Discrepancies in Star Trek science

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
So wait, you buy that they have a crystal which is made of matter but doesn't explode on contact but you don't buy that it might be really hard to make?

Most certainly. 😐

We already isolate antimatter as best as we can. No reason to think that there is a pretend material out there that can suspend, stabiliy, anti-matter, in such a way that it can reacte on a very efficient level with matter and make energy.

Why would I assume any other way. 🙂

Edit - You do see that the dilithium does not react when exposed to a big electro magnetic filed.

Why not skip that entire process and convert matter into energy with the transporter? 🙂

But why do you think it would be so absurdly complex that it makes humans look like salt in comparison? It could be some sort of 4D fractal structure that produces strings of pseudomagnetic fields to channel antimatter through it to various points in a highly complex but predictable sequence.

That wouldn't even make the top fifty weirdest things they ever found.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Could be...but unlikely as it's a crystal. Structure should be much easier to predict with math.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
It could be some sort of 4D fractal structure that produces strings of pseudomagnetic fields to channel antimatter through it to various points in a highly complex but predictable sequence.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Sounds like they wrote themselves into a plot hole with replicators and transporters, to me.

Originally posted by dadudemon
In over a hundred years, no one thought to upgrade replicators to be on par with the precision of a transporter, or use the transporter technology to convert matter directly into energy...you know, what the dilithium crystal facilitates. 😐

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
But why do you think it would be so absurdly complex that it makes humans look like salt in comparison? It could be some sort of 4D fractal structure that produces strings of pseudomagnetic fields to channel antimatter through it to various points in a highly complex but predictable sequence.

That wouldn't even make the top fifty weirdest things they ever found.

Still, much more predictable than the super nova leftovers found in every human body.

One element versus many.

Much less math involved...espcially considering the computers are powerful enough to decontruct entire humans, move them many thousands of miles, and materialize them....in mere seconds.

Originally posted by Mindship
I used to wonder why transporters/replicators were not part of special weapons and tactics.

Then your wonder is even great than mine because I didn't start wondering that until this last Star Trek movie.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Then your wonder is even great than mine because I didn't start wondering that until this last Star Trek movie.

I started wondering in the episode where Picard uses the transporter code that makes the target explode. Actually the first thing I did was wonder why anyone would make it so easy for the transporter to do that.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I started wondering in the episode where Picard uses the transporter code that makes the target explode. Actually the first thing I did was wonder why anyone would make it so easy for the transporter to do that.

Wow.

I don't remember that episode...and I could have sworn I had seen them all.

And, yes, that's a lot of energy...depending on how much Picard was turning into energy and exploding.

I don't remember, but i think the e=mc^2 thing is in joules, and the m is in kg.

72 kg is a rediculous amount of energy.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I started wondering in the episode where Picard uses the transporter code that makes the target explode.

Then transporter technology would kill most "alive" organic life.

Why? The transporter technology is the one that DOES read and rebuild at the quantum level.

If you meant replicators, Star Fleet doesn't have replicators that can make live organisms (that's why they always have real gagh for their klingon guests as replicated or dead gagh is considered an insult) Although some species do have replicators that can create life.

If your idea were correct, why hasn't anyone thought of "upgrading" replicators in the almost 2 decades they have been widely used?

The reason given is that a fully quantum replicator would require stored data in memory of everything it needs to replicate as a quantum level and apparently there isn't enough memory available. Either that or they'd need to store a physical copy of everything on the ship so it could be scanned and then replicated at the quantum level.

There's not reason they shouldn't have replicators that can replicate entire ships

They do have industrial sized replicators that can replicate large pieces of ships and regularly replace parts using replicator technology.

Make an uber replicator to make perfect dilithium crystals, ship parts, etc.

Transporters work on the quantum level to explain a real life problem in ever creating transporter technology called the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. Meaning that, at the quantum level, sub-atomic structures have properties that the more you measure 1 with precision, the less you can measure the other. Position and momentum of electrons are 2 such pairs of properties...if you know the exact location of an electron in an outer shell (as if it's stopped completely) then you cannot know the momentum as it wouldn't be moving. Same with the spin of electrons. Electrons always pair up in the shells of atoms and in those pairs 1 is always spinning clockwise and the other anti-clockwise. If you were to know their exact location in the shell at any given moment then you wouldn't know their spin properties.

This means that any attempt to read exactly, all the properties of an organism is impossible although star trek gets around these problems with an unexplained technology called "heisenberg compensators"

A reason it still might not work if quantum level replicators were used are similar to those i've mentioned (movement of electrons between shells, radioactive nuclei).

The fact is, they wrote a very retarded plot hole into the series by coming up with transporters and replicators.

Transporters were only ever used on the original series because the budget didn't allow for a the special effects team to make it look like the ship or shuttles were landing on a planet every episode.

Originally posted by jaden101
Why? The transporter technology is the one that DOES read and rebuild at the quantum level.

If there were fluctuations due to the uncertainty principle...that's why I said, "then" to start my sentence off.

Since we don't experience hardly any fluctuations in reassembly, we don't have to worry about that.

Originally posted by jaden101
If you meant replicators, Star Fleet doesn't have replicators that can make live organisms (that's why they always have real gagh for their klingon guests as replicated or dead gagh is considered an insult) Although some species do have replicators that can create life.

I didn't.

Originally posted by jaden101
The reason given is that a fully quantum replicator would require stored data in memory of everything it needs to replicate as a quantum level and apparently there isn't enough memory available. Either that or they'd need to store a physical copy of everything on the ship so it could be scanned and then replicated at the quantum level.

Nah. Tricorder's have more computing power than half of the computers on the earth, combined.

A large console in the transporter room could be all "enclosed" in the wall with a replicator...also, considering there is a central database for the replicator, not much computing power is needed, relative to the already available MASSIVE computing power of the main computer. To think that their computers have to be discrete calculating units would be ridiculous...don't you think?

Originally posted by jaden101
They do have industrial sized replicators that can replicate large pieces of ships and regularly replace parts using replicator technology.

I know this.

Originally posted by jaden101
Transporters work on the quantum level to explain a real life problem in ever creating transporter technology called the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. Meaning that, at the quantum level, sub-atomic structures have properties that the more you measure 1 with precision, the less you can measure the other. Position and momentum of electrons are 2 such pairs of properties...if you know the exact location of an electron in an outer shell (as if it's stopped completely) then you cannot know the momentum as it wouldn't be moving. Same with the spin of electrons. Electrons always pair up in the shells of atoms and in those pairs 1 is always spinning clockwise and the other anti-clockwise. If you were to know their exact location in the shell at any given moment then you wouldn't know their spin properties.

I learned this at 10. 😐

Originally posted by jaden101
This means that any attempt to read exactly, all the properties of an organism is impossible although star trek gets around these problems with an unexplained technology called "heisenberg compensators"

I know this.

Originally posted by jaden101
A reason it still might not work if quantum level replicators were used are similar to those i've mentioned (movement of electrons between shells, radioactive nuclei).

No. It's a stetch. 200 years is more than enough time to get it right. It just doesn't make the plot work right.

How many episodes would have failed if they had a "transporter-level" replicator?

Originally posted by jaden101
Transporters were only ever used on the original series because the budget didn't allow for a the special effects team to make it look like the ship or shuttles were landing on a planet every episode.

He used it. He liked it. The end. The reasons behind it are unnecessary in the face of that.

A large console in the transporter room could be all "enclosed" in the wall with a replicator...also, considering there is a central database for the replicator, not much computing power is needed, relative to the already available MASSIVE computing power of the main computer. To think that their computers have to be discrete calculating units would be ridiculous...don't you think?

