From The Fly to the Ninja Turtles, Hollywood has consistently deployed teleportation to blip a story line forward. The result typically ends up closer to laughable fiction than plausible science. With Jumper, however, director and self-proclaimed physics geek Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) swears his sci-fi thriller is dead-on — or as good as it gets, since real teleportation technology isn't exactly up to speed. Out in February, his adaptation of Steven Gould's novel stars Hayden Christensen as a slacker who discovers he can beam around via brainpower. Samuel L. Jackson plays a secret agent hot on his trail. (Think Enemy of the Quantum State: Anakin vs. Windu.) "It's not like Star Trek, where you see someone break into a million particles and reconstitute," Liman says. "The jump happens between two frames, connecting two different environments for a split second."
So did Hollywood get it right this time? Not so much, says H. Jeff Kimble, a Caltech physicist. Since teleportation is a transfer of quantum states, not particles, "you're not actually sending atoms," he says. "You're only sending information about their quantum state." Which means it's more like a Xerox machine than a wormhole, with no movement or connection across space and time. (You hear that, Heroes?) In real life, only a beam of light has been, er, beamed a short distance (about 3 feet) but that, Kimble says, "is a set of completely different physics," and Hollywood-style teleportation is just not possible. But don't tell Liman. With hopes for a Jumper trilogy, he has already outlined a second film involving — great Scotty! — researchers teleporting molecules in a lab. OK, physics may not be his strongest suit, but Liman is obviously expert in the science of sequels.
Match the teleportation tip with its film or TV show source (answers below).
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1 Squinting your eyes improves your ability to jump through time and space exponentially. 2 Don't trust Ziggy Stardust to build a decent transport machine. 3 Before dissolving into a million particles — close the damn window. 4 It may scramble your brain, but teleporting is a lot safer than riding shotgun in a starship. 5 Never be the first to try out a brand-spankin'-new teleporter. 6 Even though you're not actually shooting up through the teleportation machine, look up anyway. 7 Screw phasers — teleportation is the only foolproof method of escaping aliens.
| A Stargate B The Prestige C Spaceballs D The Fly E Heroes F Star Trek<p><ERS: <str2B; 3D; 4F; 5C; 6F; 7A,F</st****
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