From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!ihnp4!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!CSvax:Pucc-H:Physics:crl Newsgroups: net.startrek Title: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf) Article-I.D.: pur-phy.670 Posted: Mon Feb 7 16:06:17 1983 Received: Fri Feb 11 03:10:31 1983 #R:hou5f:-19700:pur-phy:11900003:000:1202 pur-phy!crl Feb 7 14:28:00 1983 About the transporter, I once read an "explanation" of it. However, I'm very unsure of my source--it might have been "The Making of Star Trek" (good reference), or James Blish's novelzations (bad references-- it often seemed like he was using the "physics" of the wrong universe). What I remember was this--the transporter does NOT convert the person to energy, transmit this energy, and then reconvert at the destination. Rather, it destroys the matter at the source, but remembers the pattern. It then reconstructs this pattern at the destination out of matter and energy at the destination. This would make the "Enemy Within" episode more "plausible" (?). There is a subtle difference here-- the person reconstructed at the destination is NOT the original. He/she is neither made up of the original molecules, or even the energy that was the original molecules. This would also further explain the Doctor's aversion to the transporter. (Hmm, the more I think about it, the better the liklihood that I got a lot of this from Blish--Oh well, take it or leave it). Does anyone out there agree, or at least remember other references to this? Charles LaBrec pur-ee!Physics:crl purdue!Physics:crl