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Puff of Smoke
16 September 2009 13:41One unsettling thing about the first transport that one makes is the puff of smoke. No one knows where it comes from.
When a person steps on a transporter their atoms are cataloged. The switch is thrown and the person is taken apart, recorded, and reassembled with their intrinsic fields intact at the receiver end. By all means of measuring, there is no difference between the person’s starting state and end state. Their atomic weight at the receiving point is exactly the same as at the sending point down to 1x 1023 decimal places.
That puff of smoke, though. It scares people.
The first time a person is transported there is a small puff of smoke left behind. It is spontaneously generated when the person is taken apart. It seems to be made of mostly carbon and it smells like a tiny campfire, cinnamon and hairspray. The elements of the smoke have been identified as arsenic, cadmium, lead, copper, oxygen, hydrogen and trace amounts of neon. The amount of smoke seems to be roughly the same from person to person. It weighs about six grams.
It doesn’t happen again in subsequent transports. Only the first time.
Some people say that released smoke is the soul. That the act of being disassembled is an act of death. That a reassembled human is no longer human.
It harkens back to magicians using a puff of smoke as a distraction to cover up some sleight of hand.
Or ninjas throwing down a smoke bomb to cover their exit.
The fact that there is no difference in weight between the sender and the receiver is a mystery. Where this smoke comes from, nobody knows.
Scientists think that it may provide a clue as to the missing 17% of the universe. Some time theorists say that for a split second, two copies of the same person exist simultaneously and the puff of smoke is the possible time paradox canceling itself out.
Some hardcore religious people are refusing to ever be transported. They’re scared that they’ll lose their soul.
Other than that, the transporters work just fine.
tags
When a person steps on a transporter their atoms are cataloged. The switch is thrown and the person is taken apart, recorded, and reassembled with their intrinsic fields intact at the receiver end. By all means of measuring, there is no difference between the person’s starting state and end state. Their atomic weight at the receiving point is exactly the same as at the sending point down to 1x 1023 decimal places.
That puff of smoke, though. It scares people.
The first time a person is transported there is a small puff of smoke left behind. It is spontaneously generated when the person is taken apart. It seems to be made of mostly carbon and it smells like a tiny campfire, cinnamon and hairspray. The elements of the smoke have been identified as arsenic, cadmium, lead, copper, oxygen, hydrogen and trace amounts of neon. The amount of smoke seems to be roughly the same from person to person. It weighs about six grams.
It doesn’t happen again in subsequent transports. Only the first time.
Some people say that released smoke is the soul. That the act of being disassembled is an act of death. That a reassembled human is no longer human.
It harkens back to magicians using a puff of smoke as a distraction to cover up some sleight of hand.
Or ninjas throwing down a smoke bomb to cover their exit.
The fact that there is no difference in weight between the sender and the receiver is a mystery. Where this smoke comes from, nobody knows.
Scientists think that it may provide a clue as to the missing 17% of the universe. Some time theorists say that for a split second, two copies of the same person exist simultaneously and the puff of smoke is the possible time paradox canceling itself out.
Some hardcore religious people are refusing to ever be transported. They’re scared that they’ll lose their soul.
Other than that, the transporters work just fine.
tags