Хороший вопрос. Я сам в общем и целом предполагаю, что энергия возникнет в виде перехода электронов на более высокую орбиту. Затем электроны возвращаются назад, излучая фотоны. Фотоны поглощаются до того, как достигают кожи пассажира, выделяя тепло. Но практически любой имеющий смысл процесс завершается тепловыделением. Тепло — это наиболее общая, наиболее рандомизированная форма энергии.

Может ли освобожденная энергия выделиться в виде нейтрино? Это не даст нам тепла. Но это нарушит некие неясные законы равновесия в атомной физике (насторожив Айзека Азимова, Хэла Клемента и тысячи физиков-реакционеров) и сделает телепортацию в гору невозможной, так как в процессе должны поглощаться нейтрино, которых там вообще нет.

VIII.

Что насчет вечного двигателя?

См. рисунок 5:

Главная идея заключается в использовании открытых емкостей приемника и передатчика. Груз, тридцать галлонов воды, телепортируется в приемник. Он немедленно выплескивается вниз в открытый передатчик, который перенаправляет его обратно в приемник, и так далее. Поместите в систему водяную турбину, и мы получим энергию.

Очевидно, здесь имеется недостаток. Если законы сохранения действуют, вода быстро замерзнет. Более того, термодинамика утверждает, что энергия, необходимая для поддержки работы системы, превышает максимальное количество энергии, которое можно извлечь из постоянно падающей воды.

Но система интересна и из-за другого.

Заменим воду тонной железных опилок. Тогда мы сможем заключить всю систему в вакуумную камеру и перестать заботиться о трении о воздух, испарении и замерзании воды. Мы позволим опилкам падать под действием гравитации, пока масса не превратится в черный поток с температурой в районе абсолютного нуля, перемещающийся со скоростью в семь миль в секунду. Это девяносто минут работы.

Теперь позволим системе поработать еще девяносто минут. Скорость удваивается, и мы позволили опилкам пролететь эквивалент двойного расстояния от бесконечности до поверхности Земли.

Мы можем поддерживать такое ускорение вечно при условии, что выполним одно условие. Мы должны построить систему на Северном (или Южном) полюсе. Иначе поток опилок отклонится от входа в передатчик из-за вращения Земли. (БА-БАХ!) Итак, мы на Северном полюсе.

Через тридцать дней масса опилок удвоится. Через шестьдесят — учетверится. Заметьте, что в то время как Земля притягивает опилки, опилки также притягивают Землю, хотя и минимально поначалу. Но в действительно опилки никуда не перемещаются, так что мы имеем безреакционный двигатель. Каждый месяц его мощность удваивается. Если мы позволим системе работать достаточно долго, опилки будут весить как звезда. Понятно, что нам это не нужно — из-за приливов и отливов. Но в ее текущем состоянии выключение системы разрушит Землю. Так что мы сделаем второй передатчик на Южном полюсе.

Поток опилок пробьется сквозь земную атмосферу, голубая вспышка железного дыма, прорывающегося сквозь воздух. Даже гамма-лучи устремлены вверх! Какое зрелище! Прислушайтесь к аплодисментам! Но, к несчастью, все телекамеры расплавились...

Итак, здесь я заканчиваю. Но попробуйте сами ввести исходные условия и посмотреть что из этого выйдет.

Larry Niven

EXERCISE IN SPECULATION: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TELEPORTATION

Why teleportation? Well— The regional fan convention, known as Boskone and held annually in Boston had chosen me as Guest of Honor. Strangely, everyone seemed to expect a speech. I hadn't done any speaking since early college. Worse, the audience was jammed with MIT students.

Why teleportation? Because that way none of the MITSFS (MIT Science Fiction Association, pronounced "misfits") could catch me at anything. What with no firm ground for believing that teleportation is even possible, there would be endless room for speculation without any way for some teenage genius to tell me, "You're wrong! Right here in my physics text it says-"

At that, there was enough argument. But the speech went well, even to the point where the question session degenerated into frenzied arguments near the back wall, allowing me to slip quietly away. I'd planned that. But Fred Pohl caught me at the door and asked me to turn the speech into an article for him. Here it is.

DISCLAIMER:

Any resemblance to the plots of ancient or modern science fiction, novels or short stories, is not coincidence. I've been reading science fiction, voraciously, for eighteen years. In most of what follows, I have borrowed freely from my betters, and even from my own stories. Where I remember my sources, I have quoted them-sometimes.

