# Star Trek: how do transporters work **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 11, 2016, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797 "2016-02-11T06:01:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/41 "2016-02-12T23:53:14Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It works like this: You step on the platform, and it magically saves the production the cost of showing a shuttle landing and docking every time the crew goes somewhere. It also magically prevents the plot from screeching to a halt every time the crew move from place to place. It’s brilliant. And if you ever have a week where nothing interesting was going to occur, it will of course duplicate people, or send them into another universe, or turn them into little kids, or otherwise give you something to write home about. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/42 "2016-02-13T01:21:42Z")
Yep. One of the best plot devices ever! ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/43 "2016-02-13T03:04:14Z")
Wow Balance, that was something! Since I started this thread I’ve been reading the responses and thinking about this a lot. I would have never thought of some of the things you guys have posted. But I did think of something funny. There must be a whole room dedicated to storing all the empty tea cups after Picard finishes his Earl Grey tea. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/44 "2016-02-13T03:26:32Z")
They’re made out of hard candy and given to the children on board. And Worf. Worf loves to gnaw them. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/45 "2016-02-13T03:30:51Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Now THAT’s ^ a fan wank, worthy of becoming canon. It adds believable detail without contradicting\* what has been seen in the show. > > \*mostly. But what can you do with fiction written over time by different people. Rascals doesn’t fit, neither really does Relics. Thanks. “Relics” can actually be made to fit, I think. Recall that Scotty analyzed the transporter problem that resulted in two versions of Kirk appearing at two different times. He presumably knew, then, that it was possible for the transporter to “observe” a target’s presence at a temporal location as well as a physical one. However, he couldn’t get a destination scan from the future, so he had to rely on the transporter pattern buffer holding up until the proper “destination” appeared–a time in the future when someone came to the rescue and activated the remainder of the transporter sequence. “Rascals” is trickier, because they were younger, but retained all their memories. I think the best handwave I can manage is that the transporter lost _most_ of their physical pattern, but retained their neuroelectric pattern and most or all of their DNA. The buffer’s error detection and correction algorithm projected their physiology from DNA to reconstruct the pattern to a sufficient point for their neurology to support its record of neuroelectric patterns. It used the combined pattern as a template to “find” a state in which they had the youngest possible bodies that could accommodate their adult minds. After the crisis was over, Crusher and O’Brien used medical records to adjust the projection and repeat the transport with the corrected pattern. > [@White SIFL](#): > > Wow Balance, that was something! Since I started this thread I’ve been reading the responses and thinking about this a lot. I would have never thought of some of the things you guys have posted. But I did think of something funny. There must be a whole room dedicated to storing all the empty tea cups after Picard finishes his Earl Grey tea. Picard recycles, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/46 "2016-02-13T17:23:45Z")
Don’t forget that transporters can cure incurable diseases by transporting the victim along with DNA samples from before the illness was contracted. Not sure why this technique wasn’t used to repair Worf’s spine. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/47 "2016-02-14T00:06:55Z")
Someone mentioned the phaser not heating up in the user’s hand. How does it disintegrate someone without causing a massive explosion as the disintegratee’s atoms convert to energy? Why would Kirk be amazed at Landru-hologram not having a receiver at his end when he uses the transporter every episode? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/48 "2016-02-14T00:08:24Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Someone mentioned the phaser not heating up in the user’s hand. How does it disintegrate someone without causing a massive explosion as the disintegratee’s atoms convert to energy? . . . The same way getting caught in a wood-chipper disintegrates you without turning your atoms to energy. The phaser disrupts the cohesion of an object; it doesn’t initiate relativistic total conversion. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/49 "2016-02-14T10:20:55Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Someone mentioned the phaser not heating up in the user’s hand. How does it disintegrate someone without causing a massive explosion as the disintegratee’s atoms convert to energy? Transtators again. On the disintegrate setting, the beam just paints the target, using its charged particle stream to create a fingerprinted beacon. The transtator array locks onto this beacon and causes the particles in the target to tunnel away in random directions. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/50 "2016-02-14T23:49:15Z")
Nifty! Sort of like a miniaturized one-way only, scatter-effect Transporter, set to wide dispersal and local-effect. If people could have small “shield generators” – say, a backpack model – would that protect them from phasers? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/51 "2016-02-15T00:41:16Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > If people could have small “shield generators” – say, a backpack model – would that protect them from phasers? Didn’t the phasers themselves have some kind of shielding on both the emitter and pistol grip? There were photos in _ **The Making of Star Trek** _ and drawings in the tech manuals that showed this. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797/52 "2016-02-15T01:07:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > If people could have small “shield generators” – say, a backpack model – would that protect them from phasers? Anything that would stop the particle beam should work. If they can’t be painted, they’re safe. The hull integrity fields on ships seem to be enough to keep phasers from damaging bulkheads under most conditions. > [@terentii](#): > > Didn’t the phasers themselves have some kind of shielding on both the emitter and pistol grip? There were photos in _ **The Making of Star Trek** _ and drawings in the tech manuals that showed this. Could be for containment or to prevent “blowback” when firing the basic beam at close range (like the cutter setting), but not anything like a full personal shield. It could also have been a holdover from the ECM race. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-how-do-transporters-work/745797.md?page=2)