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It's one of the few pieces of tech from Star Trek that has yet to be invented. Or, is it?
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00:00Outside of Warp Drive these magical creations are probably the most well-known piece of
00:05technology to come out of this franchise and also to make us all really really upset whenever we
00:10have to queue for a plane or a bus or a car or pay for petrol. With that in mind I'm Sean Ferrick
00:16for Trek Culture and here are 10 things you need to know about transporters. Number 10. They were
00:22invented to save money and time. The earliest pitches for Star Trek had to deal with the
00:27challenge of getting the crew down to the planets each week. Support shuttles were suggested as was
00:31landing the Enterprise itself though both would have proven prohibitively expensive in the beginning.
00:36So the producers were backed against a wall and came up with the idea of the matter transporter.
00:40This became part of the pitch and part of the reason that Star Trek was given the green light,
00:44twice. It helped to sell the cage first of all. Now rather than committing to large scale models
00:49for the pilot that may or may not take off this fantastic new technology could be used instead.
00:55When the cage failed to make any traction the show was given a new pilot where no man has gone before
01:00though it was actually the man trap that helped Star Trek survive. The depiction of the transporter
01:06in that episode excited the network so much that they bumped it up for broadcast meaning that it was
01:10shown to audiences before the first episode. Number 9. The first transporter was achieved with
01:16practical effects. The actual look of the transporter beam is quite striking in its various iterations
01:22and is most often achieved by means of CGI. Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Discovery heavily
01:27redesigned the original transporter beam adding a slower blue dissolve in the former with a golden
01:32circular pattern appearing in the latter. The original series achieved the look by dropping aluminium
01:37powder between the camera and a black background. This was then superimposed on the images of the
01:41various crewmen who were then dissolved out of the shot. This was most often achieved with the actual
01:46footage being frozen as it would be a little later in the franchise before technology would allow people to move
01:52into the transport. Between that wall and the brightly lit floor and ceiling pads the transporter set was
01:57able to overpower the stage lights allowing an easier transition for overlaying the shots of the beam itself.
02:03Number 8. The Heisenberg Compensator. The Heisenberg Compensator is part of the transporter that
02:08specifically deals with Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In quantum mechanics the principle is any of
02:13a variety of mathematical inequalities that place a limit on the accuracy that certain pairs of physical
02:19quantities of a particle can accurately predict. So what does this mean in English? First published
02:24in 1927 German physicist Heisenberg posited that the more precisely an object's location can be
02:30determined the less likely it is to predict its momentum after initial findings. This theory was
02:36then put into the makeup of the transporter in Star Trek. In the episode Realm of Fear Barkley and O'Brien
02:41are seen examining the Heisenberg Compensator which is shown to be a component of the overall device.
02:46This is their workaround for Heisenberg's theory. Now it goes without saying that the Compensator is
02:50an entirely fictional invention while the transporter itself does have a basis in reality, more on that
02:56later, the Compensator also became a handy plot point something that the crew would look to when
03:01there was an issue with a transport that was either out of their control or an easy scapegoat when trying
03:06to stall the Moriarty hologram in ship in a bottle. Number 7. Transporters can be used as weapons.
03:12The transporter has a very dark capacity while remaining the easiest method of travel in Star
03:16Trek's universe. Once an area is unshielded it can serve to pluck any living thing from its location
03:22and beam them wherever the operator chooses. For example, there are several occasions in the
03:26original series when some poor redshirts stepped onto the transporter pad only to find themselves
03:30floating in space moments later. The transporter can be co-opted as well. In the darkness and the
03:35light while Dax and Worf are attempting to beam a member of Kira's old resistance cell to their runabout,
03:42this is deliberate. The deranged Cardassian Sileron Prynne had been systematically wiping
03:47out the Shakar's cell. He hit a tiny pattern scrambler on the poor victim which ended up killing
03:51her in a horrible fashion, all while Dax and Worf looked on unable to stop it. More recently,
03:577 of 9 used the transporters aboard La Sirena to beam several Neo Borg drones into the foundations
04:02of Chateau Picard, killing them instantly as they rematerialised with half of their bodies fused to the stone.
04:08Number 6, Emergency Transporters. The first obvious use of the emergency transporter came in Star Trek
04:13Nemesis. This was used by Data to rescue Captain Picard though at the cost of his own life. It was
04:19a small device fitted with its own power source giving it the ability to send a signal back to
04:23the Enterprise-E without having to rely on either that ship or the Scimitar's power sources. By that
04:28year it was still considered a prototype due to its limitations, earlier incarnations of emergency
04:33transporters were closer in design to those standard personnel transporters found aboard most starships
04:38and starbases. These were designed to send larger groups at a time often used during evacuation
04:43procedures. By the 32nd century these smaller transporters had become standard practice embedded
04:48into Starfleet com badges. Starfleet Discovery's 3rd and 4th seasons seem to have done away with the
04:52standard transporter rooms altogether as the com badge contains enough power to send the wearer from
04:57ship to planet whereas this was beyond the capabilities of earlier models. A combination of the personal
05:02transporters and the pattern buffers allowed the crew of the Discovery to escape disintegration as
05:06the ship exited a void as part of their search for the cause of the DMA. Number 5, no beam me up Scotty
05:13was never said out loud. Though now it's well known the exact phrase beam me up Scotty was never actually
05:18said on screen in Star Trek. Many variations of the command were issued throughout the years including
05:23near misses like Scotty beam me up. The misquote started to appear in popular media roughly 10 years
05:29after Star Trek's debut it was both connected to the franchise itself and became slang that was used
05:34in other contexts. Perhaps unsurprisingly for the period i.e the 60s and 70s it quickly became
05:40associated with taking mind-altering drugs allowing the user to disappear into another place mentally.
