Talking About Star Trek Devices Every once in a while, there is a discussion about devices which are seen on Star Trek. Even though there are many different Star Trek series the devices are usually the same but in different stages of development depending when the time period in the show. For example, Star Trek: Enterprise has the early Enterprise equipped with a transporter, but it was supposedly for cargo, even though it did get used a few times for human transportation. The machine evolves to the point where it becomes routine for people to be transported using it. So, what exactly is the transporter and when it transports what happens to the human body? I have talked to many Star Trek fans about the transporter and there seems to be a consensus of opinion. Most of us believe the transporter kills the person being transported by taking him or her apart on an atomic level and then builds a clone who has the memory of the original person and believes it is that person. We are told people are disassembled and this fact alone seems to prove the case. How can someone be taken apart without dying at that stage? So, what has been done so far? An atom was transported three meters away. While this is a nice experiment it leaves out the important part about rebuilding. Not only do we need to see if things can be rebuilt, we eventually have to see if living things can be rebuilt or will they just be copies? I wouldn’t want to go into one of these devices no matter how safe I am told it is. Star Trek fans will remember “Bones” didn’t like the idea very much either. Star Trek had all sorts of small lasers. They got smaller as the years went by. Did you ever wonder why we haven’t been able to perfect a hand-held laser? There was a rumor in 2015 China was equipping their troops with laser weapons. It went on to say these were handheld weapons. The weapons were said to be for blinding enemy troops and sensors. Was the rumor true, I can’t say at this time. If we would have been talking about larger lasers I would think they probably are in use by now. The small lasers have several problems. The first being a power supply small enough and powerful enough to make the laser useful. There is no doubt hand-held lasers are coming. If one looks at the evolution of computers and cell phones we see a remarkable downsizing in these devices without losing functionality. We are just starting to test lasers on jet fighters and I am sure over the years they will also continue to get smaller. It will take some time before we can create hand held lasers which will function like larger ones, but that day will come just as the computers that filled rooms with their internals developed into small cell phones which became even more powerful. Another device from Star Trek which has found favor with scientists is the venerable tractor beam. In Star Trek a tractor beam is a device which you would use to tow other space ships or objects. Physicists like the idea and have been working on such a device. So far, they have not been able to affect anything bigger than tiny particles about 0.2 millimeters in diameter but they have developed a laser tractor beam which can either attract these particles or move them away. We have to remember one thing, even a tiny force if it is in space can control an object so it would be interesting to see what this device could do in space. Scientists have developed a laser which they say can repel or attract. Other work on tractor beams has used sound and water. An acoustic tractor beam was able to push or pull 1 cm sized objects, making it the most powerful known tractor beam so far. Unfortunately, sound doesn’t travel in space so this beam would be useless on a spaceship. Another type of tractor beam is a water tractor beam, again not much use in space. There could be a use for a powerful tractor beam on the earth especially in construction and indeed ancient ruins which had stones weighing hundreds of tons which had somehow been moved scream tractor beam. There are so many great gadgets on Star Trek. To invent a new gadget, you first need an idea and this is what has been supplied by the writers of Star Trek. Some of the gadgets are here already like the cell phone, which was called a communicator on the show. The same is true for the universal translator in a way. The is now software installed on phones which will interpret a conversation as it is happening. It will not interpret a language it has never heard before so it is not quite up to the ones on the show, YET. Remember the original Star Trek show with the computer tablets? One gadget which would really help the world is the food replicator. On Star Trek you could just tell the machine what you wanted to eat and drink and it would be produced. Scientists are working on a gadget like this. Supposedly matter is a form of energy. An extremely powerful laser is being built which will be able to rip particles and anti-particles apart and form matter using them. The laser will have a power of 10 PW (or 10,000,000,000,000,000 watts). This is the first step in building a food replicator which is making something from what looks like nothing. Arthur C. Clarke was right when he compared great advances in technology by saying they would look like magic.
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