Teleportation

             Ever since the invention of wheel more than 5000 years ago, human desire to reach a place faster has lead to numerous inventions. From chariot to bicycle to automobile to airplane and rocket, all have been created with a single motive to travel faster. But all these inventions share the same flaw; it requires us to travel the physical distance. With development in the field of paranormal physics, scientists have been trying to combine the properties of telecommunication and transportation to achieve “teleportation”.

         Teleportation involves transfer of matter from one place to another without physical traversing the space between them. It deals with dematerializing an object at one point, sending the details of the precise atomic configuration at another location where it will be reconstructed. With the tremendous potential being embedded on this invention it would explore the possibilities of travelling without physically crossing the space. The idea of teleportation moved out of the realm of science fiction into the world of theoretical possibility in 1933. Physicist Charles Bennett with a team of researchers at IBM confirmed that quantum teleportation is possible, but only if the object being transported was destroyed. Since then, experiments using photons has proven that quantum teleportation is in fact possible.

          In 1998, physicists at Caltech successfully teleported a photon by reading its exact atomic structure, sending the information across 1 meter of coaxial cable and creating a replica of photon.  As predicted, the original photon was destroyed once the replica was made. In the event of teleporting objects larger than photon the main hurdle in the path is “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle”. The principle states that determining the momentum and location of a particle simultaneously is not possible. If you cannot determine the location of a particle then how can you teleport it? The photon experiment was carried out by using a phenomenon called entanglement. For a person to be transported, a machine would have to be built that can pinpoint and analyze all of the  atoms that make up the human body. That's more than a trillion trillion atoms. The machine would then have to send this information to another location, where the person's body would be reconstructed with exact precision. Molecules couldn't be even a millimeter out of place, lest the person arrive with some severe neurological or physiological defect. The laws of physics may even make it impossible to create a transporter that enables a person to be sent instantaneously to another location, which would require travel at the speed of light. The availability of this technology tough looks bleak in the near future.

           But like all technologies, scientists are sure to continue to improve upon the ideas of teleportation to the point that we may one day be able to avoid such harsh methods. One day, one of your descendants could finish up a work day at a space office above some far away planet in a galaxy many light years from Earth, tell his or her wristwatch that it's time to beam home for dinner on planet X below and sit down at the dinner table as soon as the words leave his mouth.


By: Ankit Jain

Galilean Relativity: Volume-3

Inertial Frames

Inertial Frame of Reference

    Physicists generally have a tendency to mention the frame of reference and its type, such as inertial or non-inertial. The importance of the frame of reference lies in the fact that the Law of Inertia is valid in it. Law of Inertia is also known by the name Newton's First Law of Motion which states that a body will tend to continue in its state of rest or uniform motion unless and until acted upon by an external force. Referring back to the cabin of ship described in Galilean Relativity: Volume-1 all the objects inside the cabin will follow the law of inertia till the time it is an inertial frame.

          An inertial frame is defined as a frame which is at rest or moves with a uniform velocity i.e. not gaining speed. Any reference frame with a constant relative velocity to an inertial frame is also considered as an inertial frame. A frame which is accelerating is known as an Accelerating Frame and consequently the law of inertia is not valid in it. When analyzing the behavior of an object in accelerating frame, the results seem to be absurd. To account for the acceleration of the frame a pseudo force is employed or simply an acceleration of same numerical value but in opposite direction. Similarly, the Galilean Relativity is implemented using inertial frames or using pseudo force or negative acceleration for accelerating frames.

Galilean Relativity: Volume-2

Galilean Transformation

Galileo Galilei

The theories that deals with relativity are mainly -

• Special Theory of Relativity (1905)
• General Theory of Relativity (1915)

Yet these two theories draw their foundation from the Galilean Relativity. The concept that is borrowed by Einstein is the principle of Inertial Frame.

          The Galilean Transformation deals with the relative motion of the two bodies that move with a velocity negligible to that of light (assigned a value c). To analyze this consider a situation wherein two bodies, let us say two trains, are moving in the same direction (say, towards geographical north). For our analysis, let the velocity of train A be 30 mph and of train B be 20 mph. Now by the Galilean Transformation the relative velocity of train A with respect to train B is 10 mph (30 mph - 20 mph) towards geographical north while the relative velocity of train B with respect to train A is 10 mph (20 mph - 30 mph) towards geographical south.

          Let us say in a subsequent situation, that a man in train A gets up from his seat and moves in the direction of motion of the train i.e. geographical north, with a velocity of 32 mph with respect to the ground. In this case the relative velocity of the man with respect to train B will be 12 mph (32 mph - 20 mph) towards geographical north while with respect to train A it will be 2 mph (32 mph - 30 mph).

          Now in the same situation let us consider the man to walk in a direction opposite to that of the train's motion and with a velocity of 32 mph. This time the relative velocity of the man with respect to train B will be 52 mph (32 mph + 20 mph) however with respect to train A it is 62 mph (32 mph + 30 mph).

Note: It may seem weird that the relative velocity of man with respect to the ground is 32 mph which is greater than the velocity of either of the trains but this is perfectly alright because the man is in contact (sitting) with the train so his velocity with respect to the ground is already 30 mph, an additional walk lets say of 2 mph will result in the mentioned value, 32 mph.

Milkyway's End

        Everything that has a start has an end too. The final state or the destiny or the future of a living organism, star, galaxy and the universe has, is to die as all involves life. The end in many cases can be predicted but its accuracy is proved only by time. With great efforts combined by the masters of Physics throughout the world, a picture of how our MILKYWAY galaxy, which is also known as AKASHGANGA will end in the time frame yielding a new galaxy.

        With the advancement in technology, we have figured out the answer to our galaxy's end. As per the experiments, physicists believe that our galaxy would die due to its collision with another galaxy heading towards it. The collision will not take place in a day or a year, rather it will be a process of many centuries. It is predicted that the galaxies would cross each other by side many times and will eventually form a new galaxy with a new black hole at its center. The velocity with which milkyway is heading is nearly 4,00,000 Km/hr yet its collision time is a lot ahead; somewhere around 5 to 6 billion years. Fortunately we will not see our galaxy dieing in front of our eyes and we being getting shrunk in the distance.