Replicator Plausibility - Star Trek vs Science

posted on November 26th, 2012, 8:43 pm

In pretty much every episode of TNG and VOY, there is at least one mention of replicators which can supposedly replicate anything from food to weapons to parts of the ship that are beamed into space to fool bounty hunters 30,000 light-years from Federation space. Replication is portrayed as being very easy to do in terms of energy costs in which Yesterday's Enterprise limits replicator rations because the energy is needed for the shields, but how much energy does it really take to replicate something?

Well, in particle accelerators, which collide a particle and an anti-particle (which is NOT a photon, neutron, electron, or the mirrored variants), the energy released in the collision creates matter and anti-matter. Actually, the energy is turned into matter and anti-matter. The particles used to create the matter and anti-matter are accelerated to almost the speed of light which drains the nearby power grid. After the matter and anti-matter particles collide with each other, they are turned back into energy instantly.

In Star Trek, the replicators work by turning energy into matter. But apparently there is no anti-matter created in the process. This flies in the face of science as matter and anti-matter are always created and destroyed in equal numbers. If the anti-matter is removed from the replicators, then you're going to end up with a lot of anti-matter waste that's going to have to be dealt with sooner or later. A teaspoon of anti-matter reacting with a teaspoon of matter is enough to destroy a city.

Using the anti-matter as fuel for the ship will not solve the problem because the ship's supply of anti-matter is already balanced with the supply of matter for the fuel, you'll just be changing which atoms of anti-matter are wasted.

Using the anti-matter as a warhead could help in battle so long as the casing isn't also replicated. If the casing is replicated, then it will have to be replicated from matter that's already present on the ship. Otherwise, you're just creating more anti-matter waste. Remember, the ratio of matter to anti-matter in this type of reaction is always 1:1.

On another note, where does all of the energy to replicate the matter come from? As mentioned earlier, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to create just one atom of matter and anti-matter. Replicators create millions of atoms at once. And since the anti-matter is a waste product without matter, you cannot turn it back into energy. Even if you could, you would NOT get all of your energy back.

So in the end, replicators are very wasteful items unless they are working with pre-existing matter and just converting that matter to another form of matter. That technology is available to some extent now, and as it turns out, it takes much less energy to convert matter from one form to another than it does to convert energy into matter and anti-matter and wind up with half of the total mass wasted.

posted on November 26th, 2012, 9:12 pm

First, I believe it's the TNG Tech Manual which says that replicators draw from a store of raw matter which probably contains various organic and inorganic compounds like starches, protiens, sugars, metals, etc. They are then manipulated through a subset of transporter tech to organize them into the desired pattern. They aren't transforming energy into matter, they're using energy to transform matter into other matter. Replicators however lack Heisenburg compensators so they can't be used to produce anything living. There are also rules against using transporters like replicators.

Today we could probably satisfy the energy requirements of a replicator. The bigger problem is probably how to actually transform the input matter and how to store the pattern. Given the complexity of most organic substances, such a pattern would probably have massive storage requirements.

posted on November 26th, 2012, 10:19 pm

Well this all assumes that they don't find a way to change energy to matter without producing anitmatter as well.

so many scientific beliefs have been completely disproved over the centuries, what we think is impossible might one day become possible.

the universe has lots of matter, but comparatively little antimatter. there is an unproven theory that some antimatter was changed into matter (baryogenesis). perhaps a replicator could take advantage or build from such a process. maybe the energy DOES get turned into both matter and antimatter, but then the replicator can turn the antimatter in matter.

i say it's plausible, but would be very far off.

also possible is the tech manual theory, that no energy is converted to matter, only matter reorganised into more useful arrangements of matter.

posted on November 26th, 2012, 10:29 pm

i seem to recall in a voyager episode during the year of hell i think it was called. someone replicaded a watch for chakotay, he said it was a waste of replicator rations and was going to put it back in the replicator. so i assume its a pool of resources that needs to be added to.

but it is fiction so i dont think they thought it would be possible, but a cool idea

posted on November 26th, 2012, 10:41 pm

i seem to recall in a voyager episode during the year of hell i think it was called. someone replicaded a watch for chakotay, he said it was a waste of replicator rations and was going to put it back in the replicator. so i assume its a pool of resources that needs to be added to.

