INSIGHTS

We already invented teleportation

It's just not what you were expecting

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash.

I grew up a huge Star Trek fan, running around yelling “beam me up Scotty” to my friends as we jumped out of trees, pretending like we were teleporting out of a spaceship. Then when Galaxy Quest came out, I absolutely loved Tim Allen trying to teleport away from the rock monster only to see the first attempt accidentally turn an alien pig inside out. Needless to say, the satire of teleportation was pretty darn clear.

So over the years, my passion for science fiction has only gotten stronger the more I understand science reality. I mean, the simple fact that I’m typing letters on a screen that mean something to someone on the other side of the world would have been science fiction just a few short decades ago. So where does science fiction end and science reality begin? Or maybe the better question is not where, but when does that transition happen?

Teleportation is a reality today

For me, the science fiction to reality transition happened recently when I realized we have already invented teleportation. It just isn’t what I was expecting from my Trekkie perspective. We’ve had the ability to ship ideas around the world at the speed of lights for a few decades now, and once those ideas were…