Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what gave? What's that mango? Did you know that?
Speaker 1: The word teleport was actually in use as far back
Speaker 1: as the late nineteenth century, But it was not a
Speaker 1: verb back then, it was a noun. A teleport was
Speaker 1: a hypothetical device that could carry a person's atoms from
Speaker 1: one place to another in the blink of an eye.
Speaker 2: So this was in an old sci fi novel or something.
Speaker 1: Surprisingly not so, the word popped up in an Australian
Speaker 1: newspaper blurb published in eighteen seventy eight, just a couple
Speaker 1: decades after the invention of the telephone. So at the
Speaker 1: time the wonder of wire transmissions was still fresh in
Speaker 1: people's minds, and to capitalize on that, someone wrote this
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek article heralding the next technological breakthrough. The
Speaker 1: anonymous writer claimed to have read in a Bombay newspaper
Speaker 1: that scientists in India had successfully transported both a dog
Speaker 1: and a human boy Adam for Adam, through a wire
Speaker 1: and then reassembled them on the other end.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well, I feel like the question everyone's asking is
Speaker 2: did they go through together or separately.
Speaker 1: I love where your head's at, and the answer is
Speaker 1: both kind of. According to the article quote, a dog
Speaker 1: was placed on the metal disc and a powerful current
Speaker 1: was applied to it. After a while, the animal disappeared
Speaker 1: and was found at the other end of the wire,
Speaker 1: contentedly gnawing a bone, just as it was doing before
Speaker 1: it was transported. Afterwards, a boy was experimented upon, and
Speaker 1: the same effect was observed as with the dog. It
Speaker 1: was then attempted to send the boy and the dog
Speaker 1: along the wire at once, but by an unfortunate accident,
Speaker 1: the infinitesimal atoms of the boy and those of the
Speaker 1: dog got mixed in transit, and the result was that
Speaker 1: they both looked like dreadfully unnatural creatures.
Speaker 2: No, are you sure that's from a newspaper, because that
Speaker 2: is also beat for beat what happens in those fly movies,
Speaker 2: except you know, with Jeff Goldbloom and house Fly and
Speaker 2: like a million times more. Plus it's disgusting.
Speaker 1: So gross, and probably the grossest take on teleportation in
Speaker 1: any of science fiction. But yeah, yeah, this ridiculous story
Speaker 1: got picked up by newspapers across Australia, New Zealand, the
Speaker 1: US as well. And the really funny part is that,
Speaker 1: even after describing the freak accident with the boy and
Speaker 1: the dog, the writer went on to boast that the
Speaker 1: teleport would be able to send people from India to
Speaker 1: England in a matter of minutes, with just a slight
Speaker 1: chance of passengers turning into horrible genetic mutants.
Speaker 2: Sad to say, but I bet there's at least a
Speaker 2: few commuters out there who'd be willing to chance it anyway.
Speaker 2: But you know, I've got to say, Mango, I'm starting
Speaker 2: to think this teleport experiment may not have actually happened. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you're right now. Some of the papers that.
Speaker 1: Ran the story indicated that the claims were likely made up,
Speaker 1: And since there are no dog boy hybrids running around Mumbai,
Speaker 1: at least none that I've seen, it is safe to
Speaker 1: say that the teleport was just a big hoax. Now,
Speaker 1: the real question is whether it could ever be more
Speaker 1: than that. In other words, is teleportation actually possible? And
Speaker 1: if so, how close are we to being able to
Speaker 1: do it? And that's what we're going to spend this
Speaker 1: episode trying to figure out.
Speaker 2: So let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to part time genius. I'm
Speaker 1: Mongish particular, and today I am joined by my friend
Speaker 1: and fellow sci fi fan Gabe lucy A.
Speaker 2: Now Will's Adams got a little mixed up in the teleporter,
Speaker 2: so most of them couldn't be here get that stor today.
Speaker 1: But over there in the booth is our friend and
Speaker 1: producer Dylan Fagan, who's wearing one of his signature on
Speaker 1: them T shirts. This one says my other car is
Speaker 1: a teleportation chamber, which I think actually raises more questions
Speaker 1: than it does answers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mean, like, why would anyone put that on
Speaker 2: a T shirt instead of a bumper sticker? Exactly? We
Speaker 2: don't even know what his first car.
Speaker 1: Is, But the bigger question is who.
Speaker 2: Needs a car if you can teleport?
