How Transporters Work (Star Trek)

[@CoronisAdair]

Transporters! Helping Roddenberry deal with pesky little budgeting concerns (and being a handily abused plot device) since 1965!

[@davidgrisez]

It is true that Transporter Special effects cost a lot less money than landing a Star Ship on a planet special effects, so it was a budget decision to do Transporters.

[@CoronisAdair]

@@davidgrisez Roddenberry 'invented' the Transporter concept because they couldn't pay to make a Shuttlecraft mock-up for the pilot :D

[@RobeonMew]

Hes allowed to be lazy seeing that he considered predicting the cell phone correctly

[@christophermiller3031]

Do you think this way while enjoying ANY fiction?

[@Krahazik]

It may have started as a quick plot device to avoided budgeting for a shuttle landing, but they become much more as a staple of the entire universe.

[@ptonpc]

"Soo, The transporter will take a series of really accurate pictures of me. Put me through a blender, mincing me into a very fine slurry, THEN dump the sludge at the target site and use that to assemble me? " "Yes sir" "I'll take the shuttle"

[@uncletaylorify]

"Is that you Dr McCoy?!" LOL

[@vine01]

kinda what Archer's Enterprise thought of it :P used in absolute dire situation in first, or even second season.

[@jdm3072]

My understanding is that confinement beams can be automatically activated and deactivated (as needed) by inconsistent scriptwriters.

[@MandalorV7]

Well it does make some in universe sense. Imagine you might need to bean someone out who is running for their lives. Staying still long enough for the transporter to lock onto them might actually risk them getting captured or killed.

[@IronBrisingr]

I think the confinement beam adds an opposite pressure equal to the amount being applied to stop movement. This would explain the ability to maintain momentum after it is released. Not that it actually stops it.

[@Phoenixash-delfuego]

@@MandalorV7 is beaning someone out like flicking a bean?

[@thatsunpossible312]

@@MandalorV7 staying still relative to what, though? The surface of the planet or the orbiting space craft? 😁

[@brucemorris3830]

This is Star Trek. Every problem can be solved by either a) emitting a beam of NonExistiton Particles or b) reversing the polarity of the deflector dish. Or sometimes c) both. 😂🖖

[@TheGreyTurtleEntertainment]

"what we got back didn't live long, fortunately" ~best summary of the risks of the Transporter.

[@richardleeskinneriii9640]

"It turned inside out!" "And it exploded."

[@Patriotgal1]

@@richardleeskinneriii9640 Now, now- THAT wasn't actually Star Trek... ;)

[@carrypatmore5898]

Galaxy quest

[@casbot71]

"look chief… all I'm asking is you adjust the pattern to lose about 10 kilos of fat around the midsection, it's not like I'm asking you to make me younger…"

[@d.b.4671]

...although now that I think about it, a transporter could probably do that.

[@RPhillip]

@@d.b.4671 Not only can it, it was actually done in the 2nd season of Star Trek: TNG. I forget the episode name, but in the one with the genetically modified children that created the 'aging virus' which infected Pulaski.

[@billphillips5821]

Possibly an alternative for male enhancement but I'm sure "humanity has progress beyond that sort of thing".

[@ucitymetalhead]

Man I'd pay for that.

[@casbot71]

@@RPhillip Yep, that episode *Unnatural Selection* (where the Federation ban on genetic engineering of Humans apparently had a exemption clause - _continuity contradictions in Trek?_ … never!) and the ridiculous episode *Little Rascals* (where Picard, Guinan, Keiko and Ro become children due to a transporter accident) were my inspiration. And of course Little Rascals ends with the new tweened characters becoming adults again, instead of enjoying the opportunity of having all those extra years added to their lifespan - just have 6 years of growning (okay, longer for Guinan) and then they are a healthy mature teen/young adult… with decades of experience behind them. Still it did lead to some great child Picard memes.

[@Restilia_ch]

Ah yes, the "disassemble me and create quantum duplicate me in a different place" machine. I'm with Bones on this one, I'll stick to shuttles.

[@tigerbread78]

Until the movies, Bones used to beam down all the time

[@Bruced82]

Are we the same exact beings we were at birth or from last night, quantum permanence is silly if you start to think about it..

