Starbuck "Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"
Member # 153
posted
Okay, the accepted function of the transporter is converting matter to energy and back. So:
1. What happens if you try to transport energy, eg. an energy being? It's been done, but does anyone have a theoretical mechanism for this?
2. What happens if you're beamed up while firing a phaser? And what happens to the beam?
3. If (as in "The Most Toys") a weapon can be disarmed in the transporter, and the energy simply dissipated, could the transporter be abused as a way of preventing nasty injuries (disintegration etc.) by beaming someone aboard at the moment of the shot?
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1) All forms of matter and energy seem to have a "phased" equivalent, and the transporter "phases" them into this form, then squirts them to the destination, and "re-phases" them. It does NOT change people into radio waves or anything.
2)If you beam up when firing a phaser, part of the phaser beam is snatched up with you, while the rest just sort of dissipates when there is no phaser feeding it. We see this effect in TNG "Datalore" among others. This is further proof that phaser beams travel much more slowly than light, BTW.
3) I think the reaction time of transporters is too slow for that. We do see how Spock snatches Kirk and McCoy away in STVI, and the Klingons begin firing right through the dissipating forms of our heroes without much effect. But that was just a coincidence in timing, and would not save the characters if the Klingons decided to shoot first and Spock activated the transporter only in response to this.
posted
As far as beaming energy, it ought to be easier than matter.
According to an article I read a few months ago in Discover Magazine, Scientists have already successfully "beamed" photons with a primitive transporter device. The big problem will be learning how to dematerialize matter, then reassemble it at a desired location.
--Baloo
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posted
And there's that little ol' thing called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to contend with as well...
------------------ "Stop right there! I have here the only working phaser ever built! It was fired only once: to keep William Shatner from making another album."
- The Collector, "Treehouse of Horror X," The Simpsons.
Because of the "Uncertainty Principle," It Is impossible for the Consumer to Find Out at the Same Time Both Precisely Where This Product Is and How Fast It Is Moving.
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