Why a Star Trek replicator will never be possible

[55delta]

Oh, this sort of thing. Well, I could try to explain how the dilithium crystal regulates a matter/anti-matter reaction, which then converted into energetic plasma for transfer everywhere power is needed. But I'd rather recommend books instead.

 

I both recommend The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss and Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual by Rick Steinbach and Michael Okuda.

The rest then becomes a matter of opinion. Have fun.

[Bill Phil]

Replicators in ST are essentially transporters. They take some matter, rearrange it, and then you get what you want. You're not creating matter out of nothing, you're using already existing matter and changing its form. It's a similar principle to a 3D printer, but you teleport the matter, and you can transmute any element.

[PB666]

What is withbthe sudden mass appearance of all these necrotic threads. Did someone lift a rug and start violently shaking the archives

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

What is withbthe sudden mass appearance of all these necrotic threads. Did someone lift a rug and start violently shaking the archives

You know.. I have no idea... That's off topic though.

And really it doesn't matter. As long as meaningful content is added, I think...

[GoSlash27]

I have it on good authority from Prof. William McGuffin (inventor of many plot devices including the "alien space bat" and "big dumb object") that all the science behind replicators is up to snuff. He has no idea, though, why Twilight is such a lousy love story.

Best,
-Slashy

Edited August 28, 2016 by GoSlash27

[KerbMav]

The dilithium crystals (see below).

Replicators rearrange matter - but at least sometimes also creates matter out of energy. (e.g. the episode they wanted to trade the Kazons a replicator to solve their water crisis).

Matter/Anti-Matter conversion is used to replenish the "fuel" of a starship to extend its range/operation time - it is never stated how fast this process works or how energy efficient it is. Anti-Matter is mainly used as a fuel that is able to generate vast amounts of energy at once to power a warp drive.
The Romulans e.g. use artificial black holes instead.
The Phoenix - Zephram Cochrane's first warp ship - is thought to have used a fusion reactor, since it only managed warp factor one anyway.

Also: " At one point during the writing of First Contact, the writers of the film considered what might power the matter-antimatter reaction chamber aboard the Phoenix, in lieu of dilithium crystals. Co-writer Ronald D. Moore later recalled, "We had talked about it being from something modified from the thermonuclear warhead – that somehow setting off the fission reaction was what kicked it off." (Star Trek Monthly issue 45,  p. 46) "

 

On 5.12.2013 at 2:05 AM, lajoswinkler said:

Are you guys serious? Dilithium crystals do not power the ships in Star Trek. They're used as substrates on which matter and antimatter react because, under some conditions, they aren't harmed by stuff like light antimatter elements (or particles, whatever). They're porous to it.

You need to play less KSP and watch more ST because this is embarrassing.

Belated Thank You!

On 28.8.2016 at 3:02 AM, GoSlash27 said:

He has no idea, though, why Twilight is such a lousy love story.

Because the author did not concentrate enough on the always half naked buff wolflings, but that is just my personel opinion.

Edited August 29, 2016 by KerbMav

[KerikBalm]

On 12/5/2013 at 2:05 AM, lajoswinkler said:

You need to play less KSP and watch more ST because this is embarrassing.

Oh noes, their fake science differs from the fake science on a fantasy in space TV show... how embarassing.

[Raven Industries]

"Captain, our sensors are detecting trace amounts of sarcasm."

"It's probably just the nebula interfering with our systems. Reversing the polarity should fix it."

[SR]

Maybe the enterprise uses magnetic scoops to collect matter from space like Bussard Ramjet.

Or maybe the power is sent to them with a laser.

Edited October 18, 2016 by SR

[wumpus]

Personally, I've written on less technical fora exactly why the replicator is ridiculous (although 3d printing from roughly atomic stock might be possible).  But think about the human side.

These people have a starship capable of exceeding the speed of light, beaming people hundreds or thousands of km, and basically indifferent to any reasonable energy use.  Try imagining describing your phone to anyone (preferably an engineer or other type who could understand it) from the twentieth century (preferably before car phones brought cell tech to the masses) after describing that vast amount of tech you admit that you mostly use it to "play flappy bird".

Twentyfifth century people want "tea: earl grey, hot".  They have an infinite supply of energy and the magic needed to transform it.  So they use it all in a blindingly inefficient way to make "tea: earl  grey, hot".  Think how many deep technology stacks that are horrifyingly inefficient (hopefully mostly in software, but I think we burn energy badly in places as well) we have simply because the tech base and infrastructure are too deep to really fix (and of course there's no budget for it).

So yes, both the technology and the use are completely ridiculous.  I think it would be better science fiction to insist that such a device uses atomic stocks and "magics" them into the right position and correct bond (and this obviously takes some extreme magic).  But most of this is because this tech would likely be discovered first and not be replaced by something stupidly inefficient (but just might if the magic was wonky and the tea never tasted right).  It mostly fails the Occam's razor for where it would be on the tech tree.  But it certainly doesn't fail the test of how humans use tech (typically create/buy for something important, then repurpose it for whatever is wanted).

[Swarthur]

https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/03/Machine-Automates-Assembly-Small-Molecules.html

[kerbiloid]

On 19.10.2016 at 7:11 PM, wumpus said:

Twentyfifth century people want "tea: earl grey, hot".

... and get the taste of tea right in the brain, consuming nothing.

Twentyfifth century people want "money"...

