It's a tongue-twister, and it can get messy, but "quantum entanglement" may one day make it possible to teleport people across the galaxy faster than the speed of light. And it won't happen like Star Trek, with people beaming from one place to another. Rather, it involves quantum mechanics in which atoms in different places can take on the properties of the other. Two electrons placed close together "vibrate in unison," theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explains to NPR. If you separate them by a galaxy, and vibrate one, "somehow on the other end of the galaxy the other knows that its partner is being jiggled."
Now University of Maryland scientist Christopher Monroe has successfully "entangled" atoms in this way some three feet from one another. The idea is that one of the atoms could inherit all the properties of the other and "become" that atom faster than the speed of light. The problem with doing this on people? "You have to be destroyed in order to have your body teleported," explains Monroe. "So if you've been destroyed and teleported, then who is that person there? They have the same memory, the same jokes, except the original was destroyed in the process of being teleported." For more on this mindbender, click here.
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