NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/arts/startrek/tech/7166

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-31 | 1.9 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!ohstpy!kiemschies
From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Re: Transporters & replicators
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 Dec 92 14:35:08 EST
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Physics
Lines: 24

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (rodney james freier) writes:
>   One of the things I don't like too much about Star Trek is that
> no one seems to want to explore the logical conclusions their
> technology should come to.   They should be able to make an
> exact duplicate of anyone who's been transported simply by
> using the trace and giving it the appropriate amount of energy.
> (Note that I'm ignoring the idea that transporters only look at
> your DNA pattern; it would be completely impossible to reconstruct
> someone based on their DNA alone.)
>
> Rod
The ST_TNG Tech Manual has some interesting things to say about this. First
off, they don't make a file of data corrisponding to some "pattern" because
that would take MUCH to much data. The transporters are some sort of real time
device (so the pattern buffers are not data buffers, but are some other way of
saving a pattern. The replicators use what they call molecular resolution
(instead of quantum resolutin in transporters) and these devices do use a
computer file of some sort, but due to the lower resolution are not accurate
enough to recreate people. There have been episodes in which transporters have
been used in ways that are inconsistant with this definition, but hey, it's
only a story. This does also leave teh possibility that someone with a DAMN BIG
computer could store his/her pattern and make as many copies as he/she wanted

                                                       ----Ollie