05:47James Doohan used the phrase as the title of his autobiography in 1996 and the quote was so connected to
05:52him that it's included in his obituary despite the actor never having spoken the lines nor responded to
05:58them. William Shatner did however include the line in an audio recording of his novel Ashes to Eden.
06:03The rebooted Kelvin films have continued the tradition of almost using the quote as there are
06:07several examples where Kirk and other characters quickly bark the order Scotty beam us out. Number
06:124, transwarp beaming. Transwarp beaming was demonstrated in the Kelvin timeline films to a
06:18mixed reaction. In the film it's Montgomery Scott who perfected the theory though in the time that Spock
06:23Prime travels back to Scotty has yet to master it, much to the chagrin of Admiral Archer and his prize
06:29Beagle. Spock shows him the theory required however this has a knock-on effect. In Star Trek Into Darkness
06:35rogue section 31 agent John Harrison uses it to escape Earth and travel all the way to Cronos.
06:43Though the film depicts this as a single beam the novelization states the device used didn't have
06:48enough power requiring Khan to beam to a ship then use that ship to beam to the Klingon homeworld.
06:55Though this miracle device would seem to make Starfleet obsolete it had actually been suggested by Gene
07:00Roddenberry in the initial development of Star Trek The Next Generation. He put it forward as another
07:05cost-saving method removing the need for a starship at all. Thankfully writer David Gerald shot that idea
07:11down straight away. The Enterprise is the hero he said delaying this technology for about a further 20 years.
07:17Number three does the transporter send the atoms and the bits or just the bits? The canon definition
07:23of the transporter states that it sends both the atoms of the person or item along with the
07:28information around said atoms. To put it another way the transporter is said to send the original file
07:35in whole instead of a copy. Now with that being the case there's a number of issues in how this is
07:40depicted in the franchise. In the episode The Enemy Within Captain Kirk is split into two halves. There is the
07:46passive good Kirk and the highly aggressive evil Kirk. Though a fun story written by Richard Matheson no
07:51less if one is to follow the canon explanation of the transporter this would be impossible. Theoretical
07:57physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote in his book The Physics of Star Trek that if the atoms and the information
08:02are being sent in a transporter beam then splitting into two distinct people would be impossible as the
08:08beam could only rematerialize the exact same number of atoms. To split Kirk in this fashion the poor man
08:15would have to be bifurcated. However if the transporter only sends the information each time
08:20then transporter clones are entirely possible. This would account for Evil Kirk, Thomas Riker and William
08:25Beimler all of whom were created as transporter copies along the way. Number two god bless the pattern
08:32buffer. The pattern buffer is the part of the transporter that stores the information due to be sent from one
08:36location to the next. This combined with the Doppler compensators allowed the device to factor in any
08:42changes during transport that may have occurred after hitting send. With that said there were many
08:47more uses for the component beyond its initial design. The most well-known jury rigging of a pattern
08:52buffer came when the Enterprise-D discovered the downed USS Ginolan on the Dyson Sphere. With that ship all
08:58but destroyed Captain Montgomery Scott and another crewman Matt Franklin programmed the pattern buffers to
09:03lock into a continuous diagnostic cycle effectively keeping them in stasis. The theory was only half
09:08successful, Scotty rematerialized but Franklin went the way of the redshirts. The pattern buffers also
09:13stored all information from each transport which in turn allowed them to keep something of medical
09:18history for travellers. In Favourite Sun the crew of Voyager were able to determine the truth behind
09:23Harry Kim's supposed return home as alien DNA is traced back through his trips in the transporter. The
09:30buffers could be extended to carry several dozen travellers at a time though this was rarely advised
09:34as too much information could cause them to malfunction. Number one, teleportation in reality.
09:40The idea that led to the transporter, namely teleportation itself, is a far older phenomenon
09:45than Star Trek. The first usage of the term was coined by American writer Charles Fort in his 1931
09:51novel Low. Though in the novel he prefaces by saying that many will accuse him of making up nonsense,
09:56he proceeds to at least attempt to define it. The term comes from the latin words for remote
10:01tele and carry portare. Fort was using the term to describe the strange disappearances and appearances
10:06of anomalies. A similar idea had existed in fiction for a while with examples as early as 1897 combining
10:13both teleportation and time travel, though at that time the word had not yet been coined. Quantum
10:19teleportation suggests that it is possible to transmit the information of a subject across distances
10:24without actually moving them. This would tie in with Lawrence Krauss' theory that it would allow
10:28for transporter clones. Now while there's no conclusive verifications of this type of transport
10:32to date, in 2014 researcher Ronald Hansen and colleagues from the Technological University Delft
10:38in the Netherlands demonstrated information teleportation between two entangled quantum bits
10:43that were three meters apart. Now the aviation and motor industries can relax as this may not be a
10:48precursor to matter transportation just yet, but it is certainly a rung on that same letter. Thank you
10:54very much for joining me for this video everybody. If you want to get in touch you can catch us on
10:57twitter at trekculture, you can catch myself at Sean Ferrick on twitter, instagram and tiktok where I post
11:03daily little tidbits about Star Trek. Check that out, let me know, give me a follow, you guys are all
11:07awesome. Make sure that you live long and prosper, make sure that you look after yourselves, much love, thanks very much.
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