Teleportation accidents

[trekbette]

I read a book with creatures that can teleport. One of the characters warned others not to teleport inside anything solid. That makes sense of course.

My question is kind of morbid. But what would happen to the body of someone who teleported into solid rock. I mean, obviously they would die. But what about their body. The rock is more solid than the flesh. What about displacement? How can (in theory) someone teleport somewhere where there is physically no room for them?

[Calzaer]

Well, your particles might teleport into the nearest empty space, which would be in between the particles of the rock. Or it'd shift the particles of the rock into the empty space between your particles, depending on which set of particles were "bigger" in an electromagetic interaction sense.

So you'd probably have a rock with bits of skin and blood suddenly leaking from the edges.

[Stew]

Originally posted by trekbette
How can (in theory) someone teleport somewhere where there is physically no room for them?



Under almost any condition there would remain lots of "empty space" within even the densest materials. The volume within an atom taken up by the nucleus and electrons is mostly "empty space".

[Rhaedas]

Depends on the "science" you're using to make teleportation possible.

If teleportation was a matter of switching spaces, then the person would die simply from being encased in rock, buried alive.

If it's more a transformation from energy form into matter at that spot (like ST supposedly is) then either the existing matter would likely be forced out of the way atomically to make room for the new atoms, or as Stew mentions, there might be some "mixing" of atomic space, although I'm not sure if that would be possible or what the results would be (a mess either way). Both ways you have more matter suddenly, and even in air, there would be a sudden shock wave, one thing ST doesn't do with their transporters.

Perhaps before the teleportation, you'd have to use some forcefield to create a defined vacuum space, to make sure the atomic mixing doesn't happen.

The simpler and safer method would be the first, where the matter spaces are traded for each other...but of course, we're talking hypothetical physics in all cases.

Added: when the dragons in Dragonrider of Pern go between, I think that's what happens, the cold space of between and the dragon are flipped, leaving a cold area...whatever between is, it acts as a barrier to prevent the sharing of space of atoms.

[Shake]

Originally posted by Stew
Under almost any condition there would remain lots of "empty space" within even the densest materials. The volume within an atom taken up by the nucleus and electrons is mostly "empty space". I think I know what you're getting at and I believe that Rhaedas addresses it pretty well. But what you're saying is true all the time. However, there are other forces at work, otherwise you'd just be able to put your hand through a wall, since both your hand and the wall are, after all, mostly empty space.

IIRC, quantum mechanics suggests that there is a very very small chance of something such as that happening (someone walking through a wall). I'm pretty sure it's been shown mathematically at least, to be possible for a particle to 'tunnel' through a thin layer of matter. Not very probable, but possible. (Someone more qualified to speak on this should probably step in at this point)

[Rhaedas]

Indeed, Shake it's all about the forces inside the atom that make matter "hard". Also, the probability of more or less anything happening, whether it be matter passing through each other, or all the gas in a room suddenly collecting to one side, is never zero, just damn close to it. And that's for each atom...if the chances of two atoms being able to slip through each other is very small, imagine the chances needed for all the atoms in your hand and the wall to correspond and allow the same effect. Might as well be zero... :)

I would like someone who is knowledgeable in energy to matter transformation, such as at a super collider, to tell us how the current understanding is on the process by which the matter "forms". There has to be some steps, right? It isn't a magic, now you see energy, poof, there's matter...or is it so far? That would go a long way in answering the OP, for then we could speculate on what happens when an atom of rock suddenly has the process of matter creation going on right on top or very close to it.

I presume that collisions in an accellerator are done under high vacuum, so the answer to the OP is not an observed thing?

[Marduk]

Electrons repelling each other is what makes things appear ‘hard’ and prevents us from walking through walls etc.

[trekbette]

Originally posted by Rhaedas
Added: when the dragons in Dragonrider of Pern go between, I think that's what happens, the cold space of between and the dragon are flipped, leaving a cold area...whatever between is, it acts as a barrier to prevent the sharing of space of atoms.

This is what I was referring to.

Thanks everyone for clearing this up for me.

[EarlFlynn]

Originally posted by Rhaedas

If it's more a transformation from energy form into matter at that spot (like ST supposedly is) then either the existing matter would likely be forced out of the way atomically to make room for the new atoms, or as Stew mentions, there might be some "mixing" of atomic space, although I'm not sure if that would be possible or what the results would be (a mess either way). Both ways you have more matter suddenly, and even in air, there would be a sudden shock wave, one thing ST doesn't do with their transporters.

Perhaps before the teleportation, you'd have to use some forcefield to create a defined vacuum space, to make sure the atomic mixing doesn't happen.


It's all imaginary science anyway, but in Star Trek: The Next Generation it's implied that something called an "annular confinement beam" serves this purpose.

[Corona688]

Originally posted by Shake
I think I know what you're getting at and I believe that Rhaedas addresses it pretty well. But what you're saying is true all the time. However, there are other forces at work, otherwise you'd just be able to put your hand through a wall, since both your hand and the wall are, after all, mostly empty space.

IIRC, quantum mechanics suggests that there is a very very small chance of something such as that happening (someone walking through a wall). I'm pretty sure it's been shown mathematically at least, to be possible for a particle to 'tunnel' through a thin layer of matter. Not very probable, but possible. (Someone more qualified to speak on this should probably step in at this point) On the microscopic scale, this happens a lot; many electronic components, such as zener diodes and some semiconductor memories, depend on it. On the macroscopic scale, however, such a thing is nigh-impossible - you can't depend on *two* particles doing the same thing at the same time, let alone two trillion.