Speaker 1: Right? Personally, I don't think I'd ever get behind the
Speaker 1: wheel again. I mean, for me, I'm recording this from
Speaker 1: Munich today. I took a flight to Amsterdam, and then
Speaker 1: a flight to Munich and then a bus ride to
Speaker 1: this lovely town where this conference is being held. But honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm so sleep deprived and I would have loved to
Speaker 1: have just teleported here.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I feel like you are the prime candidate
Speaker 2: for this the target target customer. Yeah, I would definitely
Speaker 2: use a teleportation for travel obviously if it were an option,
Speaker 2: but you know, working from home, I don't take that
Speaker 2: many big trips. I'm not a jet setter like you,
Speaker 2: so for me it would it would probably just be,
Speaker 2: you know, teleporting directly into my reserved seat of the movies,
Speaker 2: like just before the credits start, you know. But I
Speaker 2: like that. It's it feels like a real time saver,
Speaker 2: right right, very practical. Anyway, the idea for today's episode
Speaker 2: came from a listener named Asher, who listens to the
Speaker 2: show with his dad and his sister Lily, who is
Speaker 2: also a big fan, and he had one very simple
Speaker 2: question for us, Mango, how close are we to being
Speaker 2: able to teleport? And we didn't know the answer, so
Speaker 2: we decided to figure it out. That is so awesome.
Speaker 1: I love that Asher and his family listen, and I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to be dug into this question.
Speaker 2: Me too. But before we get into the science of teleportation,
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little more about the history
Speaker 2: of the concept and you know, the impact that it's
Speaker 2: had on our imaginations. Now, the idea of a person
Speaker 2: or object traveling instantaneously from one point to another has
Speaker 2: been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and
Speaker 2: while it's impossible to know what gave rise to it,
Speaker 2: back in the day, teleportation wasn't thought about in terms
Speaker 2: of science and technology. It was something that could only
Speaker 2: conceivably happen through the use of magic, and in fact,
Speaker 2: one of the oldest and most famous magic tricks in
Speaker 2: the world the Cups and Balls illusion. It's built entirely
Speaker 2: on the concept of teleportation. Known examples data as far
Speaker 2: back as ancient Greece and Rome in the year three BCE,
Speaker 2: and some historians think it goes back even further to
Speaker 2: ancient Egypt. So I'm sure you've seen this trick, but
Speaker 2: it's the one where the magician places a ball or
Speaker 2: in the ancient Greek's case, pebble, under one of three cups.
Speaker 2: Then they rearrange the cups and invite a volunteer to
Speaker 2: choose which one the ball is under, and the volunteer
Speaker 2: points to what should be the correct cup, only to
Speaker 2: find out that the ball has mysteriously jumped and is
Speaker 2: now under a completely different cup. So voila the magic
Speaker 2: of teleportation.
Speaker 1: You know, I love the cup and Ball trick. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's just delightful sleight of hand. I had
Speaker 1: no idea it was that old. That's crazy, And obviously
Speaker 1: it is really fun to watch, unless someone's asking you
Speaker 1: to bet money on it, and then it's just such
Speaker 1: a ripoff, right. It feels like you can never get
Speaker 1: it right in those cases.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. That's spoken with a suspicious level of familiarity,
Speaker 2: But you are right, yeah, absolutely. Popular variations of the
Speaker 2: trick include several infamous street cons, including shell games and
Speaker 2: three Card Monty, but those depend less on the illusion
Speaker 2: of teleportation. They do like on the player's own delusion.
Speaker 2: You know that the whole thing isn't rigged, which it
Speaker 2: definitely is.
Speaker 1: Well, it may be easy to debunk the Cup and
Speaker 1: Ball's trick and all his crooked cousins, but there are
Speaker 1: some centuries old folk tales and rumors of teleportation that
Speaker 1: are hard to explain. For example, have you ever heard
Speaker 1: the legend of the transported Soldier?
Speaker 2: No, but I very much want to. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's this long running story about a Spanish soldier,
Speaker 1: and this is in the sixteenth century, who fell asleep
Speaker 1: at the Philippines and supposedly woke up in Mexico just
Speaker 1: a few seconds later. Now, it would have taken him
Speaker 1: about two months to make the nine thousand mile journey
Speaker 1: by boat, but according to him, he somehow made the
Speaker 1: trip in a blink of an eye.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I actually think I can explain this one
Speaker 2: pretty easily. You ready for this, he was lying, Oh, that's.
Speaker 3: Just a hunch.
Speaker 1: A very different typ of science than I was expecting
Speaker 1: from that one. But I mean, normally I would agree,
Speaker 1: But in this case, the soldier and his name was
Speaker 1: Gil Perez, he actually wasn't the only witness. So, as
Speaker 1: the story goes, the teleportation happened on the evening of
Speaker 1: October twenty fourth, fifteen ninety three. Perez was stationed in Manila,
Speaker 1: and this was during the early years a Spanish rule
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, and he was stressed out and exhausted
Speaker 1: because the Spanish governor had just been assassinated and at
Speaker 1: the time there was no clear order of succession. So
Speaker 1: that night he dozed off at his post for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, and when he opened his eyes he found
Speaker 1: himself somewhere completely different. The Palace was nowhere in sight,
Speaker 1: and when he asked a bystander where he was. He
Speaker 1: was told he was in Mexico City. Perez was understandably baffled,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't the only one. When some passeng guards
Speaker 1: spotted this frantic guy wearing a Manila uniform, they brought
Speaker 1: him in for questioning, and while Perez explained the situation
Speaker 1: as best he could, the local authorities were not buying it.
