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Old Dec19-04, 02:14 PM                  #2
docbill

docbill is Offline:
Posts: 18
The problem is you are simply wrong. True teleportation would not be cloning. In fact the "no cloning" theorem of physics proves it. The question comes down to what is defined as being the same, vs. what is defined as being identical (i.e. an exact clone). Something identical, i.e. a clone, is something with all the same measured properties. Something that is just the same thing is when all the measured and unmeasured properties are the same. For example, in essence every right hand spin electron is a clone of every other right spin electron. You could interchange the electrons and never know the difference. However, spin is not just right handed and left-handed. That is just what we can measure. Depending on our exact measurement, every electron in the universe would produce different results. They are not the same. The idea of a "qbit" is that unmeasured property of the electron.

It turns out you can never determine the value of a qbit, because measuring destroys all but the 0 or 1 property of it. But still they are unique. You also can't make copies of qbit's. You can share a qbit between two objects, but measuring one will also destroy the value in the other. We define an object as being the same if both all the measured properties are identical and the unmeasured properties. It makes sense if you think about it, because what else could we possibly mean by being the same?

Now it turns out the qbit (unmeasured properties) while they cannot be measured, they can be passed from object to object in different states. So imagine if you wanted to "teleport" an electron at the speed of light from the Earth to the Moon. How would you do that? Well your experiment would have a photon interact with the electron in such a way to share pass the qbit to the photon. Now lets say your electron was a right-handed electron. Now all you have to do is intercept your photon when it reaches the moon and pass the qbit to another right-handed electron. You now have an electron with all the same measured and immeasurable properties as the original electron. Ergo, but the definition it is the *same* electron.

Now the question comes if you were to do same trick with something more complicated like a person, would it be the same person? Well naturally the person would not know, but neither would a perfect clone. But by definition it would be the same person, even more identical than if the person had taken a spaceship to the moon, since undoubtedly the person would have noticeably changed from the time they left the Earth and arrived on the moon.

Of course the problem with this idea of teleportation is no process is ever going to be 100% efficient. Some of the photons will be missed by the receivers, or interact with matter along the way. However, you are constantly changing too. The person who was you yesterday is really you today. So in the real world, one might not ask if the person arriving on the moon is the same person, but rather how much change have they undergone in the process. A reasonable standard might be measured in terms of how long of random processes would it have taken to for the same amount of difference to occur. In fact I would expect, someone who was teleported regularly not to loss fidelity like a Xerox, but to instead suffer from similar illnesses that come with old age.

Bill