The Transporter In Star Trek: Conversion of Matter Into Energy

[Whitestar]

The transporter in Star Trek is one of the most fascinating theoretical technologies on board the starship Enterprise. The concept was created by the late-Gene Roddenberry. He needed his characters to get from the ship to the planet within a short period of time. Originally, Roddenberry set out to have his characters on a shuttlecraft, but was unable to afford the necessary budget to do so, hence, the transpoter was born. From a creative point-of-view, it served as an excellent plot device, however, scientifically it will never work. To find out why let's examine how the transporter operates.


The transporter works by disassembling crew members at the atomic level and converting them into energy. Once the energy arrives at the appointed destination, the process is reversed.The problem is when you convert matter into energy, you're basically creating a huge explosion, equilvalent to a nuclear missile. Another problem is that the second law of thermodynamics tells us that in any conversion of matter, some energy is inevitably lost. However, you could compensate by disintegrating some rocks and adding in that energy too.


The problem is there no way to actually account for the first person point-of-view, or know if the person would survive the procedure, unless you or I decide to undergo it. Still, it's rather chancy, but I would think that the individual who first underwent this form of teleportation has ceased to exist and replaced with a replica, who would have all your memories and experiences.


What does everybody else thinks? (Note: in the past we have discussed wormholes as a possibility for teleportation, but I am interested in what people have to say about the transporter.)


Whitestar

 

[selfAdjoint]

The problem with the Star Trek transporter is how to handle all the information that defines a person and that person's actual state at a given moment. First you have to imagine a scan that can capture all that information. Then you have to figure out how to transport it; that's a king-sized bandwidth! Finally there's the problem of impressing all that information on the matter you create from the energy.

It always looks so easy with those TV special effects!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The problem is there no way to actually account for the first person point-of-view, or know if the person would survive the procedure, unless you or I decide to undergo it. Still, it's rather chancy, but I would think that the individual who first underwent this form of teleportation has ceased to exist and replaced with a replica, who would have all your memories and experiences.

I think this is the real explanation for transporter psychosis.

It is an interesing point though. How could we ever know? The same is true for this idea of uploading our consciousness.

 

[Whitestar]

The problem with the Star Trek transporter is how to handle all the information that defines a person and that person's actual state at a given moment. First you have to imagine a scan that can capture all that information. Then you have to figure out how to transport it; that's a king-sized bandwidth! Finally there's the problem of impressing all that information on the matter you create from the energy.

It always looks so easy with those TV special effects!

Well, that's true. The information is crucial for teleportation of this type to be successful. But I would like to know your thoughts on the prospect of a person surviving the conversion of energy and back into matter.


Whitestar

 

[Whitestar]

I think this is the real explanation for transporter psychosis.

It is an interesing point though. How could we ever know? The same is true for this idea of uploading our consciousness.

I don't think we will ever know, regardless of how advance our technology will undoubtedly get in the far future. What do you think?


Whitestar

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I guess it becomes a question of what constitutes consciousness. Since we can't know what the science of this would be, I would argue against success based on my beliefs about consciousness.

Even if this sort of technology existed now I don't think I would ever take the chance of using it. At least, I wouldn't be first, or even the millionth to try it. Maybe after millions and millions of successful transports, if I could convince myself the person who leaves is really the person who arrives, I would give it a whirl.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

This thread may have forgotten the uncertainty principle. It is impossible to know both the position, and momentum of all the particles that make up a person at any moment in time. If there was such a "scanner" with a high enough bandwidth to scan the matter of any object, it can never know everything that must be known in order to create an exact duplicate of the original dynamical system.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I would never give it a whirl. Suppose you xerox a pamphlet, it's got the exact same info on the copy, but the copy is not the original. period. Suppose you "scan" something and rebuilt it somewhere else without destroying the original? then where does the consciousness go? would a person be able to experience being in two spacially (and/or temporally) separated bodies at the same time? (well, I can imagine it, but is it physically possible? it would be like agent smith in the matrix). This type of gambling is not anything I would participate in.

The only way I can see teleportation as possible is with a multiverse theory. If you can exit space-time into hyperspace (like nightcrawler from x-men) and enter back in, then you can enter anywhere and/or anytime you wish.