[@Jeddostotle7]

For various reasons, it's clear there's something about the transporter process in Star Trek that maintains one's consciousness etc. through the whole thing, rather than just making a duplicate (at least in most situations), like how Barclay is shown to be continually conscious through the whole thing in one episode. For another example, to quote doctorwhom1 elsewhere in the comment section: "More evidence that transporters probably aren't suicide booths would be that telepaths are fine with them. If they really just killed and reassembled people then purely psychic entities (Spock's katra for example) would be ripped away from whatever's being transported."

[@TheCoffeehound]

"One to beam down." The transporter malfunctions. Again. "Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good..."

[@Swiftbow]

@@Jeddostotle7 Clearly, they beam the soul along with the body. It's part of the energy pattern of consciousness. (Also, katras and souls are the same thing. I'm not sure why this doesn't seem to be a general consensus.)

[@MordonaT]

"With enough force to punch through plot shields"

[@TheBlackB0X]

I am surprised that moving target transportation was mentioned but the Heisenberg compensator was omitted.

[@HeavyMetalMouse]

I imagine that the Heisenberg Compensators are a subcomponent - certainly an important one, but they are part of one of the larger systems that enables it to perform its overall function, rather than a discrete part of the process. Probably part of the process that scans and saves the quantum image, since said image would otherwise have a 'fuzzy' resolution that would not be safe for use. Sort of like how, for an exotic engine, you might need to engineer special bearings for its turbine-equivalents; those bearings are very important, in that they allow the component they're part of to function, but you wouldn't necessarily call attention to them in an overview of the engine's standard cycle, but you very much would talk about how the dang things keep failing and need replacing, or realigning, or etc if they were a common source of fault (i.e., brought up in the relevant episode as an issue)

[@trianor]

I was also really surprised he didn't mention the Heisenberg Compensator, it was one of the main trivia things I knew about the transporter. Maybe he'll mention it in a later video, I only discovered this channel today :S

[@BassandoForte]

Surprised that the fact it's nothing more than a clever edit as none of this actually exists - hasn't been mentioned yet... 🤣

[@llanorick]

“If you have to take me apart to get me there, I don’t want to go!” Douglas Adams

[@BoopSnoot]

These are basically suicide booths, evidenced by the fact that we got a duplicate Riker once. Basically they make a clone of you in a new location, and to avoid the inconvenience of having you at your present location they kill you.

[@andrewchapman2039]

A particularly nihilistic friend of mine is perfectly fine with transporters, because "persistent consciousness is a lie anyway". So I guess most people in Trek have come to terms with that.

[@moriskurth628]

I mean, who's to say that your "you" consciousness doesn't die every time you go to sleep, and everything you remember is just your brain filling the blanks when your next consciousness steps in as you "wake up"? How's that for some nightmare fuel?

[@namesurname624]

@@moriskurth628 in that case I'm probably the longest person alive on earth rn

[@Phoenixash-delfuego]

@@moriskurth628 and time is perceived buy the individual and is not a universal constant so the process you speak of could sit beyond the individual's concept of time then you don't need sleep to kill the consciousness it could happen in the bink of an eye, or it could happen slap bang in-between what the individual perceives to be a continuous consciousness and the moment one consciousness takes over from the other sits in an increment of time that is inconceivable to the individual making the change from one consciousness to the other seemless.

[@charlesmurphy1510]

Apparently you are conscious, in one show they were talking during transport and the conversation continued through materialisation. So I wonder how Scotty passed the time while locked in a pattern buffer for so many years.

[@DrewLSsix]

@@moriskurth628 science is to say, you dont stop existing when you sleep.

[@KEVMAN7987]

It's basically magic. "A wizard did it." - Lucy Lawless in The Simpsons

[@AdmiralJT]

When you think about transporters, physics gets unhappy

[@capnsteele3365]

A lot of things get very unhappy like me. What to be

[@Sephiroth144]

Matter Stream can be stored for 420 seconds... then you gotta exhale, bro.

[@Moonbeam143]

We were transported to a new year. Happy New Year, everybody.