DEFINITION:

Teleportation is any method of moving from point to point in negligible time. Over short distances we will take lightspeed as negligible. Over longer distances (interplanetary and interstellar) we will require infinite or near-infinite speed.

I make a distinction between psychic and mechanical teleportation. Essentially, psi teleportation involves wishing oneself from place to place. In mechanical teleportation he pushes a button. He may do other things first, such as sighting in, charging batteries, weighing and measuring his cargo, whatever it takes. But eventually he will push a button here and he will instantly be there. Similarly, the adept at psi teleportation may have spent decades in spiritual training, learning to negate distance by the power of a wish.

These definitions are not meant to be rigorous. Intuitively you know what teleportation is anyway.

HISTORY:

The history of teleportation is all of the psi variety. Naturally.

The prophet Elijah was frequently "transported" by Jahweh. He would rise in the air, spin around a few times, and then vanish. Or he would fly about and come down without vanishing. One day he flew up and up and never did come down. His followers searched the countryside for days. When they couldn't find his body they assumed that Elijah had taken it with him, into Heaven.

Friar Joseph of Copertino (1603-1663) was a levitator. Usually in the presence of witnesses, he would go into a religious trance, rise into the air, fly about, eventualy settle on an altar or in a tree. His presence in this article derives from his power of bilocation. Friar Joseph was capable of being in two places at once.

Then there are past and present Hindu mystics, and tales of teleportation during seances. No matter. The interesting thing is that, historically, nobody seems to make a distinction between negating distance with a wish, flying by flapping one's arms, flying without flapping one's arms, being in two places at once, or being blown about at terrific speeds by divine or other mysterious forces. The distinction seems to be original with science fiction; it has no basis in recorded "fact".

I offer the thought that there may be no distinction; that this confusion may be a fundamental characteristic of psychic teleportation.

THEORY OF PSYCHIC TELEPORTATION:

I'd like to get through this fairly quickly, since I don't believe in psi teleportation, and since my major interest is in the effects of teleportation on society.

1) Consider the following theory: A man in deadly danger would learn to teleport in order to save his life.

I can remember two novels in which the idea was crucial: JACK OF EAGLES, by James Blish, and THE STARS MY DESTINATION, by Alfred Bester. The idea is simply to point a gun at a man's head, and fire. One time out of a thousand he will frantically teleport out of the way of the bullet, and you will have a teleport.

Forget it. There has been too much opportunity for it! Violent death has occurred since man was definably man. How many have learned to teleport in time to save their lives? Too few to be noticed.

But there's another flaw in the theory. Psychic powers are notoriously undependable. Experience says that when the ability to teleport is most needed, that's when it won't show up.

2)My prejudice against teleportation has a valid basis. I haven't seen it in action.

Science has existed on Earth for-depending on how you define science-between a couple of centuries and a few millenia. We can't yet build a hardware-type teleport system. But psi powers, if they exist at all, have been around since man was definably human. If teleportation is both possible and useful, we should have been using it since men moved into the Nile Valley. And we would never have given it up...if teleportation is both possible and useful.

We conclude either that teleportation is not possible, or that it kills those who possess the gift before they can demonstrate it to anyone. Both are possible.

Consider Bester's "Blue Jaunt". A man in a panic, drowning, teleports without considering where he's going. He ends up inside a wall. BOOM! Bad trip.

Or, psi could be dangerous in other ways; Genelinked to insanity or to mental deficiency, for example.

In any case, psi teleportation is out. But let's ignore facts and do some speculating.

PRACTICE OF PSYCHIC TELEPORTATION:

What about conservation of energy? What of conservation of momentum?

These questions are not idle. Stones did not stop falling when Einstein published a new theory of gravitation. The old laws hold; new laws of physics usually apply only to new areas of observation. Changing one physical law is like trying to eat one peanut.

Okay. So what happens if you try to teleport uphill? Does your body get colder, or lose mass? There is a gain in potential energy. It must be compensated by the loss of energy of another form.

Suppose I were to teleport to Kerguelen Island? (I am writing in Los Angeles. Opposite me on the Earth's globe is the heart of the Indian Ocean, in which Kerguelen Island is the nearest land mass.) Because of the Earth's spin, Los Angeles and Kerguelen Island are going in opposite directions. Were I to teleport to Kerguelen Island I would have to land running-at half a mile a second.