... and get the feeling of money right in the brain, getting nothing.

[PB666]

9 hours ago, Swarthur said:

https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/03/Machine-Automates-Assembly-Small-Molecules.html

lol, I used to have two automated synthesizers, never used them, tend only to be able to make small things reliably, big things require a human brain.

This in nothing new, its just a bigger scale (more potential reactions) that what is commercially available.

The chemistry that goes on in  a synthesizer is very different than the chemistry that goes on inside of a cell. In a cell there are process and process regulators, for just about every process in a cell there is a regulator. Some (Most) processes have many regulators (some that are shared with other processes) and thus mistakes are caught and dealt with by the process regulators.

In synthetic chemistry the process regulator is the machine operator, and there is more art than engineering that goes on. Decisions need to be made when to go to the next step, often with imperfect information about the previous step (unless one is doing HPLC & MALDI and quantitatively analyzing the results at each step very carefully). In a cell the regulator is part of the synthetic process and is removing impurities as the process proceeds. The difference is that as complexity of a molecule increases the QC starts becoming ambiguous (sense is generalized over the system) whereas in a cell sense is local to the complexity added in the last process.

 

[raxo2222]

Energy limitations?

BRB getting nuclear fusion reactor (actually built in several parts to maximize efficiency), that uses CNO Cycle, Triple Alpha and proton cycle.

That is all I need is hydrogen. I get hydrogen from water in atmosphere, and I can sell resulting oxygen.

If I'm in space I can use magnetic scoop.

Either collect atmospheric hydrogen and helium or collect solar wind.

Edited March 11, 2018 by raxo2222

[PB666]

9 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Energy limitations?

BRB getting nuclear fusion reactor (actually built in several parts to maximize efficiency), that uses CNO Cycle, Triple Alpha and proton cycle.

That is all I need is hydrogen. I get hydrogen from water in atmosphere, and I can sell resulting oxygen.

If I'm in space I can use magnetic scoop.

Either collect atmospheric hydrogen and helium or collect solar wind.

Just dive into the suns corona and scoop it up, much more effective form of sci-fantasy.

[kerbiloid]

1. If someone can synthesize food cells from pure matter, why not just synthesize well-fed cells of the body itself instead of low manner of eating?

2. If you still want to eat, then the direct modulation of desired brain activity solves all problems of the food taste and scent.
Just make a tasteless edible mess of algae and modulate desired taste right in your brain. No "real" food is necessary.

3. Replacing body cells with nanites and mechanical structures minimizes required amount of food.
Brain eats just ~15% of food. And other body parts are only for catching/gathering food for food or consuming the caught/gathered food.

[raxo2222]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Just dive into the suns corona and scoop it up, much more effective form of sci-fantasy.

But my option is more realistic as you don't need temperature resistant materials to resist solar radiation.

 

Edit: You need hydrogen not helium for CNO cycle.

Edited March 11, 2018 by raxo2222

[PB666]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

1. If someone can synthesize food cells from pure matter, why not just synthesize well-fed cells of the body itself instead of low manner of eating?

2. If you still want to eat, then the direct modulation of desired brain activity solves all problems of the food taste and scent.
Just make a tasteless edible mess of algae and modulate desired taste right in your brain. No "real" food is necessary.

3. Replacing body cells with nanites and mechanical structures minimizes required amount of food.
Brain eats just ~15% of food. And other body parts are only for catching/gathering food for food or consuming the caught/gathered food.

Are you going volunteer for brain economizing nanite therapy?

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, PB666 said:

Are you going volunteer for brain economizing nanite therapy?

Do you have hardware to use?

[Kelly]

Dilithium crystals allow matter and antimatter to combine safely within the crystal itself. This reaction (if it occurs inside the crysta)l creates a tuned plasma stream that powers all systems onboard the vessel. It's the source of the EPS (electro plasma system) network. Combining matter and antimatter outside of a dilithium crystal causes exlosive conversion of all energy contained in both particles. Definitely not a good thing.

[Guest]

On 12/5/2013 at 11:34 AM, zekes said:

Technically, the replicator does not power itself. The Dylithium crystals do. It simply turns the vast amounts of Crystal energy into energy useful to the crew, i.e. food, clothes, etc. Since Dylithium cystals have the power to go warp speed, making lunch is no big dent in it's power level.

They don’t and that’s not how works. The warp core is a matter/anti-matter reactor, the crystals are part of the mechanism by which that reaction is harnessed. There is no crystal energy. 

@Kelly @lajoswinkler @55delta you beat me to it, nice work

holy crap this is a necro thread @_@! Still... so much bad knowledge of Star Trek should not go unchallenged XD

Edited October 18, 2019 by Guest

[Spacescifi]

On 12/4/2013 at 5:13 PM, ZetaX said:

You could get a working replicator to actually just "beam" already existing matter into the correct positions. This still uses some kind of teleportation, but as you would not need to create an exact copy but just a good approximation, the unvertainty principly will not be a problem.

 

I think you're joking.

If it was not for people who underatand how space travel really works and KSP forums, my scifi would be a near direct clone of Star Trek.

 

Thankfully I know enough to avoid doing stuff the star trek way, which in our universe is either overkill or ignoring the physical limits we currently deal with involving space travel.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

3 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

I think you're joking.

I think he can't remember. Six years passed...

 

[Nuke]

if i cant taste its fear i dont want it.