How do Star Trek Transporters work?

[far-trader]

Yeah, IIRC the primary hull in TOS was detachable for emergency use only - i.e., it was a one time deal.

And it got used in a novelization iirc.

I was kind of surprised it wasn't used in Wrath of Khan (? I think that's the one they just let it burn up in atmo wasn't it?).

One of the tech manuals describes it as a "lifeboat" measure. No thrusters, just a dead stick landing on a long flat place so the crew can be quickly evacuated to a presumably handy type M world to await rescue.

 

[BlackBat242]

Ummm... the Impulse drives (maneuver drive in Trav) is located at the aft end of the saucer... specifically to allow the saucer (which is, after all, where some 80% of the crew quarters are) to be able to go somewhere after separation.

While power cannot be maintained long after connection to the Warp Drives is lost, there is significant reserve power storage/fuel stores to allow several days of operation for the Impulse drives.

 

[Doyle Hunt]

Apparently it just requires a transceiver at one point.

Exactly. That's the problem. Whether it's light from a star (star = transmitter, your eyes = receiver), radio signals, whatever, if you just have a transmitter and no receiver, the signal just keeps going forever, continually getting fainter as per the inverse-square law. The SETI people know that one all too well.

If you have a receiver but no transmitter, there's no signal to receive, and the receiver just sits there doing nothing. The SETI people know that one, too.

A transceiver at one end doesn't cut it. That's like only having one telephone in the whole world. Even Alexander Graham Bell needed two phones, or Watson would have never heard him call. You need transporter transcievers at BOTH ends for two-way travel, or it can't possibly work.

It's fine to propose new scientific breakthoughs in a science-fiction story; that's what science fiction is all about. But when you violate laws of physics that grade-school kids learn from watching Mr. Wizard (at least in my generation), that's bad science fiction.

 

[far-trader]

Who says it's any kind of radio wave though? It's more like some kind of timed decay event. A package of energy (the pattern) in some kind of field that upon popping triggers the realignment of the energy into matter.

 

[far-trader]

Ummm... the Impulse drives (maneuver drive in Trav) is located at the aft end of the saucer... specifically to allow the saucer (which is, after all, where some 80% of the crew quarters are) to be able to go somewhere after separation.

While power cannot be maintained long after connection to the Warp Drives is lost, there is significant reserve power storage/fuel stores to allow several days of operation for the Impulse drives.

Right you are, I do recall something about a limited travel range at impulse after separation now that you mention it. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Doyle Hunt]

Who says it's any kind of radio wave though? It's more like some kind of timed decay event. A package of energy (the pattern) in some kind of field that upon popping triggers the realignment of the energy into matter.

Anything in the electromagnetic spectrum works the same way, not just radio (hence my example using starlight and human eyes).

I'll buy that "timed decay" thing for getting them down to the planet, though. Sort of like the way a Traveller meson gun is explained. Still doesn't help for getting them back to the ship, but it's a start.

Still, it could also help explain why there might be atmospheric interference sometimes, too; you'd need really accurate ranging sensors to program the decay, and anything that interferes with your ranging signal prevents beaming for safety reasons.

 

[far-trader]

Yeah, my bad going with just the radio example, I meant to imply by the "any" that I meant the whole EM band.

...Still doesn't help for getting them back to the ship, but it's a start.

Good point, it doesn't work for grabbing. Quick, we need more Handwavium in here!

 

[boomslang]

Quick, we need more Handwavium in here!

<sigh>

OK, watch closely -- the hand is quicker than the wiki...

Shifting the quantum locus requires only a single fixed reference point from which to measure the standing wave that has its Eigenvalue transformed, therefore transporters only require a focussing/energizing mechanism on one end of the beam path. Indeed, there have been issues with pad-to-pad transporters (cf. Star Trek -- The Motion Picture wherein advanced shielding features of the new transporter design were actually prone to causing dangerous -- and since there are no "minor" transporter accidents, fatal -- feedback; and no, you can't blame it on Janice Rand, either), and the much-sought-after "site-to-site" transporter remains a high tech Holy Grail even for Starfleet.

<bow>
</curtain>

 

[far-trader]

<claps> Encore, encore...

...and the much-sought-after "site-to-site" transporter remains a high tech Holy Grail even for Starfleet.