Teleportation can be dangerous. You don't teleport out of a speeding car either.

3)I take another theory of psi teleportation from THE WORLD OF A, by A. E. Van Vogt. It seems that two objects similar to each other, to twenty decimal places will join each other. The lesser will bridge space to contact the greater. This presumed law applies to masses, thought waves, and even whole personalities.

We can't disprove it. It could be a fact. We can't disprove it because Van Vogt never defined similarity, nor greater, nor lesser. So now you know how -to write a science fiction story. But we can still work with the idea; and I believe Van Vogt missed some great comic routines. Take this one:

In one scene in THE PAWNS OF A, we see Gilbert Gosseyn on one side of. a fence. He wants to be on the other. So he looks at a piece of land just beyond the fence and, with the power of his extraordinary brain, he tunes himself to that piece of land, adjusting his own atomic makeup to a similarity of within twenty decimal places.

Now, twenty decimal places is pretty finicky. Gosseyn must get within that range, but he must also make sure that he will be the lesser of the pair and not the greater. One slightest slip...

So he makes the bridge...and half a ton of earth descends on him.

I don't believe in psychic teleportation. But I could be wrong. So:

We will assume that it is possible for nearly anyone to learn to teleport A new learning technique has been developed. It may be serving DNA or RNA molecules in one's food, tailoring them to carry a superficial memory directly to the brain, as we now feed flatworms to each other to transfer learned responses. It may be something else. What do you get, when nearly everyone on Earth can teleport?

You get Alfred Bester's THE STARS MY DESTINATION. I offer the book as a text to accompany this course. I'll name a few highlights:

Thieves, uncatchable or nearly so, who teleport around the world to follow the night. They never see sunlight.

Locked doors, and behind the doors, mazes complex enough to confuse anyone who might try to teleport inside. Otherwise there would be no private property, nor privacy either.

Transport vehicles become obsolete. Collectors collect them as period pieces.

Classification of each citizen's teleport characteristics. (Bester assumes a distance limit. My own question: is the limit due to relativistic uncertainty? The more distant is one's destination, the less certain is its location in space and time.)

Intensive, probably productive research into other psi powers (since one has been shown to exist).

I object to one thread of Bester's tapestry. If Gully Foyle tries to "jaunt" along a "geodesic curve" he will end by going slower than light. That's how geodesics work in Einsteinian space. But it doesn't affect the pattern of Bester's society, which is worth studying.

THEORY OF MECHANICAL TELEPORTATION: Anyone know anything about tunnel diodes?

The field is full of good writers named Smith. One wrote a story using a teleportation system based on the tunnel diode effect. Apparently physics students are now taught that a tunnel diode takes an electron here and puts it there without allowing it to occupy the intervening space. If you can do it with quantum physics, why not with larger masses? With people? The theory looks good, and it hasn't been used much in science fiction.

Older, more often used, and more traditional is the beaming method. You convert your passenger and/or cargo to electromagnetic waves, fire the beam across space, catch it in a receiver and convert the electromagnetic energy back into matter.

A modification is Poul Anderson's system in THE ENEMY STARS. Poul's system records the position and energy state of every subatomic particle in the passenger's body. A side effect is that the body is vaporized, so that one winds up with a complete record of the passenger plus a cloud of superheated plasma. The gas is sucked down through a grid, into a matter reserve, to await the next incoming signal.

The record of the passenger is fired across space. A receiver picks it up and uses it, plus the plasma in its own matter reserve, to reconstruct the passenger.

I don't know. I wouldn't ride in one of the goddamned things.

The engineering problems seem trivial compared to the legal, ethical, and philosophical ramifications. Still, what happens if the signal gets snarled up? In the good old days I read of the possibilities in EC comic books; and the pictures were vivid and horrifying. In practice, the least bit of interference would leave the passenger an idiot or a good imitation of a corpse. Over interplanetary distances you'd have to worry not only about intervening dust and gas, but about red and violet shifts due to gravity and relative velocities. And what happens to your soul?

I worry about that. I don't necessarily believe in a soul; I don't believe in taking chances. If my soul isn't recorded somewhere in the process, I'm dead, even though my memory remains as reconstructed electron tracks.

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