but it is fiction so i dont think they thought it would be possible, but a cool idea

or maybe it's as simple as the replicator turns the watch back into energy to put into the ship's batteries. the item is mostly metal, so it contains lots of matter (compared to dirt or gas).

posted on November 26th, 2012, 11:34 pm

Well, instead of a tiny watch, you could just put anything back in that's already broken or not needed - and there definitely was enough crap to "recycle". I wouldn't take the reply to literal.
To go a bit off topic: i'm pretty sure the watch has been replicated for Janeway.

posted on November 26th, 2012, 11:59 pm

Oh there was certainly a lot of crap recycled on Voyager

Technically, since everything is merely created from a combination of neutrons and electrons orbiting each other in just the right way, all you would need to do is create a machine that could do this precisely, and of course without letting loose the incumbent masses of energy from splitting said atoms. But that would only be turning one form of matter into another, transmogrification if you will. Energy to Matter and vice versa is a bit different.

Either way though as you pointed out, no transfer of energy is ever perfect, so even converting from say iron atoms to carbon atoms would result in a net loss of energy. The only solution is either some hyper-efficient reactor or masses of solar panels.

I'd say the tech was feasible but not plausible. I mean, it's theoretically doable, but they likelyhood of it becoming commonplace is the same as you having an atomic powered fridge.

posted on November 27th, 2012, 12:42 am

Oh there was certainly a lot of crap recycled on Voyager

Technically, since everything is merely created from a combination of neutrons and electrons orbiting each other in just the right way

also protons, they're very important as their positive charge is what attracts electrons.

the repeated repairs to voyager between episodes would require lots of new parts (like good old fashioned hull pieces). maybe old damaged parts were recycled, to get some of the energy/matter to make new parts.

posted on November 27th, 2012, 6:58 am

Of course, sorry it's been a while since I did Physics!

posted on November 27th, 2012, 10:53 am

but they likelyhood of it becoming commonplace is the same as you having an atomic powered fridge.

excuse me while i get annoying but,

if your house is powered by a nuclear power station is your fridge not atomic powered?

posted on November 27th, 2012, 11:50 am

but they likelyhood of it becoming commonplace is the same as you having an atomic powered fridge.

excuse me while i get annoying but,

if your house is powered by a nuclear power station is your fridge not atomic powered?

that's a bit of semantics. i think the intended meaning was the for the fridge to have an atomic power source dedicated to powering it.

which is stupid not because of the nature of atomic power, but because the concept of a fridge with a dedicated power source is stupid.

large consumer goods use the sockets on the wall for a reason, it's more effective to distribute electricity to everyone's homes than it is to have every device have an independent power source. the only devices that we power independently are ones we don't want to have wires (eg tv remotes).

diesel power is commonplace these days, but you don't see fridges with independent diesel generators. it's just silly to have a consumer good run on its own power source. even if atomic power were free of all the misplaced controversy it currently has, you wouldn't see atomic fridges.

posted on November 27th, 2012, 12:11 pm

tbh i was just messing with him a little rather than meaning for it to be a serious comment. i got the meaning behind what was said.perhaps i should of put to make that more obvious

posted on November 27th, 2012, 1:22 pm

tbh i was just messing with him a little rather than meaning for it to be a serious comment. i got the meaning behind what was said.perhaps i should of put to make that more obvious

someone should write a book on proper emoticon use to convey tone and intention

posted on November 27th, 2012, 7:22 pm

Tis alright

What I was meaning by it is that the technology may exist to make it, hence plausible, but that there are far more efficient ways to perform the same task that I doubt it will ever be a reality. Like a Fridge powered by it's own atomic reactor

I think that it will be far more likely that we will build things to, as i've mentioned, convert one form of matter into another, rather than trying to convert matter to energy and vice versa. It's a bit like recycling. They don't try and break things down to their raw components, even if it were possible, they just break them down to reusable components. Why spend the time and energy trying to convert steel back to iron ore, if all you are going to do is make more steel out of it. Better to simply melt it down and recast it. Same thing with energy-matter replicators. Why bother breaking something down to energy just to convert it back to matter, even if you could do it without waste, when its simpler just to convert that object from one form of matter to another.

posted on November 27th, 2012, 8:03 pm

you know they mention using replicators in pretty much every episode,

how many times do they mention needing to go to the bathroom..

once that i can recall.. and it was zefram cochrane saying he was going to go behind a tree..

do they just beam it out?