Speaker 1: They assumed he was a Spanish soldier who had abandoned
Speaker 1: his post, so they threw him in jail.
Speaker 2: For geez, that is gotta be one of the worst
Speaker 2: possible ways to wake up from a cat nap, like
Speaker 2: just get tossed in prison. But I thought you said
Speaker 2: there were other people who vouched for his story. Doesn't
Speaker 2: sound like anyone in Mexico believed.
Speaker 1: Him so, not at first, but Perez continued to plead
Speaker 1: his innocence from his jail cell. He told the guards
Speaker 1: about recent events in the Philippines, including how the governor
Speaker 1: general had just been assassinated.
Speaker 2: Now, unfortunately, the.
Speaker 1: Guards had no way to corroborate his claim. News traveled
Speaker 1: really slowly back then, right, and the next Spanish ship
Speaker 1: from the Philippines wasn't due to arrive for several months. Now,
Speaker 1: it's unclear exactly how long Perez spent in prison. Some
Speaker 1: sources claim it was two months, others say it was
Speaker 1: over a year. But whatever the case, a Spanish galleon
Speaker 1: eventually arrived in Mexico from Manila, and when the soldiers
Speaker 1: on board reported that the Governor General had been killed,
Speaker 1: local officials sent for their strange captive. Not only did
Speaker 1: the visiting soldiers confirm every single detail of press as
Speaker 1: a story, some of them even recognized him as their
Speaker 1: former comrade, which is insane. Right, there was still no
Speaker 1: explanation for how he'd wound up in Mexico, but now
Speaker 1: his identity was actually verified, So he was released from
Speaker 1: prison and allowed to sail back on the next shift
Speaker 1: to Manila.
Speaker 2: Oh and you just know, the whole way Perez was
Speaker 2: bragging about, you know, how much faster it was to teleport.
Speaker 2: He probably drove the crew crazy, but I'm sure. But
Speaker 2: all right, obviously, the big question here is whether any
Speaker 2: of this actually happened. My vote is still no, right,
Speaker 2: But is there any proof? No?
Speaker 1: I mean, it is true that the Governor General in
Speaker 1: Manila was assassinated that year, and his death led to
Speaker 1: confusion over the chain of command. But yeah, beyond that,
Speaker 1: there aren't many details to go on. The legend of
Speaker 1: the teleporting Spanish soldier didn't appear in print until sixteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, and that was a little over a century
Speaker 1: after it supposedly happened. It was published by a Spanish
Speaker 1: clergyman and historian in a book called Conquests of the
Speaker 1: Philippine Islands, and the count was said to be compiled
Speaker 1: from interviews with witnesses who had met Perez firsthand, though
Speaker 1: you know, of course, there's no way to verify that now.
Speaker 1: From there, though, the legend was recounted in dozens of
Speaker 1: books and short stories, including one by Washington Irving, who
Speaker 1: you know is the famous American author who wrote Sleepy
Speaker 1: Hollow Course. In most versions of the tale, Perez experiences
Speaker 1: what you might call spontaneous teleportation, but a more modern
Speaker 1: theory is that he slipped into a fugue state, experienced
Speaker 1: temporary amnesia while traveling to Mexico, and then woke up
Speaker 1: with no idea of how he got there or how
Speaker 1: much time had passed. And I guess that's the more
Speaker 1: plausible but certainly the less fun explanation.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of fun. After we take a quick break,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you a little bit more about
Speaker 2: spontaneous teleportation, which isn't real, and quantum teleportation, which is real.
Speaker 2: And let's just say there's a musical number involved, so
Speaker 2: don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking teleporting.
Speaker 2: Now, a quick reminder that.
Speaker 1: We'd love it if you subscribe to the show on
Speaker 1: your favorite podcast app. You can leave us a nice
Speaker 1: rating and review. We won't stop you from doing any
Speaker 1: of that. And if you're enjoying this episode, em it
Speaker 1: over to a friend. So, okay, Gabe, talk to me
Speaker 1: about spontaneous teleportation, because you said those words and I
Speaker 1: have no idea what they mean, but it sounds pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's pretty much what happened to the teleporting Soldier.
