A group of physics students at the University of Leicester discovered that teleportation from the Earth to another location in the universe would take 350,000 times longer than the universe has been in existence.

As you probably learned in your first year of Starfleet, when you teleport, your entire being is broken apart and put back together in a different location. That’s a lot of stuff that needs to transport. You have your genetic makeup plus all of the data stored in your brain.

The team at the University of Leicester quantified how much data would be used to transport a person and calculated 2.6 times 10 to the power of 42 bits.

(If you’re super smart, like me, I’m assuming the number may be a little higher.)

The team then discovered that how much energy a teleport uses is dependent on bandwidth. Sort of like the internet, the faster someone is able to transfer from one location to another, the more bandwidth is required. After all, seeing “buffering” is jaw-clenching, whether it’s for teleportation purposes or trying watch a baby sloth video before your boss gets back.

Using this calculation, the team measured how long it would take to transport this quantity in a theoretical teleportation device that has a bandwidth of 29.5 to 30 gigahertz.

So, how long would it take to teleport from Earth into orbit?

4.5 times 10 to the power of 15 years.

That’s 350,000 times longer than the hypothesized birth of the universe. The universe is said to be 14 billion years old. The time it would take Scotty to beam you back onboard wouldn’t be conducive if you need to make a speedy getaway, especially from a starship that, let’s say, Khan is captaining.

David Starkey, a member of the team at the University of Leicester states:

“Our results indicate the time scales to complete a full teleport of an individual are little too lengthy at this time. Current means of travel remain more feasible.”

Well, it looks like the only way you can really take advantage of teleportation is if you’re a mutant named Nightcrawler.

Source: Independent