Why Star Trek’s Transporter Will Never Be

As an engineer I totally love Start Trek, from Enterprise to Warp Drives to inspiring technologies such as cell phones and tablets. But certain technologies in the sci-fi-verse will never fracking be. One of them is the famed transporter of Star Trek.

Basically, there are 2 ways to teleport, one is by quantum entanglement, which is when 2 or more particles are in superposition, then they can be separated and any change in one will instantaneously happen on the other. We’ll save a discussion on this later. The other, is by converting matter to energy a la Einstein and modulating that energy to a data stream, then beaming that data down, to say, a habitable planet at which the data/energy stream is then converted back to matter where a hopeless red shirt suddenly appears.

At first glance, I always thought the two transporter ideas were theoretically possible, but after further scrutiny I realized there is no fracking way the latter could ever be achieved. Why? For us engineers , if we dig deep to the remote recesses of our ape brains, pass the depleted neurons due to binge drinking and sleep deprivation (from cramming for a test the night before) we remember that little thingy called the Shannon Limit! Oh yeah!

The Shannon Theorem essentially states there is a theoretical maximum data rate of a communication channel and quantitatively it looks like this:

data rate = B*log2(1+SNR).

What this means is that we can only beam down so much data per unit of time. There are other factors that affect data rate such as channel encoding, compression, modulation type, etc., but for simplicity we’ll ignore these for now.

So, assume we want to beam down to a habitable planet in this manner. We would be limited to the microwave, terahertz and certain atmospheric windows of far-infrared radiation of the electromagnetic spectrum because visible light and radiation above UV would be blocked if not at least severely attenuated, to use the engineering vernacular, by the atmosphere, fog, dust, smoke, clouds, etc. We can expect our transporter to work in various weather conditions.

Microwaves can pass through all of these, even buildings, so we can have the option to beam down our most revered tribbles to our grandmother’s kitchen. As a result, we are limited to frequencies below roughly 100 Terahertz or so (3 um in wavelength). Anything above would be in the near-infrared and or visible range and would be blocked by walls, etc. therefore rendering our beaming ability into buildings useless. If we include the microwave and terahertz wave bands, essentially we are limited to roughly 101 terahertz of bandwidth to beam all the info of a human body for reassembly on the planet surface. Bandwidth is the B in our equation above.

Now, how much data would it take to convert the human body into bits? Well, good question! I think we would have to know about the body on the molecular level to convert the body from matter to energy and then back again, at least to me that makes sense. From here on, I’m guesstimating but bear with me the exercise bears fruit.

Assume it would be possible to encode every molecule in a human body to its own 256 bit sequence. This sequence would tell the necessary info of the molecule such as chirality, location, composition, etc. and all the necessary info to reassemble the energy back into a human body. So, how much data are we talking about then? It comes out to be the # of molecules in your body multiplied by 256 bits. That’s a hell of a lot of data roughly, 256 * 10^25 bits or 64 yottabytes or 64 billion terabytes. The actual numbers aren’t important, what is, is that it will take a massive amount of data to convert the entire human body into a data stream for the teleporter to transport!

Now, assume our teleporter system is really powerful so we can transmit with a received SNR of 30 dB. Our equation now comes to:

Data rate = 101 * 10^12 * log2(1001) =~ 1010 terabytes per second

Due to the Shannon limit, and from the fact we want to beam through various atmospheres and into buildings our teleporter is limited to transporting ~1000 Tb per second. We now see the issue here. It would take an incredible long time to beam our 64 billion terabytes of data through a teleporter limited to somewhere around 1000 terabytes per second. Roughly around 2 years!! I don’t think the crew of Star Trek would want to wait that long! It would be far better just to take a shuttle down to the planet surface.

Now we roughed over a lot of the details but I feel the points have been strongly made even if we fudged around with the numbers. The basic points are that it will take an incredible amount of data to encode the entire human body onto a data stream. And second, we are bandwidth limited due to the physical restraints of what we are trying to accomplish. That is, beam through atmospheres and into buildings for instance. A teleporter of this type might be more practical for beaming from ship to ship in space, and not have to worry about atmospheric attenuation or beaming into a building, therefore greatly increasing the available bandwidth. And possibly reducing the teleportation time. So for now, we are dependent on some sort of quantum mechanical way of teleportation.  

THE DUNE TIMELINE

I finally figured out the Dune timeline.  It's quite involved.  Arthur C. Clarke has said, to paraphrase, there is nothing like it, except Lord of the Rings.   To me, the timeline is similar to Star Wars, in the sense that you have an Old Republic and a New Republic. We have the Original Series, then we have a prequel series based on the generation previous to the original generation, which I call Gen 1.

Then we have a series that deals with what I call the Dune 'pre-history' because its mentioned in the original series but Frank never wrote novels on it, such as the Butlerian Jihad, which was a war fought by humanity against AI machines that had enslaved mankind for several centuries.  Therefore, resulting in an anti-technology movement that swept through humanity.  By the time you get to the Originals most of humanity has very little technology besides spaceships.