[@hawkeye5955]

@Tesla-Effect Year of Hell, Part 2

[@AstralArbourSys]

@@hawkeye5955 Who's gonna tell Janeway-

[@Tarrenger]

If I remember correctly, knowing a shield's frequency does allow transporters to bypass them.

[@the_kraken6549]

And yet there have been numerous times of “we’d use the transporter but we can’t drop our shields.

[@Tarrenger]

@@the_kraken6549 Yeeep, besides if the Shield Frequency is known, you can just shoot through them. Like in Voyager and Star Trek Generations.

[@giladpellaeon1691]

Things that often break on Starfleet vessels: Holodecks, transporters, consoles, warp cores, rock containment spaces within walls and ceilings. P.S. with how often Starfleet vessels explode from any damage I refer to them as "Space Pintos". I might be showing my age a bit with that too.

[@kfcroc18]

Transporter room to transporter room beaming makes a lot more sense than say, transporter room to random area or random area to random area beaming.

[@christopherg2347]

This approach is both safer and has longer range, so it is preferred whenever possible. All you need to do is "Hand over" or receive the pattern, other side does the rest. It does not protect you from subterfuge by the other side however (See "Data's Day").

[@kfcroc18]

@@christopherg2347 It's the transporter that scans, broadcasts you, and disassembles /rebuilds you.

[@CheezyDee]

That's it, I'm buying a Danube class runabout. No more scrambling my molecules.

[@matthewjay660]

Make sure it’s the “Rio Grande;” she lasted all 7 seasons.

[@kaitlyn__L]

The perfect size for a bachelor(ette) to fly around space on their own, like a future version of getting a houseboat, or an RV.

[@logix8969]

A lot of people (myself included) have been on a quarantine Star Trek binge. First time watching for me, gone through all of TNG and now on Voyager. Thanks for this explainer, I had most of it figured out but there was some useful info and visualisations in this

[@onehouse4022]

I remember ST:Enterprise had a moment of crew contemplating the existential implications of tech that was new to them. A small mention even of some civilians believing that whoever arrives via a transporter is just a copy that lacks a soul. So yeah, transporters create undead. Prove me wrong. 😄

[@kinagrill]

Actually that's not how it works in science. you postulated a result, and thus it's your responsiblity to prove it TRUE first. Otherwise we can go into 'I can say whatever I want to be true cuz you need to prove it to be false' realm of nutty-folk :p

[@michaelrussell3890]

"But, the animal is inside out..."

[@karlsmith2570]

And it exploded

[@jaytealstone1687]

"Beaming to moving targets is harder". So... literally everything in space?

[@DrVictorVasconcelos]

Well, since the equivalence principle says everyone can be right if they consider themselves to be stationary, not everything, as it still includes anything with displacement 0 on their own inertial frame (such as the ship, or a ship that's following in the same warp factor)

[@jaytealstone1687]

@@DrVictorVasconcelos I am about 30 billion braincells short of being able to understand this

[@hithere5553]

I assume they mean under acceleration or with an unpredictable trajectory.

[@scotthix2926]

1. Take a picture of platform 2. Take a picture of you standing on a platform 3. Throw some glitter onto platforms 4. Walk next door to second set 5. Throw some glitter 6. Take a picture of set 7. Take picture of you on set Transporters are awesome.

[@ericstorey2919]

😆

[@gmradio2436]

When Rick said you can lock on to the calcium in bones and now I have the nightmarish image of someone having their bones beamed out. Just the bones.

[@johnsteiner3417]

They should've just gone with Hitchhiker's "Law of Indeterminacy."

[@genehunsinger3981]

Riker found ,after 1 transport, that his TOOL was 2" shorter and Picard was pleasantly surprised to find an extra 2" added to his TOOL after a emergency transport.Data said "it was a happy accident,,,for the captain,,,and Troy".

[@user-zh4vo1kw1z]

Barclay was shown to be conscious during transport, when he was attacked by 'parasites'. It even showed his POV. Being conscious during transport is something alluded to by others in-universe as well. I remember someone mentioning that the transporter worked by shifting space around, comparible to a wormhole or warp, and that the deconstruction/reconstruction is to move you through that distortion. So that it really IS you who emerges on the other side. Dang, wish I could remember where I heard that, cuz it is certainly something more convoluted than I would be able to think of.

[@MandalorV7]

I forget which show it was exactly, maybe Enterprise, but I remember one character describe that they could feel standing at two places at the same time. Which would mean the transporting process happens so fast that there is little time for the subjects brain to full register what is fully happening.

[@user-zh4vo1kw1z]

@@MandalorV7 that also indicates a continued consciousness between sites, making it less of a murdermachine than the brundle-teleporter which explicitly does deconstruct you...

[@rolandet]

4:50 yes, I was indeed thinking that😆

[@johnnyr25]

[CGP Grey has entered the chat...]

[@MJRookieForge]

[SPOILERS] I feel like this is a direct response to the EC beaming onto the bridge of Disco with their shields up still.

[@IsabelLee617]

I think it is really cool that we can get so many facts from a science fiction show! That why I love Star Trek! Also happy new year! 🎆

[@DoctorX17]

Ever since they introduced transporter tags, I always thought it would be great if they just gave officers tag guns to beam enemies right to the brig

[@BoopSnoot]

Or just have the transporters "forget" to reassemble them. Seems like a pretty powerful weapon.

[@DoctorX17]

@@BoopSnoot that's some Section 31 thinking there... I like it. "Transport accidents" when capturing enemies...

[@rubend.4313]

Man I love that epsisode, with the skeletal lock in voyager

[@seskal8595]

The video about when transporters don't work should have something like "I can just Beam back up. And other lies you tell yourself" in the thumbnail

[@AmalgmousProxy]

The way I have theorized how transporters work is by way of quantum conversion of the matter itself into energy that is out of phase with time/space. Meaning that your being isn't really "taken apart" but rather the matter that makes you up is taken out of phase of time/space at that point the atomic structure becomes like an imprint to that place in time/space. The beam creates a quantum area the same pattern as where the being currently is making the two areas the same place at the same time. The phased matter then merely get's directed to the new place in time/space and de-phases from it's quantum energy form and comes back into phase in the new area of space/time. This way you are technically still intact just in a different quantum phase. In simpler terms, it's like the door system in monsters inc except on the quantum level. Just a thought.

[@aholland20132]

I always figured that transporters worked on two levels. One is matter disassembly/reassembly and the other is a warped space approach. The first is like Legos with taking things apart; the second is like sliding a box from one space to another where the item is not disassembled. When considered this way the limitations and capabilities can both be reconciled - depends on what your story needs.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

I'm definitely looking forwards to the follow-up video. But since when is the ACB meant to freeze a transport subject? I know in Ent and TOS it did, Discovery doesn't but that's a newer ship, and in TNG that super soldier (Roga Danar or something?) screwed up a transport by sorta karate chopping his way out of the ACB.

[@mattdemo6387]

I've always wanted to see a inventor, that is taking supplies from a Starship junkyard and then starts combining: 1. Teleporter 2. a replicator 3. The Holodeck, Making something that will give them a young body Teleports a old guy into the teleporter and then teleport the younger version out. But with all of his memories

[@caihah.1404]

It make a digital copy of you, disintegrates you, then creates a physical copy at a different location.

[@paulbritton1436]

Since you can see the ship, that means visible light frequencies are getting through the shields hence set your phasers to visible light, and transporters to visible light, and you could shoot or beam through any shields

[@JimmyTurner]

Id "accidently" transport everybody naked, if I was the transporter dude.

[@thesageofgames1871]

There is actually a canonical way to beam through shields. It has to do with how different shield vectors don't drain each other at the points where they overlap. It is also this mechanic that allows weapons to pass through when frequency matched to the shields of the target enemy. When you want to beam through shields, you match the frequency of the transporter beam to that of the other ship's shields.

[@jannikheidemann3805]

I guess you can also beam through shields if you know the shield frequency.

[@artembentsionov]

The no-deletion theorem suggests that the person who reappears on the other end of the beam is still you. It also suggests that if you were to upload yourself to a computer and die before the digital version is activated, it would be you, not a copy. I’m not a quantum physicist. Just a guy who has read Bobiverse

[@onesunghero]

Beaming through shields is my biggest issue with the Dyson sphere episode.

[@HalferLandPerformance]

Thanks for using the Nebula class ship in the video...one of my favorite ships and first Eagle Moss model I bought

[@NightHawke]

IIRC, O'Brien was somehow (in the best NextGen technobabble tradition) able to slip the transporter beam through the refresh rate of the deflectors on the ship of his old captain, who'd gone rogue against the Cardassians. As you said, the deflectors work against transporter beams until the plot says they don't!

[@Krahazik]

I think the confinement beam just holds the subject within the beam area, doesn't allow you to exit but otherwise, movement is still possible. We never see someone exit a confinement beam once established. In one episode Picard was held as they tried to beam him off a planet while another ship captain he was with was attacked and Picard was unable to go to the other captains aid until the transport process was aborted and he was released.

[@Bondoz007]

Hi Rick and happy new year to you! Great vid and very thoughtful. I wondered about the dodgy stuff Voyager would do keeping people in suspension in eps like Counterpoint but perhaps you'll touch on it next week. Looking forward to it. (Hope the DR Who special was a treat - I'm in Oz so today we finally have it).

[@KatrinaLeFaye]

The Outer Limits episode Think Like a Dinosaur has a very interesting explanation on transporting, called 'Balancing the Equation'. In effect, you are scanned, put into stasis while the digital scan of you is transported and when your scan is received and made into matter the original suspended being is destroyed.

[@john_blues]

Yeah, that was a fantastic episode.

[@rachagainstthemachine.]

The research you do for these videos is incredible and deserves high praise. The transporter is confirmed to just be a cloning/murder machine!! I've always agreed with barclay and bones on their transporter phobia.

[@brianarbenz1329]

A Transporter sure would make mutiny easy.

[@dwightk.schrute8696]

Congratz on 100K subs chief! Love your videos

[@ChevronQ]

hey Rick, Congrats on 100k 😊 Really love your videos and your sense of humour 😁

[@andyt1313]

You forgot the Heisenberg compensator. It was an ingenious little bit the science advisors had the writers add to speak to the science nerds.

[@allistair61]

I can still remember the enterprise episode that involves Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed having to retrieve a communicator left on the planet surface by an way team member that will not be named. I can understand the need for a script point for a story, and the writers making a point about non-interference, but I never understood why they didn't simply beam the communicator up, the witnesses would not have been believed.

[@tparadox88]

Most of the time when they beam through shields there's some explanation about "normally we can't do it but we're exploiting the fact that we know the shielding's refresh rate and slip through the split second it's weakest where we need to punch through" or "we know the exact energy frequency of the shield and if we match the matter stream's carrier frequency it's like the shields aren't there." And then there was at least one time the explanation was "the beam is going through subspace, so it essentially tunnels around the space where the shield is".

[@jimhenderson8450]

that andorian is crazy thick

[@BassandoForte]

At the shows edit: A sound guy queues the transport sound and records it over the top of a still shot of Riker and is recorded over the top of the stock film... Then graphics guy does a fade between the sill shot of Riker and a shot of the empty transport pad - and this is edited into the still shot of Riker, when some sparkles are added on a computer using a CAD package.... 👍👍

[@wallsttech6881]

22nd Century : Poopy Doodles made from apples 32nd Century : Apples made from Poopy Doodles

[@SuperMagnetizer]

Beaming into areas of different pressures could be painful as well. The entire away team could develop the bends quite suddenly upon rematerialization.

[@danieljames1868]

Easy answer to the transporter clone problem: the star trek universe seemingly has souls and the transporter is able to transport those too.

[@adamfistler4655]

Shields are able to be beamed through whenever the plot calls for it.

[@JEDAI501ST]

Here's an interesting thought. If shields are supposed to prevent all forms of energy from getting past it, then how can communications work with the shields up? Plot device?

[@WildBluntHickok]

Visible light gets through it just fine too.

[@eddstarr2185]

Inspired by the 1958 movie, "The Fly", there was a bit of a teleportation craze in the early 1960's, leading to Star Trek's fabulous transporter. Unlike other teleportation devices, the transporter in Star Trek is unique in the ability to materialize at the target location without the need of a "receiver" mechanism . Before Star Trek all teleporters were from transmitter pods to receiver pods - the device that sends you requires a receiving device to catch you. Plus saying "transporter" sounds waay cooler than "teleporter" 😎

[@youneedaglock4702]

Teleporter implies high tech device that breaks down molecular structure and reassembly in another location. Transporter is..... a bus

[@robblerouser5657]

A process like that could easily get a sign flipped somewhere. Then you'd come out as a mirror image of yourself.

[@Lightman0359]

There was an episode of TNG where due to transporter malfunction, Riker got cloned due to the transport beam being reflected and scattered, like a reverse Tuvix from Voyager.

[@TheThomasites]

Theres a book on that. "Spock Must Die"

[@ronaldfinkelstein6335]

I was given to understand that the annular confinement beam was needed to maintain the organization of the matter pattern. I think that the TNG tech manual says that they dispose of trash, by beaming it into space, without the ACB. The result is that the trash materializes as disassociated atoms.

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

You can transport things inside of a warp-field of a craft. Thereby using it as a catapult to send projectiles at a Target

[@qdllc]

The ACB, as I understand it, is meant to prevent contamination in the beaming spot. It’s a weak force field pushing everything out of the way.

[@topcat1255]

We all know that transporters were invented by the R&D department at Federation Express...when it absolutely, positively needs to get there on time!

[@twofruits2002]

I liked the way Dark Matter did this. They didn't have transporters, but they did use a technology called transfer transit to transmit a DNA and brain mapping to constructed clones on the other end. These clones last for 72 hours. When they were finished with their mission, they could integrate those memories into the original. In the even the clone was killed, the memories were lost, but the original didn't die. The clones are then recycled. Probably a much more feasible technology.

[@BillAngelos]

I remember seeing one of the original star trek episodes where someone beamed in from outside of the system.

[@Monni95]

Shields are obviously not solid objects, so it is possible to punch transporter beam through the holes in the shield, but that requires knowledge of the location of the holes in the shield emitters. There is several shield emitters and the signals don't overlap to avoid cancelling each other. This is obvious from various episodes including the ST:D episode few days ago when Osyraa transports her crew onboard Discovery during battle...

[@AlexTheStampede]

The transporter room! Or as I call it, the place where things go wrong.

[@ThatOneGuy0006]

I believe that the transporter absolutely transfers the soul/consciousness of the user, but how it does this is a closely guarded industry secret so we never learn how.

[@Gangerworld]

And in Star Trek: Discovery, transporters just work by magic. Just magic. Great video again, Rick! Happy New Year!

[@Albrat28]

The long range Ability of a Trasporter can be done beyond a few light years. But These transports are done without the ACB. Meaning your destination is not cleared when you beam and if you transport in bulk... The edges of the beam can degrade. It means you can beam to a location without safety constraints... That was how the transporting onto the Enterprise from the planetary base was done with Scotty and Kirk... in the movies. Also on the note of the beaming the bad guys away... They did that on stargate SG 1 at some point. The line being "I could beam you away but I was not sure where it would beam you... So I beamed the bad guys away instead." Just after that one of the frozen dead bad guys hits the viewscreen window of the ship and Cmdr Carter grins. ...

[@tommywilliamson2103]

I saw an articule a few days ago where they were able to successfully transported a object across a distense of 44km with 99.5% success.

[@robertmartinu8803]

Ad conservation of energy momentum: if fully implemented that would have hilarious side effects! Just consider the different orbital velocities of a person standing on either the poles or the equator of a planet, not to mention the ship in orbit. Without some arresting it would be very obvious that the transport kills you - not necessarily in the metaphysical way, but by smearing you as a hypervelocity impactor across the bulkhead! Also genesis somehow extracted enough energy to allow the nebula to collapse into something solid. That would involve setting e&m of every involved molecule or atom.

[@fluffly3606]

I have a very aggressive headcanon where transporters work by yeeting the passenger through subspace, no deconstruction and reconstruction involved. That solves a number of problems including the biggest one for me which is that a transporter is literally just a replicator but better in every way.

[@src6339]

The transporter scans the bridge crew sends the data to a computer at the destination point where the passengers are replicated... The transporter chief at the origen point then pulls out a phasor, explains that the master disassemblers are playing up again and that they need to do this bit manually.

[@Z7Sakari]

Yeah… I have said it ever since I first thought about how a transporter works for more than a second: I’ll take the shuttle. You can keep your Prestige-level wizardry all to yourself.

[@jasonbean5582]

Dicta immortality! Larry Niven, "A World Out of Time".:)

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

Using Transporters as a weapon has not been explored enough as well as the countermeasures to that kind of thing. Such as pressing highly reactive compounds against Shields. Also a sublight warp field say around a probe, could be used to transport objects inside that warp field and then disengage the warp bubble causing a projectile to be moving half the speed of light at a Target

[@alextricoverload]

See, I thought the transporter just ripped you apart and then created a brand new copy. Now "beam me up" actually makes a bit more sense now that I know it's literally transporting you as a beam of matter.

[@Zarth32]

Warping through shiflfd can be explained through related ships of the same faction knowing their shield frequency. If you know the shield frequency of a vessel, then you cam shoot through it too.

[@dancingwiththedarkness3352]

A military project on transporters in the fifties inspired the science fiction story The Fly. In the spring of 1966, the scientific weekly reader ran a story about this, claiming that the college was able to reduce lab rats to electronic signals and transmit them 7 meters over a wire, but wasn't very good at putting them back together. Linking this program to the transporter in Star Trek which aired that September. Since then, military and government officials have occasionally claimed this program still exists. Though it could be to get certain other nations to wast money on a virtual black hole, that money goes in, but no useful results ever come out of.

[@chrisbennett6236]

To my knowledge. The transporters record how your molecules are put together, confines you so your molecules don't wander off, breaks your molecules down to base atoms, sends them from one point to another via EM streams, then using the pattern buffer it reassembles your molecules back to how you were before being broken down. This does not support a duplicate theory in any way shape or form. As it is using only your molecules, not external molecules like a replicator does.

[@dking2720]

CLoaked ship beams a activated photon torpedo into main engineering

[@savagebear4374]

O'Brien was able to beam through shields of the Phoenix (episode The Wounded). I believe it was in between the refresh cycle.

[@tigerbread78]

And he also beamed through the original Enterprise's shield cycle

[@christopherg2347]

Yes. It was a specific cycle of the sensor, wich required a opening in the shields. O'brien knew it and thus knew the shield frequency for that very short window.

[@Youlie2142]

Why is nobody talking about the fact that this would be the perfect surgery device? Instant, clean, no recovery.

[@sulljoh1]

4:44 I wasn't thinking it..

[@onetruekeeper]

Light is energy just like a transporter beam but that has no trouble going right through a shield. They have never explained why that is so. That means a laser cutting beam can go through any shield no matter how much power the shield uses.

[@andrewhenrichs5038]

Did i really just watch that whole thing? I swear I now know more about Star Trek physics than I do about physics in reality.

[@pwnmeisterage]

If the thing scans people at the quantum level then the stored "pattern" (wave function) would require a unitary, isolated, unobservable "pattern buffer". The more accurately they (or their computers) can observe and manipulate any aspect of the buffered data, the less accurately the data would collectively remain intact.

[@oddjob7821]

Surely it would be used as a weapon. Disassemble a person and leave them dissembled scattered in space. It would almost be like the Gadget Kirk had in Mirror Mirror. There are probably some other horrific ways of using this technology as a weapon.

[@rrose9161]

There is an alternative explanation for how transporters work is if we consider it another form of warp bubble travel rather than a matter to energy/energy to matter conversion process

[@nickvoelker7180]

Let's say, hypothetically, you teleported the bones out of someone's body

[@OGSontar]

Teleport? Sure. Gateway? Any time. Transporter? Um...fire up the shuttle, you ain't scattering my molecules all over the galaxy.

[@australiaisnotrealjustaska4379]

If I was given the transporter right now I'd use it as a weapon and just transfer people's hearts to my living room