Beam Me Up, Scotty... Uh, On Second Thought...

Scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan have published a paper that basically says, Hey, here's how we can teleport people.

I guess maybe I don’t understand quantum physics as well as I should. Seems to me, what they are doing is not so much teleporting as they are faxing. That is, they are sending info across a distance, but the original info still exists.

So what happens to my real body when I teleport from the deck of the Enterprise down to the surface of Risa? (And let’s not even talk about what the definition of real is. Or whether my soul is duplicated at the same time my body is. Or whether this new copy-body is me or someone else. Or how well the fax machine in my office works.)

Let’s just talk about the actual, physical, original body. What happens to that when the copy-body shows up on Risa? Is the original destroyed in the process? (Seems like it would have to be, just to make this thing work.) Or have I just duplicated myself?

Although, as cool as I’m sure all of you think it would be to have two (or more) Patwomans running around, I’m thinking I would just be twice as tired.