Speaker 2: And it's obviously a very different concept from you know,
Speaker 2: the orderly, intentional kind of teleportation, like when someone asks
Speaker 2: to be beamed up on Star Trek. But as far
Speaker 2: as I can tell, this weirder spontaneous type of teleportation
Speaker 2: what us the first one to gain ground in the
Speaker 2: public consciousness. The person widely credited for the introduction is
Speaker 2: paranormal enthusiast and author Charles Fort. In nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 2: he released a bizarre non fiction book called Low, in
Speaker 2: which he argued that various high profile missing person cases
Speaker 2: and other strange occurrences like frogs and fish falling out
Speaker 2: of the sky were proof of a cosmic joker. That's
Speaker 2: what he called it. You know, this force that would
Speaker 2: spontaneously teleport people and animals for its own amusement.
Speaker 1: So anytime a soaka is missing in a dryer, you know,
Speaker 1: or I can't find my car keys, that is I
Speaker 1: guess a cosmic joker striking again.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So I am curious.
Speaker 1: Though the eighteen seventy eight article I mentioned at the
Speaker 1: top of the show coined the noun teleport, So is
Speaker 1: Charles fourth the one who came up with the full
Speaker 1: term teleportation?
Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, he did. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: while laying out the aim of his book, Fort wrote quote,
Speaker 2: I shall specialize upon indications that there exists a transportory
Speaker 2: force that I shall call teleportation. I shall be accused
Speaker 2: of having assembled lies, yarns, hoaxes, and superstitions. To some
Speaker 2: degree I think so myself. To some degree I do not.
Speaker 1: That is so mysterious, and I love that he just
Speaker 1: can't commit to whether he himself is is assembling lies
Speaker 1: and yarns and hoaxes.
Speaker 2: Right, but you said.
Speaker 1: Some people were actually swayed by h by this anyway.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how much stock people put
Speaker 2: in the whole cosmic joker theory, but you know, the
Speaker 2: book did get a rave review in the New York
Speaker 2: Times and quickly sold through two printings, and from that
Speaker 2: point on, teleportation, both the word and the concept became
Speaker 2: much more prevalent.
Speaker 1: It is so funny to me that these early uses
Speaker 1: of the word, though, like that they came from sources
Speaker 1: that were essentially nonfiction, right. Like, I'm not saying the
Speaker 1: readers believe these accounts, but they seem to at least
Speaker 1: found them plausible. Like it's not sci fi that that
Speaker 1: in the way that people are talking about this.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so let's play Devil's Advocate. You know, you
Speaker 2: said that the article about the teleport came out in
Speaker 2: the wake of the telephone, right, so I could imagine
Speaker 2: someone hearing that story and thinking, Hey, if science did
Speaker 2: something as seemingly impossible as sending a person's voice over
Speaker 2: a wire, then why not the entire person. That's interesting.
Speaker 2: It probably just seemed like, you know, a difference of degrees,
Speaker 2: first the telegraph, then the telephone, and now the teleport.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's honestly how a lot of us
Speaker 1: still think of teleportation, right, Like nowadays, we're mostly familiar
Speaker 1: with the concept through sci fi stories and also fantasy.
Speaker 1: Harry Potter certainly essentially teleports, but that hasn't stopped us
Speaker 1: from assuming the technology.
Speaker 2: Will actually exist, right.
Speaker 1: And that's probably because we've watched so many futuristic ideas
Speaker 1: graduate from science fiction to actual science over the last century.
Speaker 1: You think about like space shuttles or video watches or
Speaker 1: three D printing or the Internet. You know, all these
Speaker 1: things show up on the Jetsons and sci fi and whatever,
Speaker 1: Like why not teleportation too?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm that first article you talked about made a
Speaker 2: pretty great case for why not teleportation? Like it's nice
Speaker 2: to be entirely human and not part dog. But I
Speaker 2: know what you mean, Like, on some level we figure
Speaker 2: that teleportation must be something that scientists are actively working
Speaker 2: toward and you know, will eventually figure out one day.
Speaker 2: But the reality is that's probably not the case, or
Speaker 2: at least not in the way most of us think.
Speaker 1: Is this the part where you let us all down
Speaker 1: by explaining, pasim that actual teleportation isn't real and never
Speaker 1: will actually be.
Speaker 2: Not exactly. It's more like the part where I try
Speaker 2: to break down some really dense scientific concepts in a
Speaker 2: way that's hopefully both accurate and entertaining. So you are
Speaker 2: going to break our hearts, great, so go for it.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, okay, so when most of us hear the
Speaker 2: word teleporting, we think of physical matter being atomized and
Speaker 2: transferred as energy from one point to another, without actually
Speaker 2: traveling the physical distance between those points. Right, so let's
Speaker 2: call this original flavor teleportation. Sounds delicious, right, Well, the
Speaker 2: trouble is nobody's actually tasted it. You see it advertised
Speaker 2: all over the place, but no stores carry it and
Speaker 2: no one has the recipe. So original flavor is kind
Speaker 2: of a tease it is, yes, But now imagine there's
Speaker 2: a new, totally different flavor called quantum teleportation, and instead
Speaker 2: of zapping matter from point to point, quantum teleportation deals
Speaker 2: with the transfer of information.
