This reminds me of "A Conversation with Einstein's Brain".

so I started to read the article this morning, finished it now...forgot I got from PW, so I posted it again...

Lawrence Krauss (a fantastic physicist and writer) did some calculations on a similar problem, the transporter from Star Trek. There are other issues that Krauss discusses, but the physics of acquiring the data from the object and reconstructing it would be similar. Krauss even goes into a deeper philosophical question: are human beings only the sum of their atoms? Is there something else that makes us human, besides matter? It's a very interesting question, but one that we will not delve into. So we're going to stick with physics questions: how much information would one need to store in order to recreate a human being? How do you acquire this information? And how much energy is needed to do so?

The average human body is composed of 1x1028 atoms.

To be able to reconstruct it from a stored pattern, first this pattern must be stored, of course. But how would one go about doing that? The scanner would have to acquire the position and momentum of all atoms, without displacing them. It would need to determine the type of atom that you're scanning, too. It also would have to do it very quickly, taking into account that the character probably wouldn't be standing still. And here quantum mechanics shows to start spoiling the fun, with its pesky Heisenberg principle.

The Heisenberg principle states that, independent of the measure apparatus or future technologies, there are certain combinations of measures that are impossible to be made with arbitrary precision.

Continued over here:

http://pandawhale.com/post/14941/science-explains-why-well-probably-never-be-able-to-respawn-in-real-life