I was stepping out of the shower when I had a flash of brilliance (probably).  I thought, “Why couldn’t we just scan something so intently we are able to figure out what compounds it is made out of, and then from there, send the list of compounds as a digital signal, and recompose it somewhere else?”  First off, we’d need an extremely powerful scanner.  Second, we’d need something that could reconstitue elements grouped into compounds in exactly the right spots.  However, I believe that if we really put our minds to it, someone somewhere could create such a device that can break things down to the atomic level and read it into a digital database, and someone else could create something that constructs things from said database.

Enough of the science.  After I came up with the original thought, I began to think of the implications of a world where this teleportaion really does work.  In this world, transportation and traveling would no longer be problems.  It would completely nullify the need for airplanes, and even cars in some cases.  People would merely walk up to a teleportation booth, and punch in the coordinates of their destination, be it the grocery store, the movies, Seattle, New York City, Moscow, or Tokyo.  Food transportation would no longer be of anyone’s concern.  If a farmer in Argentina wanted to ship a thousand crates of fresh peaches to a farmer’s market in Providence, Rhode Island, he could just punch in the coordinates, hoist a crate up, and press “send.”  There would be no more mysterious bruises on your fruit because the tractor trailer truck carrying them got in an accident.  Digital transportation of everything would also take a huge strain off the environment, seeings as much of today’s pollution is caused by transportation of one form or another. 

A new thought just struck me.  If we are reading the actual atomic content of items into a digital database, production of goods would be totally unneccesary, too.  If you wanted something, say a ring, you could have it “beamed”, if you will, directly to your own home without actually having to have someone create it.  If someone made a ring, and scanned it, he could just sell the database entry and people could make their own rings from the comfort of their own home.  This could also lead to much more efficent cloning (kind of unethical, though).

Basically, if someone makes this machine, the world is going to change in huge ways that nobody can really imagine.  I’m only scratching the surface right here, but it’s a really intruiging topic to think about.  If you have any more ideas about what this could lead to, comment, and I’d be happy to discuss them with you.