"Enemy Within" Transporter Question

[Ronald Held]

Is it unreasonable to set the ship's phasers to heat the area periodically?

[blssdwlf]

Albertese wrote:

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Run this by me again. I don't understand the whole "transfer excess momentum" business. How would this be done? Why would this be important?

Using the poodle example, my guess is that the transporter:
1. Dematerializes the poodle from matter into energy (or phased matter, depending on your series). The momentum of the poodle is preserved.
2. The poodle is now in the transporter buffer.
3. The process is reversed and the poodle is re-materialized.

During the time between step 1 and 3, the ship is in orbit over the planet and could've had a miniscule fluctuation. So, even though you're beaming back to the exact same pad, the ship might've accelerated or decelerated by a tiny amount. That amount could mean the difference between putting the matter back together slightly out of alignment or bumping off the pad or even ending up at a slightly different orbital velocity relative to the planet. On a larger scale, like beaming down to a planet or another ship, the transporter would need to ensure that the materialized person or object will have the same velocity as the environment they are beaming into. This would be fiddling with potential and kinetic energy values while in energy state to probably avoid ripping a person apart if being applied in the matter state. At least that's how I see it

[Unicron]

Good thing they have Heisenburg compensators.

[FKnight]

Ronald Held wrote:

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Is it unreasonable to set the ship's phasers to heat the area periodically?

^^ hehehe

It's unfortunate that being such an early mission, the shuttlecraft were not to be delivered until Tuesday

[Melakon]

This is a fascinating discussion. It's one of few episodes I have, so it's a favorite. I failed first year college physics, and will now prove it:

Could the "velocity balance" Scott refers to concern something other than the engines? Perhaps the vb has something to do with controlling the speed of the molecules/atoms energized in the transportation process.

[blssdwlf]

Melakon wrote:

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Could the "velocity balance" Scott refers to concern something other than the engines? Perhaps the vb has something to do with controlling the speed of the molecules/atoms energized in the transportation process.

That's pretty much sums up what I think the velocity balance does to match the destination. I think they tie in the engines to act as a buffer to supply the additional energy (speed up) or absorb the unneeded energy (slow down) the energized atoms.

[Timo]

...And moving momentum along wires is something they probably can do pretty routinely, as this is probably how their inertial damping / artificial gravity works. At least in modern backstage doubletalk, that is: there exists a gravity generator at location X that moves gravity to the locations in need along suitable channels.

Is it unreasonable to set the ship's phasers to heat the area periodically?

That would depend on what the phasers could heat, how accurately, and to what sort of temperature.

Firing a hand phaser at a cleverly placed pile of rocks so that they attain the temperature of 1,500 degrees Celsius (so you get that nice red glow) is a good idea; the heroes can always find a comfortable distance at which to bask in the heat. Firing a starship phaser at an area of bedrock twenty meters across so that it attains the temperature of 1,500 degrees Celsius is not - finding a comfortable distance between the searing heat and the surrounding bitter cold is very difficult, since these things don't scale well, and there will be secondary effects, including whirlwinds that may suck in the poor survivors and turn them to cinder. The heated area will also probably be geographically quite exposed, in comparison with the small pile thing that can be set up anywhere, meaning the heroes will have well-done bellies and deep-frozen asses or vice versa.

The best option might be to carve a cave in which the heroes would be safe from wind chill and could retain the heat generated from hand phaser firing and from their own bodies. But a deep pit opening towards the sky would not serve well. It doesn't seem likely that the ship's phasers would have the precision to carve a more practical cave by firing from the horizon.

Getting things down from the ship to the planet will only help the castaways if these things directly protect them from more than a hundred degrees of deadly cold. Blankets or clothing or fuels will be of no help: what is needed is a hermetically sealed shelter such as a hut or a spacesuit, and those would kill the occupants if improper materialization damaged their life support mechanisms. If simple heaters fail, a spacesuit isn't going to work, either.

Timo Saloniemi