You could turn invisibility on and off as you like and there would be no time limit. Your clothes would turn invisible too, and you could decide whether the items you are holding would be visible or not.

There would be no limits on how many times or where you could teleport. The items you hold while teleporting would be teleported too. You would also have the ability to know if the place would be safe to teleport to, so you wouldn’t teleport and get impaled by an icicle or teleport inside a wall and get your insides filled with concrete or something.

Personally, I don’t know which one would I pick. Invisibility would be awesome for pranks and stuff, but teleportation probably would be more useful for everyday life.

  • @[email protected]
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    42 years ago

    Don’t you became blind if you’re invisible?

    How will your eyes function if they can’t control the way light hits your retina?

  • @[email protected]
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    72 years ago

    Me being able to teleport would prove that FTL is possible so I think I’d have to take it for that alone. Invisibility in comparison is tricky but very grounded in existing physics.

    • Hangglide
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      62 years ago

      Why would teleportation necessarily be faster than light?

      • @[email protected]
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        62 years ago

        Some assumptions are common with teleporting.

        If it takes the same time to travel 10 meters or 10000 kilometers that kinda implies faster than light.

        • Victor
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          22 years ago

          To light, there’s no difference in those times, as I understand. A light particle doesn’t experience traveling at all. From its own perspective, it exists where it is created, then immediately where it is absorbed, in the same instance. So you could say it doesn’t experience time at all. All of its energy exists in its velocity, and none of it in its movement through time.

          Don’t ask me to prove or explain this, because I don’t remember where I heard it or if I even remember it correctly. 😅

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            Actually light does experience time in its own frame of reference. For somebody observing(us in this example) the light or any object that moves at the speed of light in vacuum, it would seem that object is not experiencing time at all, that is, if there was clock on the object and we tried to measure the time that clock reads, it would give the same number as the result of the reading irrespective of when or where we measure it in our frame of reference.

            • Victor
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              12 years ago

              By what you’re saying, it sounds like you’re confirming what I said, just in a different way. A photon experiences time, but in its own frame of reference, the time experienced is zero. From its perspective, the time it takes to travel from one destination to the next, is zero. Just like the clock following it would show, from our perspective. Or am I misunderstanding?

              • @[email protected]
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                2 years ago

                First of all, talking about a photon’s experience is weird because when moving at the the speed of light, the transformation equations associated with changing the frame of reference start having infinities appearing within them which makes it impossible to mathematically define things like time elapsed or distance travelled.

                Secondly it is a little confusing to talk about of frames of reference but I will try my best to explain.

                Assume there are two balls(A and B) in an empty region of spacing moving away from each other at speed of 1m/s. Since there are refrences in the background, we have no idea of both the balls are moving or ball A is the only one moving or ball B is the only one moving. From ball A’s perspective, it would seem like ball B is moving away from it while it is stationary. Vice versa for ball B which thinks A is moving while it is stationary. Now let us say that the balls have a way to measure the time elapsed and distance travelled. Now when ball A sees that 10 seconds have passed and that ball B has travelled 10m. To verify this it measures the reading shown by ball B. To its surprise it finds out the reading from B’s instruments show that only 8 seconds have and that B travelled only 8m. This is the time dialation and length contraction that happens in special relativity. Till now everything is fine but interesting things start to happen when you switch perspectives. In the frame of reference of B, it measures that 10 seconds has passed and that A has moved 10m in that duration. When it tries to verify these measurements from A’s instruments, it finds out that they show that only 8sec have passed and that A has only travelled 8m. Now we are in trouble as these measurements seem incompatible. Not only are the instruments not agreeing with each, other, the instruments don’t even agree with themselves depending on the frame. This is eventually resolved by the realisation that the order of events is not the same for all frames. In A’s, frame, it seems to B that started measuring late by 2s while from B’s frame it seems A started measurements later. Adding this 2 second delay in both frames solves all the measurement inconsistency issues.(The numbers used are random. If you actually calculate the difference in measurements coming from a relative velocity of 1m/s, the differences will be exceeding small)

                Now that a basic understanding is out of the way, let us discuss the case of the photon. From our frame of reference, the photon is moving at the speed of light, we can measure with our instruments for how long the photon moved and what was the distance it moved but when we measure using the photon’s instruments we see that the clock always shows the same time and no time has lapsed. From the photon’s frame, it seems like it is stationary and everything else is moving at the speed of(which is obviously not true. Weird things happen when we try talk of moving at the speed of light beacuse of the infinities I aluded to before) and so while it clock is ticking, the clocks of the world around it seem stopped. So in conclusion while it valid to say that photons experience no time, it is only because we can’t go to the photon’s frame of reference because physics and math fail us that point.

                Sorry for the incredibly long reply.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              It was my understanding that light does not experience time.

              And yes it does experience time from our dimension because the speed of light is finite, making the lifetime of a photon as observed from a different frame of reference, non-zero.

              • Victor
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                2 years ago

                I think the point I was trying to make was that the lifetime of the photon is nonzero to us, from our perspective, but zero to the photon, from its perspective. All of its energy is in its velocity.

                Remember in Interstellar when they slingshot around the black hole and it cost them like 80 years or whatever? The time around them went by faster as a result. Well a photon going at c would see time around it going by at max time speed as well, so it would arrive at its destination immediately after it departed. (From its perspective.)

                That’s how I understand it.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      Are you referring to dark matter? What kind of invisibility is grounded in physics?

      It would require matter (including the inter-particle interactions) involving no absorption or emission of photons.