 

[Zantra]

So essentially if you went through a transporter you would die then have an exact duplicate of yourself at the moment of "death" recreated on the other side... Doesn't sound appealing. In a sense it's like recreating a clone of yourself every time you go through the transporter. Though a version of yourself will be recreated, it will never again the the original you, because that person will cease to exist the moment you're transported.

I think not for me...

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

but... if the uncertainty principle can be overcome, then teleportation in this way could become possible (in my mind). https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=67840

 

[selfAdjoint]

I see it was wrong of me not to respond to that post of yours when is first appeared. I'll do it now. You say:

Quantum spin assumes the electron takes up physical space otherwise it wouldn't be able to spin. This means that it's not a point, but that it has a surface (although the electron's radius hasn't been determined). All this implies that (assuming electrons can overcome the coulumb force between them) they can touch each other, and therefore the amount of space-time curvature has a limit. The limit is the distance between the centers of the two kissing electrons, ie. 2Re. That is the maximum amount of their influence on space-time.

If electrons were points, then the smallest distance between them approaches zero, not 2Re. If this were the case, each electron would be composed of an infinate amount of energy, and would curve space-time to the point where it's discontinuous at the electron's center. This type of behavior only resembles something similar to a black hole in the quantum scale.

Your problem is that electron spin is quantum, not classical, and electrons do not spin in the fashion of classical objects like balls. Quantum spin is an effect on the wave function of the particle; instead of being described by a single complex number, it becomes what looks at first like a vector of complex numbers. Then it turns out that this "vector" doesn't behave like a vector when you change coordinates (for example by rotating through an angle). It only turns half as fast as a real vector would! It was given the name "spinor" to memorialize this. But because this wave function spinor DOES turn, even slowly, it contributes to the angular momentum of the atom the electron is bound in.

The Standard Model treats the electron as a dimensionless point. No radius, no surface to contact other electrons. Repeated experimental searches have found no evidence for a non-zero radius of the electron.

And rather than going away, the uncertainty principle, in the quantum form of non-commuting operators, seems to be taking over! Physicists are more and more interested in non-commutative spacetime.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

thats funny, because it makes unfamiliar sense and yet completely contradicts what my physics teacher says, that the electron has a radius, somewhere around the length of 10^-6 angsrtoms. I'm so tired of wave functions! what is waving? anyway, thanks for shedding some light on the reason for quantum spin arising from imaginary numbers rather than from magnetic spin interaction effects (the classical way of viewing spin). I don't even know what I'm talking about... So an electron is only a point? not a ring or sphere of matter waves and electric and/or magnetic fields? not a wave-packet with a phase velocity limit of c^2 (as long as the electron is at rest)?

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

if it's a point, then does it not undergo dispersion? If it's a point, then does it never decay?

 

[betasam]

The "Star Trek" transporter

As this thread seems to have started by considering "Star Trek"'s transporter, Here's a little more on the same. The Star Trek transporter does supposedly copy the person and delete the original. In "Star Trek - TNG" there is an episode where Will Riker meets himself of the past (a clone who calls himself Tom Riker) in Episode #624 "Second Chances". A transporter accident renders two versions of the same person.

However the science behind "Star Trek" is never explained (or even attempted to be explained). This held good for the series (as opposed to George Lucas' rendering of midichlorides :P ).

IMO, walk through time portals are a better possibility from what is suggested by physics theories of today.

 

[DaveC426913]

The Star Trek transporter does supposedly copy the person and delete the original. In "Star Trek - TNG" there is an episode where Will Riker meets himself of the past

Not quite accurate. The show takes a moment to explain how the duplication happened. Without going into the mumbo-jumbo, suffice to say that they don't normally make a copy and delete the original.

 

[DaveC426913]

This thread may have forgotten the uncertainty principle. It is impossible to know both the position, and momentum of all the particles that make up a person at any moment in time. If there was such a "scanner" with a high enough bandwidth to scan the matter of any object, it can never know everything that must be known in order to create an exact duplicate of the original dynamical system.

The show addresses this with some technobabble called "Heisenberg Compensators", mentioned more than once. The exact nature of it is, of course, never explained, but the point is that by the 22nd century they have solved it.

 

[DaveC426913]

The problem is there no way to actually account for the first person point-of-view, or know if the person would survive the procedure, unless you or I decide to undergo it. Still, it's rather chancy, but I would think that the individual who first underwent this form of teleportation has ceased to exist and replaced with a replica, who would have all your memories and experiences.

