuations of an entangled vacuum state of a quantum field. There are some papers published but no experimental verification. In 2014, researcher

Ronald Hanson Ronald Hanson (born 20 November 1976) is a Dutch experimental physicist. He is best known for his work on the foundations and applications of quantum entanglement. He is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at De ...

and colleagues from the Technical University Delft in the Netherlands, demonstrated the teleportation of information between two entangled quantumbits three metres apart. In 2016, Y. Wei showed that in a generalization of quantum mechanics, particles themselves could teleport from one place to another. This is called particle teleportation. With this concept, superconductivity can be viewed as the teleportation of some electrons in the superconductor and

superfluidity Superfluidity is the characteristic property of a fluid with zero viscosity which therefore flows without any loss of kinetic energy. When stirred, a superfluid forms vortices that continue to rotate indefinitely. Superfluidity occurs in two i ...

as the teleportation of some of the atoms in the cellular tube. This effect is not predicted to occur in standard quantum mechanics.

Philosophy

Philosopher Derek Parfit used teleportation in his

teletransportation paradox The teletransportation paradox or teletransport paradox (also known in alternative forms as the duplicates paradox) is a thought experiment on the Identity (philosophy), philosophy of identity that challenges common intuitions on the nature of se ...

.Peg Tittle,''What If...: Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy'', Routledge, 2016, , pages 88–89

Etymology

Cultural references

Fiction

Quantum teleportation

Philosophy

See also

References

Further reading