I'm still figuring it out, since I haven't read all the novels, but from what I understand, in the Dune universe, humans got technologically advanced to colonize the galaxy and create AI machines which eventually gain sentience and enslave mankind, eventually resulting in the Jihad.

Then there are two books, which I'm reading now, which is the sequel to the pre-prequels.  They deal with the beginnings of the Imperium.  Since technology has been banned, many schools spring up to cultivate the mind and body of humans, thus resulting in the computer like mentats and Jedi like Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.  So far, they are pretty good.  I look forward to reading the prequels.

For the other books, there is a sequel  to the Original and there are 2 books to fill the Original series. Since the Original series covers such a long time span, Brian Herbert wrote a direct sequel to Dune and Dune Messiah.  I look forward to reading those and returning to Paul Muad'dip.

Check out the website here for more details on all the Dune Series novels.

Pre-Prequel Series

The Butlerian Jihad

The Machine Crusade

The Battle of Corrin

Sequal of the Pre-Prequel Series

Sisterhood of Dune

Mentats of Dune

Gen 1 Prequel Series

House Atreides

House Harkonnen

House Corrino

Original Series

Dune

-----> Paul of Dune

Dune Messiah

-----> Winds of Dune

Children of Dune

God Emperor of Dune

Heretics of Dune

ChapterHouse Dune

Sequal Series

Hunters of Dune

Sandworms of Dune

Dune Guide

Road to Dune

Children of Dune

After reading the first two books which were excellent, I was disappointed with this one or at least with the antagonist. I think having Paul's sister possessed by the Baron Harkonnen as the antagonist was lacking and not very creative. And I don't think it was really communicated why Alia was such an abomination.

Alia, having all the memories of all the Reverend Mothers, for she was a fetus while her mother Jessica was undergoing the Reverend Mother conversion ceremony, Water of Life. She was a severe abomination to the Bene Gesserit due to her genetic memory and allowing the memories of the Baron to completely consume her. Apparently, the Reverend Mothers also having genetic memory, but never allowing any memory to consume them were in the clear.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

It should be known that the Bene Gesserit were the advisers to the Emperor and to other nobles and sought to produce the Kwisatz Haderach, the male messiah that could conceive all time including the future. Their plans thwarted with Paul becoming this long sought messiah, Muad'Dib, the Kwisatz Haderach. It was pretty cool that Paul is still roaming about the planet and still alive (sorry spoiler alert) and that their children were totally prescient geniuses.

I kind of liked the end though. Paul's son, Leto II, becomes a new species of sorts, allowing himself to be conjoined with the sand trout, a symbiotic relationship, which gives him superior speed and strength. Thus becoming the ultimate warrior and the emperor who couldn't die. He becomes emperor for 3000 years to ensure humanity is on the right path (The Golden Path) and to continue the Atreides line of rule. During this time, humanity barely makes it due to the dearth of the spice. The sandworms are nearly all dead due to the terraformation of Arrakis. And I got the gist that after his rule, he was going to mate with the worms to repopulate the species. Wow that was weird, but interesting ending.

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Dune Messiah is the second novel of Frank's excellent Dune series. A superb novel! It takes place some years after Paul has conquered the Empire though his Jihad. The Bene Gesserit, Bene Xalact, the Guild and the former Emperor Shalam plot to retake the throne. The plot is mostly dialog, which would make for an excellent movie. If HBO ever did a show based on Dune it would be bad ass!

Spoiler Alert!

The ending has absolutely no closure and left me longing and shocked. Which I absolutely thought was brilliant! So this is my gist of it, the golum, Dunkan Idaho, was programmed to kill Paul. This was a plot but not the main one. In the attempt to resist his programming, the golum would actually become Idaho, at which point, Paul would totally be mesmerized and see it as a way to resurrect his lover and wife, Chani. Paul having prescience could see his wife die due to complications of childbirth and order a golum of his wife. Then at some future time, the wife golum, would kill Paul and probably his children as well. Thus restoring the throne back to the former emperor. All the while, Dune being transformed from a desert planet to a green thriving world, which this will cause many problems later.

As a side note, It is interesting and ironic that the whole Fremen religion of restoring Dune to a paradise would actually lead to their demise. Apparently, the planetologist Kynes saw this but still worked the Fremen folklore to unite the Fremen.

Back to the task at hand, You see this gave Paul some very serious hard choices. First off, I guess Paul could not kill the golum because I take it, the golum would actually become Duncan Idaho, Paul's most dear friend and his sister's lover. In order to retain the empire through his children though, Paul had to allow his wife to die, if he saved her from her death, which was childbirth, then the children wouldn't be born. I guess a c-section was against the Fremen religion. If he did that he would lose the empire by Fremen revolt. If he chose to resurrect her by ordering a golum be made, then she would have been programmed to assassinate him and probably his children.

So, Paul was forced to allow his lover and wife Chani to die, so that he would have an heir and a safe heir at that through time. Paul at this time, who was bereft everything, and who had lost his eyes in an assassination attempt earlier in the book, decided to honor the Fremen treatment of the blind by being led out into the desert to 'die'. One hell of an ending! One hell of a book! If you feel I have missed interpreted the ending feel free to add your input.