Instantaneous travel, a staple of science fiction like Star Trek, remains a distant prospect despite decades of imagining its possibilities. While the concept captivates, significant hurdles stand between the dream and reality, according to recent analysis.
Understanding Teleportation
In Star Trek, the transporter is depicted as a device capable of moving people or objects across vast distances without the need for a spacecraft. The process begins with “dematerialization,” converting the subject into an energy pattern, as a Swedish researcher explained in 2023 while studying the language used to describe teleportation. Prior to this, the device must decode and record the unique arrangement of matter comprising the individual, creating a “blueprint” for accurate reconstruction at the destination, added Elizabeth Stanway of the University of Warwick’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2024.
This energy is then transmitted to the target location and reassembled into matter, effectively recreating the original subject.
Beyond philosophical considerations – such as what defines a person’s identity or whether the original must be destroyed to create a copy – teleportation as envisioned presents technological challenges in three key areas: energy, information, and quantum physics.
1. The Energy Problem
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explored the physics of science fiction in his 1995 book, The Physics of Star Trek. In a 2009 interview with Scientific American, Krauss explained that separating the atoms of a person and converting them into an energy stream would require raising their temperature to billions of degrees. Transforming that matter into energy would yield the equivalent of a 1000-megaton nuclear bomb.
Yet, the conversion is even more complex. While Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2, demonstrates the relationship between matter and energy, scientists have discovered that converting matter into energy in a laboratory requires creating or destroying an equal amount of antimatter, according to physicists at the University of Illinois in 2007. Even raising a person’s temperature to billions of degrees wouldn’t be sufficient to transform them into energy, and the inverse problem would arise at the destination.
2. The Information Bottleneck
A crucial step in Star Trek-style teleportation is precisely measuring the location of every atom – and even every particle – that makes up a person. This information would need to be stored and transmitted.
According to Krauss, with current data storage capabilities, this would require a stack of 100-gigabyte hard drives extending one-third of the distance to the center of the galaxy.
Researchers at the University of Leicester calculated the time required to transfer this information and teleport a person in a 2012 article. They considered the size of the human genome, which contains the information needed to rebuild the physical body, as well as the information stored in the brain – essential for replicating personality. They estimated the data transfer would take 4.85 X 1015 years with a bandwidth of 29.5 to 30 GHz, representing 350,000 times the age of the universe.
3. Quantum Limitations
However, one of the most significant obstacles to teleportation comes from quantum physics. To recreate an identical human being at the destination, the transporter would need to know the precise location and quantum state of every particle composing them. But, as Lawrence Krauss observed in 2009, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle makes this impossible.
This principle states that it’s impossible to simultaneously measure both the speed and position of a particle with precision, as explained on Caltech’s website. If every atom in the reconstructed body were placed precisely next to its neighbor at the quantum level, the uncertainty regarding its speed would cause the body to explode in a nuclear reaction within a fraction of a second, Elizabeth Stanway of the University of Warwick pointed out.
This issue was even acknowledged by the writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which premiered in 1987, two decades after the original series. They even invented a “Heisenberg compensator” to address the problem. When asked “how do the Heisenberg compensators work?” by Time magazine in 1994, the show’s science advisor reportedly replied: “They work very well, thank you.”
What About Quantum Teleportation?
Over the past fifteen years, media reports have highlighted advances in quantum teleportation (here, here, and here). However, this isn’t teleportation in the way popularized by Star Trek.
Quantum teleportation is based on the principle of entanglement, a phenomenon where two particles become linked and must be considered as a single system, even when separated by vast distances, as explained by Caltech.
Using this principle, physicists successfully transferred the polarization of a photon to another photon in 1997, after they had been entangled. This involves teleporting information, not matter, according to the National Science Foundation in 2020, and currently works only with particles, as Krauss noted in 2009.
The Verdict
Fundamental technological challenges prevent the development of teleportation devices as depicted in Star Trek. And despite the term “quantum teleportation” used by scientists, a solution doesn’t appear to lie within the realm of quantum physics.
