The history of the concept of transmitting solid particles or bodies through space goes back only 53 years. While it has not been achieved in practice so far, there has been a good deal of speculation on the subject.

That it is taken seriously even by scientists is best illustrated by as prominent a source as Nobel Prize winner Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. In recent lecture at George Washington University, Dr. Seaborg said:

"I could continue on, conjecturing on such matters as antigravity, teleportation and telepathy, However, I am not that audacious."

Since we can and do transmit intelligence at a distance by telegraph and by telephone, since we send pictures by telephotography and living pictures by television, why not transmit objects, even living subjects, by "teleportation?"

Most people know that a televised picture is first "cut up" or dissected into little "bits." These fragments are then translated into electrical impulses and sent through space. Then, at the TV receiver, the millions upon millions of "bits" are ressembled in their proper sequence on the screen by a scanner, which reconstructs the original picture from the transmitter. This electronic scanner works incredibly fast, its cathode ray swinging back and forward 15,750 times a second--giving the illusion of a picture in motion.

But we must remember that with a picture--whether it is still or in motion--we deal only in two dimensions--length and width; there is no thickness, only a flat surface.

So when it comes to transmitting a three-dimensional body or subject, such as a piece of bread or a live bug, our present-day technology has not sufficiently advanced to deal with such a complex and esoteric problem. Not that the problem is insolvable. I am quite sanguine that teleportation will be with us in the not-too-distant future.

Indeed, here I must correct myself at once and state flatly that--in a different form--teleportation has been with us for billions of years!

Today, practically all scientists are convinced that the sun, almost 93 millions miles distant, constantly emits corpuscular radiation. (A corpuscle is a very small particle, i.e., body.) The earth is bombarded uninterruptedly by huge streams of solar-ionized atoms of hydrogen and other elements.

Then we are also bombarded continuously by the all-powerful cosmic particles from outer space impinging upon us through the so-called cosmic rays--at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second.

We are faced by the very real fact that transmitting particles over vast distances is not exactly new.

After a good deal of research through the literature, it also appears that I was probably the first to speak of particle transmission at will.

For the February 1909 issure of my publication, MODERN ELECTRICS, I wrote the following article:

"Mr. Spif Marseroni, the great national wireless scientist, has scored another great triumph. Now Mr. Marseroni has succeeded in conveying food through the ether wirelessly for unlimited distance. Already a large syndicate has been formed under the name of 'Interplanetarian Wireless Food Co.' to exploit the invention. If you are a subscriber and you are walking in the street, and if it is 12 o'clock noon, your call buzzer suddenly rings. You put the phone to your ear and this may be what you hear:

"'Luncheon ready, please. What will you have?' 'Ham sandwich and a glass of milk,' you call back.

"You then draw your silver case out of your pocket and connect its terminals with your antenna, fastened on your hat. Two seconds later and a ham sandwich has materialized in the silver case. The milk is received in the same manner. In fact, Mr Marseroni has succeeded in sending almost anything now from champagne down to lobster salad. The only thing he does not transmit are onions, because the odor is lost in transmission-and an onion without smell is like a bridegroom without libido.

"The process of sending food by wireless is not as difficult as might be thought at first. The food is passed through "puffers," which blow it to atoms step by step. It is finally reduced so much that its consistency is brought in 'balance' with the ether. It is then passed through a system of Leyden jars and sent out in the form of ether waves carrying the infinitely minute food particles. The receiving apparatus condenses these particles again and the food appears in its original condition, only far more palatable. Of course the sending operator must be careful not to 'mix' things, as in the beginning it happened a few times that a subscriber got 'hot' under the collar when he received coffee mixed with copped pickles or buchwheat cakes soaked in Worcestershire sauce.

"However, by using tuning separators this defect has been entirely overcome now."

I did not name the idea at the time. That came many decades later. The term Teleportation was coined by an unknown science fiction author. Personally I prefer Teleportage or the shorter Teleport.

In any event, after my piece appeared in 1909 it became an excellent springboard for science fiction writers. Here is a partial list of science fiction concerning matter-transmission by radio, telelectronic, atomic or other non- supernatural methods:

"Radio Mates," by Bengamin Witwer, July, 1927; "Super Radio," by Charles Cloukey, July, 1928; "Element 87," by Ralph Linn, June, 1930: "The Cosmic Express," by Jack Williamson, Nov., 1930; "Beam Transmission," by George H. Scheer, Jr., July, 1934; "Antares Tryst," by Richard Tooker, Aug., 1937: "Wives in Duplicate," by Don Wilcox, Aug., 1939; "When the Moon Died," by Don Wilcox, Sept., 1939; "Death of a Dinosaur," by Sam Moskowitz, Aug., 1956.

"The Atom Smasher," by Donald Wandrei, May, 1934; "World Wrecker," by Raymond Z. Gallum, June, 1934; "Luminous Mine," by Raymond Z. Gallum, Jan., 1937; "One Against the Legion," by Jack Williamson, April 1939; "Secret Unattainable," by A. E. van Vogt, July, 1942; "Wanted--An Enemy," by Fritz Leiber, Jr., Feb., 1945.

"Xandulu," by Jack Williamson, March, 1934; "A Suitor by Proxy," by Harry Collier, April, 1935; "Justice of the Atoms," by Charles B. Pool, July, 1935; "Experiment with Destiny," by Oscar J. Friend, Oct., 1939; "Death by Proxy," by Malcolm Jameson, Spring, 1945.

The first one on the list, "Radio Mates," appeared in my former magazine, AMAZING STORIES, July 1927. For that occasion I wrote the following blurb:

"From the telegraph to the telephone was but a step. From the telephone to radio constituted but another such step, and we are now enjoying radio broadcast from stations thousands of miles away. Every time you have an X-ray photograph taken you are bombarded, not by rays, but by actual particles that go right through the walls of the tube. These particles are just as real as if they were bullets or bricks, the only difference being that they are smaller. Thus our scientists lead up to the way of sending solids through space. While impossilbe of achievement, as yet, it may be possible, years hence, to send living beings through space, to be received at distant points. At any rate, the author of this story weaves a fascinating romance around this idea. It makes excellent reading, and the plot is as unusual as is its entire treatment."

The AMAZING STORY cover illustration shows the heroine in the act of being transported into space. The inventor at left is doing the transmitting. The heroine's husband has been forcibly shackled to the wall. Soon the inventor will transmit himself through space to join the electronically-kidnapped wife. Alas, it doesn't quite come off that way in the end.

Indeed, as I hinted in my 1909 story,"...the sending operator must be careful not to 'mix' things..."

Many science fiction authors since then realized that in transmitting living animals or humans via teleportage, anything could happen.

This was the case in one of the most celebrated and hair-raising science fiction stories of recent years, The Fly. (It was also the basis of a motion picture film.) It first appeared in the June 1957 issue of PLAYBOY. Written by George Langelann, it recounts the fatal adventures of a scientist with teleportage. He experiements with a large house fly by sending it from transmitter to receiver. But something goes wrong--he himself becomes part of the fly. The resulting monstrosity, part human, part fly, keeps on buzzing desperately for some days, finally vanishes, gone forever, without trace.

Patently teleportation in the future will be subject to many real dangers till it finally has been evolved with built-in scientific safeguards that make such accidents impossible.

Hugo Gernsback
December 1962