username wrote:Re: teleporter: something like a cross between a scanning electron microscope, CAT scan machine, and supercomputer: the machine destructively scans each and every molecule, tags it with location and relation to other molecules of you, creates a digital package of all that info, sends it to wherever you want to go, where a corresponding machine stocked with a whole bunch of organic molecules uses that info to replicate an exact analogue of you, and you walk out of the machine. The question, of course, is, is that the same you, even tho it's completely identical, but it's now made up of different atoms. Are you the same person or someone who just looks the same? But at least you get from here to there.
Ahhh! That's very close to what Crichton postulates in
Timeline. The time-travelers are really disassembled 'here' and reassembled 'there.' And, yes, he foresees that glitches in the procedure are possible. A similar gimmick is operative in "The Fly", a short story which was made into a movie -- twice. But in "The Fly" the glitch manifests itself in a different way than in
Timeline. In Crichton's book there would be no possibility of an unwanted insect being in the treansfer chamber. But he sees that the components of the organism might be reassembled not quite correctly, particularly as regards such delicate items as neurological synapses and brain cells.
When I rush on a post I make plenty of mistakes, or I'm too slow trying not to make any. *sigh* 
See what this inspires. I call her Lady in Red.