Speaker 1: I feel like quantum sounds like much better branding, right,
Speaker 1: It sounds so much cooler than But if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: teleporting information doesn't sound nearly as fun as teleporting matter,
Speaker 1: like I want to zap myself places, or especially when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I wanted to send my sister
Speaker 1: other places.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, okay, so maybe it's not as tasty a flavor,
Speaker 2: but it is a more satisfying one in my opinion,
Speaker 2: because quantum teleportation is a flavor we can make. It's
Speaker 2: something we can actually do right now. So how does
Speaker 2: this work exactly? Well, it's not the easiest concept to understand,
Speaker 2: but it's basically the transfer of quantum information between two
Speaker 2: physically separate yet quantumly entangled entities.
Speaker 1: I feel like that doesn't clarify a whole lot for me,
Speaker 1: and probably not for our listeners either. What quantum information
Speaker 1: quantum entanglement? So far, this sounds like, you know, just
Speaker 1: as science fiction me as original flavor teleportation.
Speaker 2: All right, fair enough, all right, So let's take it
Speaker 2: slow for starters. Quantum information is related to quantum states,
Speaker 2: which are all the potential properties of a tiny discrete
Speaker 2: system like an electron or an atom. So we're not
Speaker 2: talking about definite values like an electron's fixed location in space.
Speaker 2: We're talking about uncertainties, all the possible places it could be,
Speaker 2: along with other properties like its energy, it's spin, or momentum.
Speaker 1: But wouldn't that change over time, Like if an electron
Speaker 1: moves to a new position or it interacts with another electron,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that create like a whole new set of possibilities?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, And that's what quantum mechanics is concerned with,
Speaker 2: studying how quantum states evolve and change and are measured
Speaker 2: over time. But your question actually hits on the really
Speaker 2: tricky thing about quantum states, which is that whenever you
Speaker 2: measure one, it collapses. A quantum system exists as many
Speaker 2: possibilities at once. The electron is spinning this way and
Speaker 2: it's spinning that way, but the act of measurement basically
Speaker 2: forces the system to choose and settle into a single
Speaker 2: definite state. So the electron is only spinning this way.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: So it's basically like Schrodinger's cat, right, Like when the
Speaker 1: lid of the boxes closed, the cat is both live
Speaker 1: and dead simultaneously, but when you open it, the cat
Speaker 1: is either one way or the other exactly.
Speaker 2: And since it's hypothetical, let's say the cat's alive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are a whole bunch of cat lovers on
Speaker 1: this podcast, So I think that makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: except for.
Speaker 2: Will He could go either way on that. Well he's
Speaker 2: not here today.
Speaker 1: So quantum states are weird and confusing. I feel like
Speaker 1: we got to that fit. But what was the other
Speaker 1: phrase that you use? Quantum entanglement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's even weirder, but also hopefully a little more intuitive.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: According to space dot com, quantum entanglement is when two
Speaker 2: sub atomic particles become linked in such a way that
Speaker 2: their properties remain connected no no matter how far apart
Speaker 2: they are. So, for example, the basic unit of quantum
Speaker 2: information is a quantum bit or cubit. So say you
Speaker 2: mingle two particles together and the cubits that determine their
Speaker 2: directions become entangled. Now, even if you moved one of
Speaker 2: those particles to the opposite end of the universe, those
Speaker 2: cubits would still be linked together on a quantum level.
Speaker 2: And that means that if one of those particles undergoes
Speaker 2: a change, Let's say you bump it and it starts
Speaker 2: pointing north, then the other linked particle way on the
Speaker 2: other side of the universe will instantaneously point north. Two,
Speaker 2: even if they're separated by billions of light years, Altering
Speaker 2: one entangled particle will change the characteristics of its twin.
Speaker 2: That's really cool. Yeah, And so quantum physicists sometimes explain
Speaker 2: this with an analogy they call the Alice and Bob approach.
Speaker 2: And in this framework, there are two particles Alice particle
Speaker 2: A and her ex boyfriend Bob particle B. And even
Speaker 2: though they've you know, gone their separate ways, there's a
Speaker 2: part of themselves they still share together. They're entangled cubits,
Speaker 2: and changes to one of them can change the other.
Speaker 2: I mean that is kind of sweet. But also it
Speaker 2: feels like they need therapy.
Speaker 1: So do we know how this kind of spooky interaction happens? Like,
Speaker 1: how is it that they end up pointing in the
Speaker 1: same direction?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do not know. But spooky is an apt
Speaker 2: description because when this phenomenon was first being theorized, Albert
Speaker 2: Einstein famously dismissed it, and he did so with a
Speaker 2: German phrase that translates to spooky action at a distance.