      According to some models, subatomic particles exert action at a distance by exchanging photons.

      This is what bothered me about the notion of a “black domain” in the Three Body series

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        You’re wayyy over complicating it, invisibility is just a matter of taking the light that hits you, bending it around you and putting it back in place. We can already do this on a small scale with fixed stationary setups.

        Even simpler is just a very accurate and fast camera/display system that records and displays the background onto itself.

  • @[email protected]
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    422 years ago

    I’m struggling to think of any situation in which invisibility would benefit me personally. Teleportation would save me over an hour a day of driving to/from work alone, plus hours at work itself, fuel & vehicle maintenance costs just about disappear, world travel becomes something possible to do any time of any day on a whim, you could do anything.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      world travel becomes something possible to do any time of any day on a whim, you could do anything.

      I feel like Greek food for lunch, suddenly appears at a cafe in Athens.

      Maybe some chocolate for dessert, pops into Switzerland for a moment , then back home in time for my kid’s soccer game.

  • Lvxferre
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    32 years ago

    Teleportation for sure. It covers all practical applications that I can see for invis, plus more.

  • @[email protected]
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    102 years ago

    Invisibility.

    I don’t know why but I love the feeling of being able to watch people without them knowing about my presence. I spend a lot of time in nature and intentionally dress to blend in and I love that often when I hear/see people near me I can just stand there in plain sight and they still often don’t notice me.

      • asudoxM
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        62 years ago

        What if he’s already invisible and saw you typing this comment?

  • Lemminary
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    192 years ago

    Does the teleportation come with a bampf noise or do I have to carry my own bluetooth speaker and a button? This is make or break for me.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      I want the H2G2 Krikkit robot teleportation noises: the sound of 100,000 people saying “WHOP!” when you appear, and 100,000 people saying “FOOP!” when you disappear.

      • Lemminary
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        12 years ago

        Yes! Although someone requested an Elderman sound and now I want the sound effect to be customizable via an app.

      • Tedesche
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        12 years ago

        No, that super sense wasn’t one of the options.

        • qyron
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          22 years ago

          The best teleporter ever created, regardless the drawback.

  • @[email protected]
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    162 years ago

    Not even a question for me, absolutely teleportation.

    I wouldn’t need to own a car, never need to pay for plane tickets or any sort of transportation.

    I can go anywhere at any time. Live anywhere and then just blink where I want/need to be.

    Invisibility doesn’t provide nearly the same practical applications. The only useful thing I can think of for invisibility would be to hide inside a bank vault and steal money, but that could technically be achieved via teleportation too.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      12 years ago

      How could teleportation solve the energy crisis? I’m too lazy to think myself so pls elaborate.

      • qyron
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        2 years ago

        Scratch costs with transportation. No need for any means of transportation.

        Also a lot more free time. No commuting, no early leave to get somewhere on time. Just blink and you’re there.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 years ago

        In addition to what the other commenter said: from the description of OP, the teleportation is basically “magic”, ergo free potential energy (by moving objects from one place to another).

        Create a large magnet in a generator that’s very tall, free transport the magnet up to the top, let it fall slowly creating electricity. It’s basically how hydro works: the sun “transports” water, in the form of clouds, to a higher point, gravity pulls it down, we use that to make energy.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Build a flywheel with a bunch of places to stand positioned around the wheel, teleport to the higher platforms as the wheel turns.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            There would be no limits on how many times or where you could teleport. The items you hold while teleporting would be teleported too.

            Sure, if you choose to change the parameters from what OP said, it might change the outcome.

            That said, the other guy already answered you. It would become less efficient if you only had your body weight, but it still a solve of unlimited (though small volume) energy.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      I don’t think that’s necessarily true. It could use energy proportional to the energy that could be gained by moving an object somewhere.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        There would be no limits on how many times or where you could teleport. The items you hold while teleporting would be teleported too.

        Sure, if you choose to change the parameters from what OP said, it might change the outcome.

    • Otter
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      2 years ago

      It could help in a lot of other crises too

      During a natural disaster, you could jump back and forth carrying aid in, and the wounded people out. In any time sensitive crisis, you could get people out of harms way. This bit is more complicated, but you could potentially help out during floods and fires, depending on how far the ‘teleport other stuff with you’ extends to.

      A reasonable limit might be ‘Only what you could physically carry yourself’, in which case you’d need to be a lot more strategic. In that case, you could work on personal strength and be a one-human-rescue-team. When there isn’t a disaster, you could probably shuttle light weight (but important) stuff for a fee, then use that money to fund your own charity to do good


      As for this prompt, you could probably just teleport away when someone might see you, or teleport to spots that people can’t see. So you could do most things that invisibility would allow

  • @[email protected]
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    32 years ago

    Are you truly invisible? As in not appearing on thermal or any other commonly used forms of visual detection and imaging?

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    How fast can you teleport? If there is no cooldown, you could teleport so fast nobody would see you being there

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Teleportation would be so much useful. I spend 80% of my time alone. People already can’t see me.

  • @[email protected]
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    292 years ago

    I seem to be alone in that I see teleportation as a great way to travel all the time without ever having to set foot on a plane again. The time and money saved would allow me to visit with distant friends on the regular.

    • @[email protected]
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      232 years ago

      And move to a cheap spacious house in the middle of nowhere, ideally somewhere absolutely beautiful. You could work anywhere you want and never need to actually live there. You could also become the first person on every planet and moon. I’d probably try to get nasa to pay me a billion dollars to be on call to teleport anything they want to anywhere in the solar system.