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The Terrible Truth About Star Trek's Transporters
SyFy ^ | February 19, 2020 | Cassidy Ward

Posted on 02/20/2020 6:45:35 AM PST by C19fan

After more than 50 years on the air, Star Trek has become a sort of universal vision of the future. Where other stories imagine a world torn by war, or at the mercy of technology run wild, Star Trek imagines, if not the best possible future, one very close to it.

Creator Gene Roddenberry's vision of humanity in the 23rd and 24th centuries unifies the planet, does away with grand-scale internal conflict, erases the need for a money-based economy, and opens up a whole galaxy of possibilities for the human species. The result is a people working together to create art, advance science, and explore the cosmos. We break the light-speed barrier, visit strange new worlds, enjoy lifelike virtual reality simulations, and crack teleportation. Distances both near and far are within our grasp. It's a veritable utopia, challenged only by external threats. Or at least it was, until Star Trek: Picard premiered.

(Excerpt) Read more at syfy.com ...


TOPICS: Science; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: quantum; scifi; startrek
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To: Mr. K

No, it’s all explained by a parallel universe.


41 posted on 02/20/2020 8:04:51 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: hoagy62

I think a great comedy routine could be made with “Musical Chairs-Transporter Style, where the last person to find a chair and the one who lost get merged in hilarious ways.


42 posted on 02/20/2020 8:06:26 AM PST by ResponseAbility (The truth of liberalism is the stupid can feel smart, the lazy entitled, and the immoral unashamed)
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To: mad_as_he$$

Bars, restaurants and wineries focus on higher human development!


43 posted on 02/20/2020 8:07:56 AM PST by Reily
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To: Reily

lol...Probably wasn’t the intention of the writers but they needed somewhere for the story to evolve.


44 posted on 02/20/2020 8:12:27 AM PST by mad_as_he$$
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To: Psalm 73

“The only drawback was being limited to six people at a time.”

The Galileo holds seven.

(As related to “Five Came Back”, EARLY Lucille Ball)


45 posted on 02/20/2020 8:17:03 AM PST by treetopsandroofs
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To: hoagy62

I enjoyed the writing style.


46 posted on 02/20/2020 8:18:20 AM PST by treetopsandroofs
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To: PIF

I tried to like the Expanse.

Has ANYTHING been resolved since I gave up near the end of S3?


47 posted on 02/20/2020 8:19:59 AM PST by treetopsandroofs
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To: trebb

Sometimes you just gotta do it.

Met Shatner last year, glad to have done so, got the photo.


48 posted on 02/20/2020 8:22:56 AM PST by treetopsandroofs
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To: treetopsandroofs
"The Galileo holds seven."

It's awesome that we would know this stuff.
What a legacy Gene Rodenberry left.

49 posted on 02/20/2020 8:26:45 AM PST by Psalm 73 ("You'll never hear surf music again".)
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To: C19fan
Neat article. Teleportation has the same logical problem time travel does: if it works, it ought to be possible to limitlessly duplicate yourself. Not two Rikers, but two thousand, or twenty billion.

If you can take Riker apart and convert him to energy, you ought to be able to take any other equivalent slug of energy (or matter) and clone a second Riker, or all the Rikers you want, until you run out of matter or energy, or you just get sick of Rikers everywhere.

50 posted on 02/20/2020 8:27:43 AM PST by Campion (What part of "shall not be infringed" don't they understand?)
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To: C19fan

I’m surprised no one has explored the medical applications of transporter technology. Lose a leg? Just beam up with the last pattern that included both legs. Afflicted with Borg technology? Scrub out inorganic materials during transport. Older than dirt and possessed of critical knowledge? Access earlier patterns and shave off a decade or two.

Ultimately, it’s meaningless, but it sounds like a fun conjecture with lots of potential.


51 posted on 02/20/2020 8:28:22 AM PST by davius (You can roll manure in powdered sugar but that don't make it a jelly doughnut.)
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To: Jewbacca

bttt


52 posted on 02/20/2020 8:31:13 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: davius

gmta.


53 posted on 02/20/2020 8:34:24 AM PST by mad_as_he$$
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To: usconservative

Amazon—home to The Expanse, organization created by Dr. Evil for global domination, and parent corporation of the W.P. which promotes Mini Mike.


54 posted on 02/20/2020 8:46:02 AM PST by Ozark Tom
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To: Ronniesque

“e...is there a restriction on what a replicator can do“

Well handmade items would become serious luxury items.

It’s happening now with mass production and, soon, effective 3D printers.

For example, used mass market furniture and clothing has next to no value.

When decorating, I’ve made my wife buy less stuff, but things of historical and artistic value— eg, minor works of Picasso and Chagall.


55 posted on 02/20/2020 8:54:51 AM PST by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem)
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To: C19fan

Even if the “transporter” could work (not in the slightest convinced it would) it would REQUIRE a “transporter” on both ends of the transmission - one that turns the transporter object or person into data that is “transported” in an energy beam, and one to receive the beam and reconstruct the object or person based on the data received. Since it requires a “transporter” machine on one end, it would to have a receiving “transporter” on the other end to put things back together. This also makes a foul of the idea that the mere beam itself can be aimed at something and somehow “pull” what it is aimed at into the machine that is making the beam. That would imply the beam all by itself is capable of the programming to perform the deconstruction process. Not at all likely, and certainly not capable of then somehow reversing itself as a beam back into the transporter - laughable.


56 posted on 02/20/2020 8:56:49 AM PST by Wuli
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To: C19fan

The moral to the story is that there are always unintended consequences due to evolution in technology. I recently read some pulp science fiction where the world of autonomous airplanes, cars and trucks were a universal reality. Of course that reality ushers in the threat of hacking that turns our AI driven transportation system into a weapon of mass destruction. A terrorist’s dream come true.


57 posted on 02/20/2020 8:57:30 AM PST by buckalfa (Post no bills.)
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To: Mr. K
And every problem was fixed with “inverse polarity”

And overly simplistic simile.

Data: "Captain, we can modulate the phaser frequencies."

Geordie: "Exactly! Like throwing cats at them."

58 posted on 02/20/2020 9:02:18 AM PST by Sirius Lee (They are openly stating that they intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live.)
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To: Wuli

That’s why I always viewed it as a local form of “warping”.


59 posted on 02/20/2020 9:03:52 AM PST by Reily
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To: eclectic

Yes, but doesn’t that involve “simply” (a massive understatement if there ever was one) having an atom already at the receiving site assume the same quantum state as the target atom at the transmitting site? That is, a transfer of information, not physical matter.

The article is very informative concerning the amount of information that would need to be processed and the amount of energy and time needed to transfer between transmission and reception sites. What is unmentioned in the discussion thus far is the virtual transporter terminal that would also be required at the receiving site to process all the arriving energy and information back into the object (hopefully alive). I liken it to reassembling an intact nuclear bomb from the energy of its explosion.

Of course, this alive/dead question could go away if the transported object was a simulacrum, a machine/limited AI representation of the human, having an information tie back to the transmission site (VR goggles any one?). This would open up a lot of options for safe interaction with hostile environments and/or inhabitants.


60 posted on 02/20/2020 9:17:23 AM PST by Captain Rhino (Determined effort today forges tomorrow.)
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