What does everybody else thinks? (Note: in the past we have discussed wormholes as a possibility for teleportation, but I am interested in what people have to say about the transporter.) Whitestar

I have always found trhis to be a fascinating concept. I've struggled with the same idea: is the guy at the other end really me, or just a copy? I don't think it's merely philosophical. The 'me' on the ship will never see the planet.

There is a fascinating short story called 'Think Like a Dinosaur' by James Patrick Kelly that deals with this concept. In the stories technology, the source person really is destroyed, and the destination person really is a copy, but something goes wrong...

 

[megas]

thats what makes star trek so interesting is the transporters! and the different races. Umm that's very interesting Dave, yet scarey in a way...the destination person is a copy? or is it just leaving our bodies there, and only taking our minds? but we will never know, i don't think a transporter will ever be possible... just like a time machine, but that's why we have science fiction! lol, got to love it

 

[jdlech]

Let's not forget the replicators. In one episode, some being creates plates full of gemstones for Kirk and the gang. Kirk looks at them and says, "I could manufacture a ton of these back on my ship".
To me, the replicators is the fascinating thing, and the technology dovetails with the transporters. Supposedly, a "template" pattern for everything they need is stored in the ships computer. When someone dials up "latte, hot", or "tea, earl gray, hot". then the patterns are combined to produce the desired result. Unfortunately, the original series did not have this technology perfected. Even subsequent series did not always have it right. Some things just did'nt taste quite right and they never could duplicate the ever valuable "dilithium crystals".
However, in the books, and in one episode of TNG, Scotty survived an extended period when he had himself and one other guy scanned by the transporter that was put into an infinite loop so it never transported him anywhere. He survived as a pattern in the transporters "buffers" for years.

Clearly, the original is destroyed as it is converted into a pattern held in the computers. Then a nearly exact replica is recreated somewhere else. Which brings the philosophical question "if it has all your thoughts and memories, mannerisms, and experiences; if it duplicates you down to the quantom level; how can it not be you?" As the science of ST puts it, the trick was to send two beams, one for the energy, and the other for the organizational information. when they both converge, (and here's where we go from sci fi to mumbo jumbo) they combine through quantom entanglement to recreate a near exact duplicate of the object. That's why McCoy did not like them "scrambling his atoms".
In fact, there were some rules against duplicating people. Apparently, the only reason why people were'nt instantly cloned all over the place is because the "buffers" in the computer was automatically purged once the person was transported. But there was nothing but laws, ethics, and an elecronic circuit preventing a person from disabling the purge and producing dozens of himself.
I never understood why nobody thought about combining the replicators with the transporters to create a self repairing ship. The enterprise could have repaired or replaced any part of itself within seconds. Shields go down, simply scan and destroy the damaged circuits and transport new circuits into place. Shield back up within seconds. Hull breach? simply replicate and transport a new section of hull into place.
Lots of wasted energy, but who's going to care about energy conservation when you're under fire?

 

[Sempiternity]

It seems that the United States Air Force is also looking into the concept of teleportation, even so it's quite practically impossible without something like a "Heisenberg Compensator."

U.S. Air Force Takes a Look at Teleportation
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technovel_teleport_041103.html

Atom Experiment Brings Teleportation a Step Close
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/quantum_teleportation_010926.html

 

[jdlech]

Teleportation – psychic: the conveyance of persons or inanimate objects by psychic means. We will call this p-Teleportation

Interesting... Remote viewing started out as a joint CIA and DoD experiment and has been in civilian hands for over 20 years now. One of it's orginators, a Maj. Ed Dames, Bio, has since lost all credibility even as the credibility of the skill is no longer questioned. Sorry, even with remote viewing, a person can only cast their senses to another place. Not manipulate physical objects or physical motion.

"P-Teleportation, if verified, would represent a phenomenon that could offer potential high-payoff military, intelligence and commercial applications. This phenomenon could generate a dramatic revolution in technology, which would result from a dramatic paradigm shift in science. Anomalies are the key to all paradigm shifts!"

Sorry, even if it seems the closest we have at the moment, it's still light years away from the travel channel.

 

[MonstersFromTheId]

Historical correction

"The concept was created by the late-Gene Roddenberry"

Just to keep historical facts straight, Gene most certainly did not create the concept of the transporter.
Although I've never been able to backtrack the first time a transporter was used in Sci-Fi, I can think of at least two examples of transporters being used in film that predate their use in Star Trek right off the top of my head.