I thought there was an episode or several of site-to-site transporter action? Or I'm thinking of a different definition. Do you mean transporting from one location to another without a stop and materialization in a transporter?

 

[boomslang]

I thought there was an episode or several of site-to-site transporter action? Or I'm thinking of a different definition. Do you mean transporting from one location to another without a stop and materialization in a transporter?

Indeed, but site-to-site transporters are pretty much always obscenely-high-tech alien artifacts -- you can tell by how they are inevitably (and completely in violation of the laws of thermodynamics) palm-sized devices that fit easily in a pocket or purse, produce no waste heat, and have two- or three-button user interfaces that make Bang & Olufsen's engineers weep...

 

[Hemdian]

This is actually a major theme running through "Spock Must Die!"; James Blish (who wrote many of, and edited all of, the novelizations of the TOS episodes) has Dr. McCoy get into a metaphysical debate with Scotty about whether or not transporting someone is actually murdering them in favor of creating a duplicate elsewhere and if so, does the putative "soul" reincarnate on the other end or is the duplicate soulless, et cetera...

I remember debating this for a whole afternoon with a Trek-obsessed friend of mine back in Uni. (Well, it was more interesting than going to lectures anyway.) Based on the TV series and films todate only (1984) we figured that in the STU there was some sort of energy-based soul. And being energy-based it was included in the transport process. Therefore it really is you (not a duplicate) who materialises at the other end.

However, if anyone invented one for real no way would I ever use it. Are you crazy?!

 

[Thunderbolt]

I thought there was an episode or several of site-to-site transporter action? Or I'm thinking of a different definition. Do you mean transporting from one location to another without a stop and materialization in a transporter?

I seem to remember instances in Deep Space 9 where injured personnel are beamed directly to the sick bay from where ever they were hurt.

 

[mike wightman]

Voyager and DS9 definintely had site to site transporting going on, and it's used in one of the movies isn't it?

Now I have to go and watch them all again... [grumble]

 

[aramis]

Yes, it's used in First Contact. Putting people into the Holoship.

 

[Icosahedron]

"CAPtain! Get your hand off my thigh THIS INSTANT!"

You sure it was the Captain and not Sulu?

As for me, there was one 1960's tv gadget that I've never seen anyone explain, and that was the costume changer on "Batman". I mean, they slide down the batpoles in bruce's study wearing reglular clothes and come down into the batcave wearing their costumes? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?o:

I saw this explained in a 'specifications of the Batcave' in a Batman annual. Assuming the annuals are canon, there is a stop-off partway down with a semi-automated changing room.


It's not Trek, but an alternative mechanism for a transporter might open a 'dimensional door' - a sort of gate with no physical component. The idea has been used many times in SF, The platform entrance to the Hogwarts Express being a recent example. Handwavium on the Magnus Pyke scale, but it does away with the need for a gate at each end - you simply specify where you want the far end of the 'tunnel' to be.

 

[atpollard]

As for me, there was one 1960's tv gadget that I've never seen anyone explain, and that was the costume changer on "Batman". I mean, they slide down the batpoles in bruce's study wearing reglular clothes and come down into the batcave wearing their costumes? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?o:

Rent the movie 'Sky High' (or watch the Disney Channel).
They teach that trick in Superhero school.

 

[BlackBat242]

Those examples are NOT true "site-to-site" transport, since the transporting is being performed by a transporter station located elsewhere. They simply use the transporter station to "relay" the signal, causing it to reform elsewhere as if it had:
A. dematerialized the targets,
B. re-materialized them on the transporter pad,
C. dematerialized them, and
D. re-materialized them at the target point...

but bypassing steps B & C.


"Site-to-site" transport is when a being dematerializes, and rematerializes elsewhere... using a device which transports with him. No need for a large, fixed transport station, and no need to relay through a device.

 

[coliver988]

ST:Nemesis had a very small site-to-site transporter.

Somewhere I read a short story about the woman who created the transporter (not Star Trek, just a general SF story). She knew it destroyed you and made an exact copy so she did not use it for the longest time. And some series in Isaac Asimov's SF magazine used 'faxing' to get you place to place, which pretty much did the same thing. The moral questions that raises are very interesting.

 

[mike wightman]

Ahh, you mean a personal transporter rather than site to site

Again I'm sure someone did this in Voyager or DS9 - but there are a lot of discs to watch...