• Question: would quantum leaping be possible for humans, if so what would be the complications and how would we be able to achieve it?

    Asked by anon-209651 to Verity, Sergio, Nick, Maria, David, Annette on 8 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Maria Walach

      Maria Walach answered on 8 Mar 2019:

      Do you mean like in the TV series quantum leap?
      As far as we know, it’s not possible to go back in time because it violates some other physical principles (like thermodynamics) and to go forward in time would need too much energy to leap, so we can’t do that yet (though going forward in time is theoretically possible).

      Quantum teleportation itself is theoretically possible, but we haven’t managed it yet – it would require a lot of energy and you would need to let yourself be dissolved into a soup of particles that makes you up and then be reassembled. The particles you are made up of would have to be paired with another set of the same particles and the information held by them transferred (we call this quantum entanglement) and then you would have to be reassembled with the set of those other particles. For this to work, whatever you chose to teleport would essentially stop existing and then “re-exist”. So you see, it’s quite complex and not without risks… What if we get it wrong and the “new you” suddenly has an arm growing out of its ear?

    • Photo: Nick Werren

      Nick Werren answered on 8 Mar 2019:

      Quantum leaping, would most likely rely on the phenomenon of entanglement in which two particles are linked together and share information. We would have to entangle every particle in a person’s body with other particles.

      The information could then be transferred at “faster than the speed of light” (it’s not as simple as that) from one place to another.

      The complications involved in doing this are that it is, at the moment, technologically impossible to entangle a huge system in a controlled way. Also, biological systems are very delicate, and are always doing things to stay alive. So the question arises – how do we replicate a body and make sure we don’t kill the thing that’s quantum leaping? In conclusion, we have a vague idea as to how we would do it but we don’t know anything else.

    • Photo: David Whitworth

      David Whitworth answered on 8 Mar 2019:

      I won’t repeat what Nick and Maria have said about Quantum Leaping and teleportation, but I can tell you that travelling forward in time is possible and there have been a number of people who have done it! Bet you didn’t know that! Only by a couple of milli seconds though. Everyone who has been to space has travelled forward in time. So if you go up to the ISS and spend a few months up there you get to time travel. This happens because of space time and gravity. The earth is a gravity well and bends space time, so the further away you get from earth you start to experience time slightly differently.
      A Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev has been the most prolific time traveler, going 0.02seconds into the future! You can rad about him here and find out more about how Einsteins theory of relativity can help you travel into the future!

      https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/23/sergei-krikalev-time-travel_n_4147793.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHXQbyzOMHQJK4ECAIFFno9_526qtpXB1j3O6CBh45RGbKsC86CLIbBCmRn3ls-sscIh9MVcxLI7xuubDWf7TdKz4c5WkWJL1orYP8MEbERxNPriTP7Kr36kWILUXqXMtZSDWQj462IUbTRh9R4qpCkwQK94AgrEy_bWk7FICqio

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