Picture from Pixabay

So I've been recently thinking about possible use cases for 3D Printer and 3D Scanner technology. One such use case that I've come up with is the potential to "Teleport" objects from one place to another.

What does it mean to Teleport?

So to define what it means to teleport an object I'm going to use the Wikipedia definition

teleport the movement of material objects between one place and another without physically traversing the distance between them.

The Goal

Let's say we have a small cube that we want to move. We need to create a way to move this cube from the location #1 to location #2 and back again, without actually traversing the distance.

The How

My idea would be to setup two bases each containing a 3D printer and 3D scanner in separate locations. Then it's simply a matter (no pun intended) of scanning the cube in at location #1 and sending it via the internet to location #2 to be 3D printed. Once location #2's print finishes they can make any modifications and do the same process to send it back. Of course, technically for this to be "teleportation" the original cube needs to be destroyed, so you can have some fun with that while files upload.

But it's not the same cube!

A common issue I would imagine people taking with this approach is that technically it's a different cube every time it teleports between locations, and the original is actually destroyed. In this simple example, it does not really matter, but for more complex objects it could cause issues. I won't try to refute this claim as its already been discussed in the form of the Theseus's paradox.

Finally, I wanted to mention the below video I found by CGP Grey, which provided the inspiration for this post and got me thinking about this topic.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you would want to use 3D printer technology for in the comments.