BUCK ROGERS, the popular serial from 1939, is the earliest use of a transporter I've been able to dig up on film.

THE FLY, (1958), was a story entirely based on a "transporter accident".

Let's not give "The Great Bird" too much credit here. Gene was primarily a dramatist. And dramaturgy was his trade and craft. He didn't "create" any of the various "toys" of the Star Trek universe. He was an avid and well read SF enthusiast, but not particularly creative in his own right. He "barrowed from the greats", and knew how to use what he barrowed, but created nothing from whole cloth.
It should also be noted that Gene didn't decide to include the use of "transporters" in his classic original series for SF or creative reasons. It was a solution to the problem of working on a shoe string budget.
DesiLu was a *tiny* production company with no money to afford financing more than very basic SFX. Gene was faced with the *dramatic* need of having to get characters from "the ship" to the surface of various SF worlds on a weekly basis, and couldn't afford the cost of filming miniatures of "shuttle craft" flying through the air ("flying" against a backdrop of stars is cheap, but add so much as a hillside, clouds, or even so much as a bird, and it gets either VERY expensive, or too cheesy looking to work).
Thus his decision to use "transporters".
Take a glass of Alka-Seltzer, add glitter, stir, and film with the lens just a tad out of focus, and waa-la! You've got your basic matte b.g. for your transporter effect.
It should also be noted that he didn't come up with the "look" of his "transporters" out of the clear blue either. He got that inspiration from one of his favorite SF films. Check out the "inertial dampening system" used aboard "United Space Cruiser C57D" from the 1956 MGM SF classic FORBIDDEN PLANET (Also note those quoted terms come from the film. Easy to see where Gene got terms like "inertial dampers", "United Federation of Planets" and "Starship Enterprise NCC-1701").

Gene never created SF concepts. That wasn't his strength. His strength was in taking existing SF elements and mixing them into stories built on solid Shakespearian dermatological foundations.

 

[JO 753]

I know this duznt jibe with the sparse explanations offered on Star Trek, but I think its at least plausible, if not ultimately true.

Think of reality a stack of pictures. Each instant is just a slitely different picture than the last. The cause and effect continuity of time is an illusion.

If this is true, then all a transporter has to do is drag a piece of the picture from one place & drop it in another, rather than destroying & recreating it, at least from the perspective of those in the pictures. Think of the Select & Move functions in Adobe Photoshop.

So, instead of being located .000001 angstrom to the left or whatever in the next picture, the transporter locates you thousands of miles away. You weren't erased or disassembled or reassembled.

Your illusion of continuity would be completely intact. You're just continuing in a different place.

If the transporter mechanism operates within this illusion, it would of course not be able to make this move instantly. Therefore there would be some pictures that do not contain you.

 

[chronon]

The problem of quantum uncertainty in teleportation is one that has been solved, at least in principle. This is what quantum teleportation is all about. See http://www.chronon.org/articles/interstellar_travel.html. Interestingly quantum teleportation necessarily destroys the original when it is teleported. Of course there still remains the problem of dealing with 10^25 quantum systems rather than 1.

 

[DaveC426913]

I never understood why nobody thought about combining the replicators with the transporters to create a self repairing ship. The enterprise could have repaired or replaced any part of itself within seconds. Shields go down, simply scan and destroy the damaged circuits and transport new circuits into place. Shield back up within seconds. Hull breach? simply replicate and transport a new section of hull into place.
Lots of wasted energy, but who's going to care about energy conservation when you're under fire?

I imagine it is a better bang for your buck to merely pump all that enerrgy directly into the shields. It will provide more stopping power as a shield than as a mechanism for replacing the hull, which will take time, other resources, and ultimately, more energy.

 

[DaveC426913]

All this debate. It would be interesting to see how people put their money where their mouth is.

I have shamelessly stolen and mangled Whitestar's original post (hope you don't mind) and converted it into a poll:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=581041#post581041

 

[Whitestar]

All this debate. It would be interesting to see how people put their money where their mouth is.

I have shamelessly stolen and mangled Whitestar's original post (hope you don't mind) and converted it into a poll:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=581041#post581041

No problem! I'm actually quite flattered!


Whitestar