Speaker 2: He thought the whole idea was laughable because you know,
Speaker 2: it flies in the face of classical physics.
Speaker 1: That's really fascinating, But you said quantum teleportation is already happening, right,
Speaker 1: So was Einstein.
Speaker 2: Wrong on that one? He was? Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 2: in recent years, researchers have been able to demonstrate quantum
Speaker 2: teleportation at aggressively greater distances. We haven't sent any entangled
Speaker 2: cubits to the far side of the universe yet, but
Speaker 2: we have teleported quantum information between two clouds of gas
Speaker 2: across the bottom of the Danube River, and even from
Speaker 2: Earth to a satellite in space. And while it's hard
Speaker 2: to imagine many practical uses for this kind of technology,
Speaker 2: it could allow quantum computers to transmit sensitive information much
Speaker 2: faster and more securely than they ever could through traditional methods.
Speaker 2: That is really cool. So could this replace Wi Fi?
Speaker 1: Like, I know WiFi has gotten pretty fast, but like,
Speaker 1: if quantum teleportation is instantaneous, it feels like that would
Speaker 1: be even better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, let's not get ahead of ourselves,
Speaker 2: because remember, you have to measure something to determine its
Speaker 2: quantum state. So if I manipulate an entangled particle to
Speaker 2: make it point north, I then have to perform a
Speaker 2: specific mathematical measurement to make sure I achieve my goal
Speaker 2: and not only that, I have to repeat that same
Speaker 2: measurement on the other entangled particle, you know, to confirm
Speaker 2: that it's also now pointing north. So in other words,
Speaker 2: you still have to pass along directions on how to
Speaker 2: perform that necessary measurement, which you would have to do
Speaker 2: through normal means like text or email. Now I know
Speaker 2: I've thrown a lot of heavy science at you, just now, mango,
Speaker 2: So to light the mood, I have a surprise. Mary
Speaker 2: and I reached out to our old pal David Nageler,
Speaker 2: and we said, hey, David, could you write us a
Speaker 2: song that explains quantum teleportation? And you know it's also
Speaker 2: really catchy And David was like, no problem. So he
Speaker 2: sent us this tune about two star crossed particles and
Speaker 2: they're entangled cubits. It's called Sending information, and I hope
Speaker 2: you love it as much as I do.
Speaker 4: Sending in bomage, sending information, I used to call you
Speaker 4: mine something information where not a twine?
Speaker 2: So the prove mald is true.
Speaker 4: Something infirmation, something infirmbation.
Speaker 2: No one on where's the ship sending information?
Speaker 5: And I've never I'll be something information far across the land.
Speaker 4: Something information. You may not understand something information.
Speaker 5: Spooky action ramified something information the metal where you are.
Speaker 5: This is a complex mathematical process that's very hard to comprehend.
Speaker 2: So hold on tight, baby of you. Then value the
Speaker 2: sign of zero or a one for its quantum.
Speaker 5: Stale light zero, And if I'm not afraid I try,
Speaker 5: I'll ride your name across the sky and ring a
Speaker 5: tear to mine malcular.
Speaker 2: Fits for you, my dear.
Speaker 4: Sending infombation.
Speaker 5: Maybe that will make it clean.
Speaker 4: Sending infombation this message that I send, Sending infomdation, sending.
Speaker 5: Infomat you transfer milasia, sending infomba.
Speaker 2: What's mine is yours?
Speaker 5: Not mine?
Speaker 2: Normal sending information when others comment came in, math is
Speaker 2: through the send. I don't know about you, but that
Speaker 2: is hands down the most emotional song I've eard about
Speaker 2: two quantum particles. I've got a feeling those crazy kids
Speaker 2: are gonna be all right.
Speaker 1: What do you think? Yeah, he absolutely nailed a sign, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, quantum teleportation still sounds insane to me. But
Speaker 1: if he keeps Alice and Bob together, I am all
Speaker 1: for it. But I've got to say, Gabe, I am
Speaker 1: not quite ready to let go of the dream of
Speaker 1: original flavored teleportation. We have to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but when we come back, I'll tell you a little
Speaker 1: bit about one last possibility for actually teleporting Matt and
Speaker 1: it involves wormholes. So stay tuned. Welcome back to part
Speaker 1: time Genius. Okay, Gabe. So, the big question of this
Speaker 1: episode is how close are we to making teleportation a reality?
Speaker 2: And so far the answer seems.
