Why are people assuming that 'teleportation' means instantaneous travel?
To me, teleporting has always meant transferring the information that describes an object to another location, where the object is reproduced. This transfer of information occurs via light/radio waves or similar.
I hate to post what is nearly a "me too", but I'd also like to ask that question, with the clarification that I do not mean it as a rhetorical equivalent of "No, of course it's not instantaneous, duh", I am genuinely curious where the sheer confidence of the definition of "teleportation" as "instantaneous in violation of relativity" suddenly came from. Is there some scifi show on TV that I'm not watching that is promulgating this interpretation or something? I've seen the belief that entanglement can be used for FTL communication going back unto yea the very beginnings of the internet but this solid and shared definition of instantaneous is new to me vs. even the iteration of this whole argument I saw a few months ago. (Fringe maybe? Haven't started that yet.)
I have had this conversation twice a year for the past ten to fifteen years. Something needs to have changed, because the conversation has changed in the way I cited. The vast bulk of those don't even address whether it's "instantaneous" in violation of lightspeed because they just ignore lightspeed entirely. You in fact seem to be reinforcing my point by the casual assumption that teleportation must be instantaneous-as-FTL by the very definition of the word, and thus the mere fact that the word is used proves your point (circularly, I might add), so let me ask you: Where did you get that idea? It's not the way the word has been defined for the past 50 years, it's a new mutation. Why do you think that? (And why would English have such a rigid, useless definition for a word like that?)
This confusion comes up every time there's a popular article about quantum teleportation.
In a certain interpretation of the unambiguous mathematics, quantum teleportation does feature an instantaneous transfer of the quantum state. It's just that this state is useless for sending messages unless accompanied by a few bits of classical information. Since this classical info flows at less than the speed of light, there's no conflict with special relativity.
It may not be the word "teleportation" that triggers it. A lot of popular science fiction, e.g. the Commonwealth Saga, uses quantum entanglement as a plot device for instantaneous communication.
I'm assuming this due to modern fantasy borrowing the term from sci-fi (ie, "teleport" as a way to magically whisk someone/thing from one location to another instantaneously)... which popular culture has adopted wholesale.
I have a vague impression from articles read in the past that quantum entanglement could allow for a signal to be transferred over an arbitrarily large distance, instantaneously, because somehow a change at point A was 'magically' reflected at point B. I admit that this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with teleportation (I honestly don't understand their usage of the word).
By the way, a quick Google search shows that I am not alone in my thinking, and that I am wrong. :-)
To me, teleporting has always meant transferring the information that describes an object to another location, where the object is reproduced. This transfer of information occurs via light/radio waves or similar.