Personally my favorite is the effect from the NextGen tv series, followed by the later original movies, such as that seen in ST VI. Third would probably be the Cardassian/DS9 system, 4th is the original series, 5th Enterprise. For the life of me I can't remember Voyager's transporter effect... maybe 'cause I really disliked most episodes, who knows. Thoughts?

Wasn't Voyager's transporter effect vertical blue lines that moved outward during dematerialization and inward during rematerialization?

Queston for ScottN.
I wasn't sure where to put this, oh well...

Question for ya Quantum Mechanics boy, ready?

When the transporter beam in star trek does something to the matter to transform it into energy and move it someplace, why does the beam create a sparkly effect on the object (person)? If the light (energy) radiates from the object, (since we can see it), then wouldn't that mean that energy from the person/object is removed? and thus part of the person/object has also been removed from the rest? Does a person come back as 99.999999999% of what was originally there every time he/she uses the transporter?

For the viewers to see a transporter beam effect, doesn't that mean that energy is escaping from the transporting subject?

BILC.

Also, in The Savage Curtain(TOS) I believe that the matter/energy conversion is described as a simplification. In the Blish version (don't remember if it makes it into the aired version), the transporter is described as a "Dirac Jump". I have never seen the term used elsewhere. I wonder if it's a variant on the EPR effect.

I don't remember Blish calling it a Dirac Jump (unless, perhaps, you are talking about the experimental long-distance transport in Spock, Messiah!).

Also -- EPR effect?

In any case, my own theory, in total odds with Relics, TNG, and with everything that the engineers say about "pattern buffers, and what they seem to say about Heisenberg Compensators, is that the transporter enables a quantum physics "tunnelling" effect by increasing rather than damping (compensating for) the effect of the Heisenberg uncertainty. The "sparkles" would be from virtual particle pairs being created and destroyed during the process, the "lost" energy ultimately coming from the ship's engines, as power source for the transporter.

EPR effect -- Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky effect. Proposed by the eponymous physicists, it involves a quantum FTL "action at a distance". It's the basis for quantum encryption and quantum teleportation (both of which are extremely real), and was first proven by Alain Aspect in the early '80s.

Note that the EPR bridge used by the sliders in Sliders is named after the same scientists, but I believe it's a different effect.

But the more that I think, I like Tom's explanation a lot.

However, as I understand it, the Heisenberg Compensators are there to compensate for the Uncertainty Principle (otherwise, how can we reconstruct the same person?), not increase it. But I like the concept of the local increase in the uncertainty (conceptually similar to increasing Planck's Constant h), and perhaps a local wormhole is created as well, since the transporter can be (must be!) targeted.

It would also explain the ability to travel through 'solid' material and not have the beam deflect in any way.

perhaps it also uses technology similar to this...
http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group/Popular_papers/Atom%20laser%20Enc.pdf

EPR effect -- Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky effect ScottN

Of course. I knew I should know the effect, but for some reason my mind refused to expand the acronym.

But I like the concept of the local increase in the uncertainty (conceptually similar to increasing Planck's Constant h)

That's certainly one way. But even without increasing h you can increase the effect of h on the location of the matter to be transported by decreasing the time interval between scans of the two locations. I'm not sure a wormhole is strictly necessary if the effect is limited to two relativey small scanned areas.

Torque--
An atom laser would probably not work well for this purpose using normal matter, but a tachyon laser may be what is required to scan the more remote of the two locations within the same extremely restricted time intervals as the transporter platform.

well, what would I know...

I'm only starting Differential Equations next fall in college and we ran out of time last quarter to get into modern physics in our physics class so after my first question on Friday, July 04, 2003 - 12:42 pm, I was kind of lost. I surrender to you ScottN, oh Physics Master!!

...feeling very insignificant...


Maybe I should get into politics?

I don't remember Blish mentioning the Dirac jump in The Savage Curtain, but from Spock Must Die:

"That's a turrible oversimplification," Scott objected. ....
"What the transporter does is analyze the energy state of each particle in the body and then produce a Dirac jump to an equivalent state somewhere else. No conversion is involved - if it were, we'd blow up the ship."

(I have a soft spot for that book - I'll have to get round to nitpicking it properly some time.)

So, then, Blish used the phrase "Dirac Jump" to mean a phenomenon similar to (if not the same as) the quantum physics "tunnelling" I suggested? Cool!

And you're right, the book was Spock Must Die. It's been decades since I last read it, and I mis-remembered the title. (Or, possibly confused it with a different book.)

Sorry, it's been a while... I knew that they used a "Dirac Jump" somewhere!

Interesting note, in the preface to Spock Must Die, Blish apologized for having Kirk call McCoy "Doc" instead of "Bones", and claimed it wasn't his fault.

I have a copy of that apology, but it's in the preface of Star Trek 6.

Thank you. Again, it's been years since I read the Blish books. I knew he apologized, and couldn't remember where... (rassum fassum darned memory mumble grumble)

Wow... thrid post off-topic, thread never gets back on topic... that's gotta be some kind of record. :-)

P.S. Either the Star Trek: TMP sparkly circles transporter, the Star Trek:2-6 blue line transporter, or the Voyager "blue balls moving verticly over the familiar effect." Although the TNG movie effect's pretty nice, too...


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Okay, I can't choose!

Anyone for Klingon transporter effects ?
(I'm thinking Star Trek III:Return of Spock or Enterprise, here)

People ask the creators how the Heisenberg compensators work (and they reply 'very well, thank you'). My own personal theory, for the record, is that they use a variation of the warp field generation technology:

Warp engines warp the space-time continuum so you can cross a vast distance without violating Einstein's absolute speed of light, right? So why can't the Heisenberg compensators warp space so you can materialise stuff without violating Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (Hence the name, of course).

Except the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has nothing to do with warping space. If you can never know the precise direction and speed of a particle at the same time, that seems fairly absolute. Some things are better left unexplained. ;)