No I don't think, given that at the quantum level objects are hugely more complex than at the molecular level as you would need to know the location of every electron. It's spin and momentum and calculate this for every single atom and every single nuclei. To replicate at the molecular level, you only need to know the structure of 1 molecule and multiply it up to set shapes

Nah. Tricorder's have more computing power than half of the computers on the earth

Proof?

I learned this at 10.

You're lying.

Originally posted by jaden101
...Proof?...

It's fiction! What do you consider to be proof? 😱

Originally posted by jaden101
No I don't think, given that at the quantum level objects are hugely more complex than at the molecular level as you would need to know the location of every electron. It's spin and momentum and calculate this for every single atom and every single nuclei. To replicate at the molecular level, you only need to know the structure of 1 molecule and multiply it up to set shapes

There's no reason to assume that "the computing power is simply not there", because it is, in spades. They were able to do it on computers 200 years before the late 24th century, so why would you assume that the computing power wouldn't exist that far in the future?

Originally posted by jaden101
Proof?

That was a gross under-exaggeration, on my part, as it would actually be much greater than all of the Earth's computers, combined. 😐

And, I sure hope you're joking about proof. Watch the shows. There's your proof.

A built in universal translator....holograhic displays, the ability to interface with other computers, both starfleet and non-starfleet.

Then measuring and calculation temporal distortions. That alone would be vastly superior to anything that can be done with current technologies.

Then there's the loose definition of "moore's law.

Voyager's computers were at 575000 exaflops. Scale that with hand-held devices today and see if it holds to the loose definition of moore's law.

Since Tricorders were very advanced devices...top of the line, usually, we can assume they would be similar to our "iPhones", relative to our server side systems.

If you would like to prove me wrong, you can do so with what I have provided and a little research.

Edit- How it works now, in 20 years, our handheld devices will be vastly superior to our top of the line, home PCs.

Originally posted by jaden101
You're lying.

You only wish. It was probably closer to 9 than 10, actually. 😐 I could recite Planck's constant and the first 20 digits of pi when I was a we laddy. I think you're underestimating what a true nerd is capable of. Most college graduates don't even know what Planck's constant was used for, much less what it was.

But, be real. Uncertainty principle is one of the "simpler" concepts of quantum physics.

exaflops

😆

Originally posted by dadudemon
Voyager's computers were at 575000 exaflops. Scale that with hand-held devices today and see if it holds to the loose definition of moore's law.

Bah, so they can beat us at floating point calculations.

Originally posted by dadudemon
You only wish. It was probably closer to 9 than 10, actually. 😐 I could recite Planck's constant and the first 20 digits of pi when I was a we laddy. I think you're underestimating what a true nerd is capable of. Most college graduates don't even know what Planck's constant was used for, much less what it was.

But, be real. Uncertainty principle is one of the "simpler" concepts of quantum physics.

There's a huge difference between knowing about something and actually understanding.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
There's a huge difference between knowing about something and actually understanding.

So, you're implying that I didn't understand it? If you are, then that's rather insulting of you to say. Yes. I feel insulted from someone on internet...probably because I think highly of you...you big meanie head.

KICK HIS ASS, SEABASS.

Originally posted by dadudemon
So, you're implying that I didn't understand it?

I'm implying that unless you managed to take several years of graduate level physics before the age of ten you wouldn't even have had access to the needed information. Perhaps you're a walking intellectual singularity, but I think it's more likely we have different scales of what it means to "really" understand something. Like could you have derived the plank equations at 10?

I was probably aware of the uncertainty principle and some of it's implications when I was ten but I wouldn't say that I understood it, I wouldn't even say that of myself today.

All this talk about who knows what about physics, and no one questions my bringing up "eigenvalues"...

💃 😮‍💨 💃

All the talk is moot since, like I said before, anything that doesn't make sense can be explained away by 'We don't have a great enough understanding about science.' Compare us to ourselves three hundred years ago, for example. The leaps are amazing and we were wrong about so many things. So why even try to analyze this? Just accept the show as is.