Perchè non possiamo teletrasportarci? Partendo da un estratto dal libro “Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe” di Jorge Cham, Wired tenta di dare una risposta, utilizzando concetti derivati dal funzionamento della meccanica quantistica.

Teleportation has been a fixture in science fiction for well over 100 years. And who hasn’t fantasized about closing their eyes or hopping into a machine and suddenly finding themselves where they want to be? Think of the time you’d save! Your vacation could start now, and not after a 14-hour flight. We could get to other planets more easily, too. Imagine sending colonists to the nearest habitable planet (Proxima Centauri b, four light-years away) without having to spend decades in transit.

Purtroppo, l’idea di spostarsi in maniera istantanea deve restare una fantasia:

Unfortunately, physics has some pretty hard rules about anything happening instantaneously. Anything that happens (an effect) has to have a cause, which in turn requires the transmission of information. […] Information has to travel through space just like everything else, and the fastest anything can travel in this universe is the speed of light. Really, the speed of light should have been called the “speed of information” or “the universe’s speed limit.” It’s baked into relativity and the very idea of cause and effect, which are at the heart of physics.

Eliminata questa possibilità ne restano due: utilizzare una qualche forma di “wormhole” o tunnel spazio-temporale, in modo da accorciare lo spazio che bisogna coprire; oppure “il compromesso” di muoversi in maniera consueta ma alla velocità della luce, che nella maggior parte dei casi è una velocità più che soddisfaciente. Siccome quello dei wormhole è un concetto ancora teorico e mai effettivamente osservato o misurato, per il momento non ci resta che concentrarci sulla seconda possibilità.

To do that, you might imagine a machine that somehow takes your body and then pushes it at the speed of light to your destination. Unfortunately, there’s a big problem with this idea, and it’s that you’re too heavy.

Immagine da Wikimedia Commons.