Speaker 1: To be not even remotely close unless you count quantum teleportation,
Speaker 1: which most people probably don't. So one thing we haven't
Speaker 1: discussed is why teleportation feels so unlikely Now, the major
Speaker 1: hurdle turns out to be the impossibility of instantaneous travel,
Speaker 1: which goes back to that annoying universal speed limit, the
Speaker 1: speed of light. Now, whether you're dealing with information, or
Speaker 1: solid matter, or even a natural force like gravity, the
Speaker 1: fastest that anything can travel in our universe is the
Speaker 1: speed of li light. And while three hundred million meters
Speaker 1: per second is still pretty fast, it is a far
Speaker 1: cry from instant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's hard to argue with a universal law,
Speaker 2: but you know that means speed of light teleportation is
Speaker 2: still on the table, right. I'm imagining something like a
Speaker 2: tractor beam that could push or pull your body at
Speaker 2: the speed of light, and maybe it could even break
Speaker 2: you down into sub atomic particles like the transporter on
Speaker 2: Star Trek, you know, so that you wouldn't you know,
Speaker 2: weigh as much.
Speaker 1: It is a beautiful dream, give, I've got to admit that,
Speaker 1: But unfortunately we run into a problem, which is that
Speaker 1: nothing with mass can ever travel at the speed of light.
Speaker 1: So even if you're broken apart somehow, your individual particles
Speaker 1: would still have to travel below light speed, and to
Speaker 1: get them moving even that fast would require a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of time and energy.
Speaker 2: You might be able to.
Speaker 1: Move a few particles that quickly, but not all the
Speaker 1: particles in a human body, and it's just never gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Wow, Mangos, such a buzzkill. But I'm just spitballing here.
Speaker 2: But what if you sent a scan of yourself at
Speaker 2: the speed of light?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: We know information can move that fast, So what if
Speaker 2: you measured the exact position of every particle and molecule
Speaker 2: in your body and then scent that information across space
Speaker 2: like as a beam of light. If there was someone
Speaker 2: waiting at your destination, you know, with a big fat
Speaker 2: stack of fresh particles. They could theoretically, you know, follow
Speaker 2: those instructions and reassemble you from scratch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then it's a copy, right, Like, it's not
Speaker 1: the real you. What about the personalities and the memories
Speaker 1: and all the other intangible things that make us who
Speaker 1: we are. You wouldn't get that just by copying the
Speaker 1: arrangement of your molecules. Not to mention that in this scenario,
Speaker 1: the really you doesn't even get to teleport.
Speaker 2: You're stuck at home.
Speaker 1: Whether your jankie clone gets to explore the moons of
Speaker 1: Jupiter or wherever the other character is.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, kind of a raw deal for the
Speaker 2: real me. Plus, you know, I guess the logistics are
Speaker 2: pretty daunting. You'd have to have a body reconstruction machine
Speaker 2: waiting at every location you want to visit, which means
Speaker 2: that somebody you would have to schlep out there and
Speaker 2: you know, the old fashioned way and set up all
Speaker 2: the equipment. I hate to say it, but the deeper
Speaker 2: we drill down, the more it feels like teleportation just
Speaker 2: isn't in the cards for us.
Speaker 1: Well, don't throw in the towel just yet, because there's
Speaker 1: one last option on the table, and that is portals,
Speaker 1: or as some people like to call them, wormholes. So
Speaker 1: if we knew how to open a tunnel through space time,
Speaker 1: we could simply step through it and be immediately transported
Speaker 1: somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, yeah, wormholes. Because you know this episode hasn't
Speaker 2: been confusing enough, let's throw in some more brain melting
Speaker 2: theoretical science while we're at it.
Speaker 1: I know, right, And that's why I called in some
Speaker 1: backup for this one. I reached out to our resident
Speaker 1: particle physicist Daniel Whitson and asked them to give us
Speaker 1: the lowdown on this hail mary approach to teleportation. And
Speaker 1: here's what do you have to say?
Speaker 3: So the other option is much more like teleportation in
Speaker 3: that it actually moves your body, your electrons, those same
Speaker 3: ones that make up you. And that's to say, Look,
Speaker 3: we're going to shorten the distance between here and there. Right,
Speaker 3: we are limited by the speed of light. But what
Speaker 3: if we just opened up a portal. What if we
Speaker 3: connected space time in not a simple way where like
Speaker 3: everything is just next to the thing that's near it
Speaker 3: on the lattice, but there's like a weird connection. So
Speaker 3: this is a wormhole, and in principle, physics says that
Speaker 3: these things are possible, that you can have connections between
Speaker 3: here and there, so that the distance between here and
Speaker 3: there is effectively zero, and I can just like step
Speaker 3: through a portal and boom, I'm at karate practice.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, so there you have it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The key to teleportation, as most of us imagine it,
Speaker 2: is wormholes. Pack your bags and you know, point me
Speaker 2: to the nearest portal. Right, Well, not so fast.
