Amy and I celebrated our sixth anniversary yesterday by driving to Olympic National Park, which includes the beautiful Hoh Rainforest. Think of the forest in Lord of the Rings, and you’ll know what kind of place this is - absolutely magical.
As we drove, we had a great chance to just talk. One topic we discussed in some depth was the idea of a “transporter” like they have on Star Trek. Now, the number of sci-fi conversations we have had, up to this point, has been almost zero. But we were both fascinated by the implications this kind of technology would have for human existence.
It seemed to me that a transporter would work as follows: The person is scanned by a computer, and every subatomic particle’s state and position recorded. The huge amount of data this scan generates is then transmitted to another device at the desired destination, and a replicator-like device reassembles the person at the quantum level. Apparantly, I was correct:
A typical transport sequence began with a coordinate lock, during which the destination was verified and programmed, via the targeting scanners. Next, the life form or object to be beamed was scanned on the quantum level using a molecular imaging scanner. At this point, Heisenberg compensators take into account the position and direction of all subatomic particles composing the object or individual and create a map of the physical structure being disassembled. Simultaneously, the object is converted into transmittable information, also called the matter stream. The person being beamed is now converted into billions of kiloquads of data; one atom out of place and he or she is never to return. From the Memory Alpha Star Trek wiki
I realize that this post has reached an unusual level of geekiness already, but please stay with me. This is cool.
Normal matter replicators, like those that produce food on the starships, operate at a molecular rather than quantum level, so they aren’t capable of producing living organisms (which the Wikipedia article on replicators points out). However, a transporter operates at the quantum level, and produces something called a transporter trace, which is essentially an electronic copy of the person being transported.
For some reason, Star Trek never discussed the possibility of transporter traces being used to create copies of people. It certainly seems feasible with available Star Trek technology, yet the ethical implications are very troubling.
But even replicators, able to produce objects and substances on-demand, would have huge implications for human society. I’m interested in thinking through them in the comments, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
First, replicator technology would mean the end of scarcity, and would completely overturn our capitalist economic system. Replicators could of course produce more replicators, until everyone had one.
The only constraints then would be energy and heat dissipation (it seems that a replicator transforms matter into energy, so you don’t even need raw materials). Everything could be completely recycled, so there would be no more need for landfills or extracting minerals from the earth. Since quantum-level replication uses immense amounts of energy, we would certainly need nuclear or other types of high-yield energy production; to save energy, recycled bulk material could be stored for simple replication projects such as food and other inanimate objects.
Manufacturing, and even agriculture, would no longer be necessary. Work would change drastically, since so many jobs would be eliminated. Every worker would be a “knowledge worker,” since a replicator could produce everything else.
I love the “Heisenberg Compensator” gimmick. They thought enough about the theory to invent something that takes into account the fact that you can never simultaneously know the speed and position of subatomic particles (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle). Then then completely wiped away that gaping plot hole with a few strokes of a writer’s pen. It’s really hilarious on some level. Or maybe I’m just a bit overboard on my geekiness.
after being taken apart and put back together will your soul still be in the body??
I find it very difficult to believe that you and Amy never talk about sci-fi, as much as you all talk about science.
Heh….my husband ruined me. I never used to watch scifi and now we are junkies. I just haven’t watched Star Trek. Stargate, however, does go into replicators actually replicating humans.
First off, you’re a dork. But in a good way.
Seccond off, I think I’m free this Saturday. Do you want to build a replicator? We need to hurry up and beat this guy. Sure he’s an MIT physics genius, but there are two of us!
No Sci-Fi for me (would be nice to be transported other than by SWA), but we plan to see Hoh on Thursday. Any other can’t miss sights to recommend on the penninsula?
Shannon - Searcy,AR
There was one episode of Next Gen, called “Second Chances,” that dealt with the (accidental) creation of a duplicate Riker, who was marooned for 8 years on the planet from which he was trying to transport. Since one intact copy of Riker did reach the Enterprise, they assumed nothing was amiss and didn’t find Riker 2 until much later. The whole episode (which came out around the same time as the human cloning debate heated up) dealt with the ethical ramifications of such a duplication.
Episode synopsis:
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TNG/episode/68606.html
just beam me up,Scotty
Okay, my geek is showing.
Years before the Riker replication, James Blish wrote the first original Star Trek novel, Spock Must Die. The inimitable first officer was accidentally duplicated in a transporter accident when his transporter image was perfectly reflected back by a “tachyon mirror” around the planet he was beaming down to. It took most of the novel for the characters to figure out that the second Spock was a mirror image, and therefore an “evil” one, with loyalties opposite to the original.
Yet somehow Blish managed to explain the transporter’s function with some gibberish about making a dirac jump to an equivalent state of energy at the destination point. Or something like that. None of that creating matter out of energy, or disassembling matter at the transporter. (Scotty says the energy required would blow up the ship.) Nor is there any of that translating beamed subatomic information with a replicator. Just making a dirac jump, whatever the heck that is.
But it’s a little more palatable to me, nevertheless. You just open up a little hole in space, use the tunnel to open another one at the destination, and pop your transported person right through it.
So how did Mr. Blish create another Spock with a tachyon reflection?
I have never been able to figure out that part.
i think there was also a TNG episode where they found Scotty’s trace in a transporter 100s of years after he died.
75 years, in fact, but he (scotty) had never actually died. He intentionally put himself into the transporter and set in on infinite auto-diagnostic loop, since his ship had crash landed and had no food or other supplies. No additional copies of Scotty were made. Another crewman was in the transporter buffer as well, but his pattern had degraded too badly for Laforge to rematerialize him. He must’ve been wearing a red shirt when he went in.
The episode was in season six, entitled “Relics.”
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TNG/episode/68566.html