Question: Is it possible to teleport matter from one place to another? If so, how? If not, why?

Hayley Evers-King answered on 13 Mar 2013:

This is a very tricky question! The answer is both yes and no. Here’s why:

When we look on the very, very small scale, the universe behaves very weirdly. Some of the particles on this very small scale, such as electrons, may be linked with each other. It does not matter how far away they are from each other, they share a connection. Physicists call this “quantum entanglement”. The strange thing about entanglement is that, if you change one of the electrons, its linked partner will also change. So, it is possible to “teleport” the information from one electron to another.

There are two problems, though. First, you are not actually transmitting matter from one place to another, only information. So it is more like making a copy than sending the original (kind of like a cosmic fax machine). The second problem is that we can only do this with one particle. As soon as we add more, the system gets too complex and we can’t recreate it at the other end. So transporting you, your cat, a carrot, or even a whole atom is impossible for now.