Speaker 1: There is still a lot we don't know about wormholes,
Speaker 1: like if they're even real.
Speaker 3: So we don't know if they exist in the universe naturally,
Speaker 3: we don't know if we could make them artificially. Nobody
Speaker 3: knows how to do it. There's all sorts of problems
Speaker 3: with how you might keep them open, which requires some
Speaker 3: kind of pressure or negative mass or negative energy matter,
Speaker 3: which nobody knows if it exists at all. We're not
Speaker 3: even at the engineering step here. It's like, nobody knows
Speaker 3: that this is possible, but the equations that general relativity
Speaker 3: suggest that it should be. On the other hand, we
Speaker 3: also know general relativity is not the fundamental answer to
Speaker 3: how does the universe work? Because it ignores quantum mechanics
Speaker 3: and everything else. So it could be that when we
Speaker 3: get a better theory, one that merges general relativity and
Speaker 3: quantum mechanics, we discover, oh, wormholes aren't actually allowed in
Speaker 3: the real theory of the universe. So wormholes are a
Speaker 3: fun possibility and they would accomplish what your listener wants,
Speaker 3: but we don't know if they actually can be built
Speaker 3: in the universe. We've never seen one.
Speaker 2: So even the particle physicists are stumped. That's not a
Speaker 2: good sign. But is this something they're working on at least.
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: I asked Daniel that exact question because I told him
Speaker 1: that we have a young listener named Asher who's really
Speaker 1: hoping teleportation could become real one way or another.
Speaker 2: And let's just say he threw the ball back into
Speaker 2: Ash's court.
Speaker 3: In terms of wormholes, this is something people in theoretical
Speaker 3: physics think about, noodle around with. I don't know of
Speaker 3: any big research efforts like actively trying to build a wormhole,
Speaker 3: but definitely something people think about and sort of hoping
Speaker 3: that when we get a theory of quantum gravity it's
Speaker 3: still going to be possible. Absolutely huge open questions here,
Speaker 3: and somebody young with a still flexible brain might be
Speaker 3: the one to crack it all.
Speaker 2: Right, there you go, Asher, teleportation and wormholes could be real.
Speaker 2: It's up to you.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling no one is too thrilled with
Speaker 1: that answer. I mean, I'm not thrilled with that answer
Speaker 1: because I want to teleport and I'm sure Asher does too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, as frustrating as it is that there's
Speaker 2: no clear solution right now, at least we know none
Speaker 2: of it is settled yet. A while ago, no one
Speaker 2: could have dreamed about quantum teleportation, and now we know
Speaker 2: that's real. So maybe the next step is figuring out,
Speaker 2: you know, how to apply it to more than a
Speaker 2: few particles at a time, or connecting the dots to
Speaker 2: harness the power of wormholes. And who knows, maybe Asher
Speaker 2: or Lily or one of our other listeners will be
Speaker 2: the one to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be amazing. Well, thanks again to Asher
Speaker 1: for suggesting this topic. We love hearing from listeners, So
Speaker 1: if you have an idea for the show or a
Speaker 1: question you'd like us to explore, call our hotline at
Speaker 1: three O two four oh five five nine two five.
Speaker 1: That's three O two four oh five five nine two five,
Speaker 1: or you can send us an email at High Geniuses
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can follow us on Instagram and Blue sky
Speaker 1: at Part Time Genius. Big thanks to the incredibly talented
Speaker 1: David Naegeler for writing us yet another song about physics.
Speaker 1: We will link to his music in the show notes.
Speaker 1: It is not normally about physics, but uh, but we
Speaker 1: are thrilled he covered that topic for us. Our friend
Speaker 1: Daniel Whitson's work is all about physics, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: and you should definitely check out my conversation with him
Speaker 1: about his latest book, Do Alien Speak Physics, which is
Speaker 1: a wonderful, wonderful read. Those links are in the show
Speaker 1: notes as well. That does it for today. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with another brand new episode, but in
Speaker 1: the meantime from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a
Speaker 1: production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my
Speaker 1: good pal Will Pearson, who I've known for almost.
Speaker 2: Three decades now. That is insane to me.
Speaker 1: I'm the UTA co host Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Mary Phillips.
Speaker 2: Sandy.
Speaker 1: She's actually a super producer. I'm going to fix that
Speaker 1: in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucyer, who I've also
Speaker 1: known for like a decade at this point, maybe more.
Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is always dressed up,
Speaker 1: always cheering us on, and always ready to hit record
Speaker 1: and then mix the show after he does a great job.
Speaker 1: I also want to shout out the executive producers from
Speaker 1: iHeart my good Pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2: We have social media support from Calypso Rallis. If you
Speaker 2: like our videos.
Speaker 1: That is all Calypso's handiwork for more podcasts from Kaleidoscope
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Speaker 1: from us here at Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening.