[net.startrek] What a Transporter picks up, and more

wbpesch@ihuxp.UUCP (Walt Pesch) (05/06/85)

> A few nights ago, I watched "A Piece of the Action" with a friend. We
> began wondering: when the Enterprise beams one of the crime bosses over
> to where Kirk is, why doesn't the phone that the crime boss is holding
> beam with him?
  ...
> Our best explanation was that things that are attached to other things do
> not beam up.
  ...
>     the transporter is a beam operation if a narrow beam hits an object 
> they that object can be beamed aboard (ie. the beam expands itself to 
> include only the extremities of the beamed object). However, if a wide 
> beam is used then all in the beam are 'beamed' aboard. (ie. nearby rocks, 
> people, phasers,etc.)  that's the best I can do.
>   					Drew Herman (her3) 

I've got an even better one ... let's credit the tronsporter unit
with a little AI-type smarts (which seem to have been left out of a
lot of Federation Technology, I consider the ship herself to be at
best "user-friendly").  It has a basic intelligence as to what it
should bring along and not.  E.g., ground shouldn't be, phasers
should be, clothing should be, etc.


Care to comment (especially about the AI side of Federation Technology.)



-- 
Walt Pesch
AT&T Technologies
ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch