What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: Teleportation
This week people are getting teleportation wrong. A common science fiction trope, teleportation is the transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without crossing the physical space between them. Widely repeated allegations of teleportation have arisen since at least 1583, when occultist John Dee is said to have disappeared from his home in England and reappeared at the same time in Prague. The most recent report comes from Gregg Phillips, who was named head of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery in December.
In a January episode of Ahead podcast, Phillips said, “I was with my boys once, and I was telling them I was going to go to Waffle House… it was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House about 50 miles from where I was… they said, ‘That’s no way, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.
Teleportation is quite common among Phillips. He recounted another instance where he and his car were teleported 40 miles into a ditch near a Baptist church. “Teleportation is no fun,” Phillips concluded. Phillips, unfortunately, doesn’t control teleportation, or he could use it in his work.
Some explanations for people claiming to have teleported
There are a number of possible explanations for Phillips’ story that aren’t “he’s crazy” or “he’s lying.” About 10% of people report having had an out-of-body experience, the sensation that their consciousness has separated from their physical body. According to a study published in the British Medical Journal, OBEs are often linked to a problem in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), the part of the brain that integrates sensory information to orient you in space. If the TPJ is disrupted – through exhaustion, stress, or biological causes like epilepsy or migraines – a sensory “misfire” can result, in which you no longer feel anchored to the physical space your body occupies. This isn’t teleportation, but it might feel like teleportation if it happens to you.
There might be a less esoteric explanation for Phillips’ teleportation: “road hypnosis.” Almost everyone can understand that your mind “checks” while you do something repetitive; during a long car trip, you suddenly realize that you have driven 50 miles with no memories. “Getting out of it” can feel like you’ve teleported, as you suddenly find yourself in a new location with no conscious memory of how you got there, and this could explain the fact that Phillips’ car appears to teleport with him.
Another possible cause: microsleep, a sudden and temporary episode of sleep or drowsiness during which an individual does not respond to sensory stimuli and loses consciousness. Drowsy driving is responsible for more than 600 deaths a year in the United States and could explain his end in a ditch in front of a Baptist church with no memory of how he ended up there.
OK, but what if was teleportation?
None of this takes all of Phillips’ story does account for some, however. He said he left his house and then suddenly found himself 50 miles away, much to the surprise of his family who confirmed he “just left here a moment ago.” So it was teleportation?
No one can prove otherwise, but, like historical claimants John Dee, Gil Perez, Heraldo Vidal and everyone else who has ever claimed to have teleported, there were no reliable witnesses to Phillips’ improbable travels. No one saw him disappear and no one saw him appear at Waffle House. There’s no other evidence either, so I’m safe to say that it’s extremely unlikely that Mr. Phillips teleported, but let’s explore the possibility.
The only (sort of) exception: quantum teleportation
Teleportation is possible in the quantum world. In the realm of small things – atoms, electrons, photons, etc. – the laws of classical physics do not work. Light can be a particle and a wave, theoretical cats can be alive or dead, and the cause and effect we take for granted is a roll of the dice. It’s a mess, but a mess that allows for a limited type of teleportation.
Quantum teleportation is a method of instantaneously transmitting information using two “entangled” particles. Measuring a particle immediately determines the state of its partner, no matter where it is in space – it could be millions of miles away, the particle doesn’t care. But there’s a catch: you have to read the result. The data needed to complete the transfer must be sent over a normal signal, such as a radio wave or fiber optic cable. Since these signals are limited to the speed of light like everything else, it’s not instantaneous from our point of view.
What do you think of it so far?
Scientists have successfully teleported single photon states remotely, but this doesn’t work on larger scales for several reasons. First there are logistics. This is how Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, described the problem of teleporting a person from New York to Los Angeles to Science Times:
“You would have to have a large number of these entangled particles to bring a human being, and have the human being mixed with this set of particles that are entangled with those in Los Angeles. It’s the problem of the huge numbers that prevents us from doing that.”
The word “huge” is not big enough: there are about 7 octillion atoms are currently called “Gregg Phillips”. Monitoring the quantum state of each would require more computing power than has ever existed on Earth. For context, the best modern science has done is teleport a single photon state to a satellite more than 870 miles away. You can’t reach a 200 pound man.
What, exactly, East Gregg Phillips?
This is the logistical problem. There is a broader conceptual/philosophical question regarding teleportation. During quantum teleportation, the original particle is destroyed to complete the transfer. The quantum state is read, transmitted and reconstructed elsewhere, but the source has disappeared. So who (or what) actually arrives at the Waffle House?
A FEMA spokesperson responded to the controversy on CNN by saying, “It’s so stupid it’s barely worth acknowledging,” but the question of who is actually leading FEMA’s disaster response isn’t a silly one, because if Gregg Phillips really teleported, what’s currently leading FEMA’s disaster response is not Gregg Phillips. A collection of atoms that look and talk like Gregg Phillips appeared in a Waffle House, while the real Gregg Phillips faded from existence down the highway.
