Editing Transporter (Star Trek) (section)

===Capabilities and limitations===
The television series and films do not go into great detail about transporter technology. The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual]]'' claims that the devices transport objects in real time, accurate to the quantum level. The episode ''TNG'': "[[Realm of Fear]]" specifies the length of a transport under unusual circumstances would last "... four or five seconds; about twice the normal time" (making the length of a typical transport between 2 and 2.5 seconds). [[Werner Heisenberg|Heisenberg]] compensators remove [[Heisenberg uncertainty principle|uncertainty]] from the subatomic measurements, making transporter travel feasible. Further technology involved in transportation include a computer pattern buffer to enable a degree of leeway in the process. When asked "How does the Heisenberg compensator work?" by ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine, ''Star Trek'' technical adviser [[Michael Okuda]] responded: "It works very well, thank you."<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981892,00.html |title=Reconfigure the Modulators! |date=November 28, 1994 |magazine=Time Magazine}}</ref>

According to ''The Original Series'' (''TOS'') writers' guide, the effective range of a transporter is 40,000 kilometers. The ''TOS'' episode "[[Obsession (Star Trek: The Original Series)|Obsession]]" however, appears to indicate that the transporters' maximum range, during that time period in ''Star Trek'' history, is actually around 30,000 kilometers. Transporter operations have been disrupted or prevented by dense metals (''TNG'': "[[Contagion (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Contagion]]"), solar flares (''TNG'': "[[Symbiosis (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Symbiosis]]"), and other forms of radiation, including electromagnetic (''TNG'': "[[The Enemy (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Enemy]]"; ''TNG'': "[[Power Play (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Power Play]]") and nucleonic (''TNG'': "[[Schisms (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Schisms]]"), and affected by ion storms (''TOS'': "[[Mirror, Mirror (Star Trek: The Original Series)|Mirror, Mirror]]"). Transporting, in progress, has also been stopped by telekinetic powers (''TNG'': "[[Skin of Evil (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Skin of Evil]]") and by brute strength (''TNG'': "[[The Hunted (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Hunted]]"). The ''TNG'' episode "[[Bloodlines (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Bloodlines]]" features a dangerous and experimental "[[subspace (Star Trek)|subspace]] transporter" capable of interstellar distances and the [[Dominion (Star Trek)|Dominion]] had the ability to transport over great distances (''DS9'': "[[Covenant (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)|Covenant]]"). The 40,000-kilometer limit is also referred to in ''ENT'': "[[Daedalus (Star Trek: Enterprise)|Daedalus]]". It was established in ''TOS'' episode "[[Arena (Star Trek: The Original Series)|Arena]]" that the transporter cannot be used when the ship's deflector shields are up.

[[Starfleet]] transporters from the ''TNG'' era onward include a device that can detect and disable an active weapon (''TNG'': "[[The Most Toys (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Most Toys]]"), and a bio-filter to remove contagious [[microbes]] or [[viruses]] from an individual in transport (''TNG'': "[[Shades of Gray (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Shades of Gray]]", ''TOS'': "[[The Naked Time]]"). The transporter can also serve a tactical purpose, such as beaming a photon grenade or [[photon torpedo]] to detonate at remote locations (''TNG'': "[[Legacy (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Legacy]]", ''{{abbr|VOY|Star Trek: Voyager}}'': "[[Dark Frontier (Star Trek: Voyager)|Dark Frontier]]"), or to outright destroy objects (''TNG'': "[[Captain's Holiday]]"). The ''TOS'' episode "[[A Taste of Armageddon]]" mentions Vendikar materializing fusion bombs over targets of enemy planet Eminiar VII in the course of theoretical computer warfare.

Klingon transporters, as seen in ''[[Star Trek III: The Search for Spock|Star Trek III]]'', have a harsh red light in contrast to Federation blue, and operate with complete silence (in the movie, no sound effects). Presumably this is to enhance the combat effectiveness of Klingon boarding parties. It is not made clear whether Klingon transporters are more risky for the boarders, but the warlike Klingons are likely not to be concerned about transport casualties in combat.

Whenever a person or object is transported, the machine creates a memory file of the pattern. This has been used at least once in every ''Star Trek'' series to revert people adversely affected by a transport to their original state.

Various episodes of ''Deep Space Nine'' (''DS9'') and ''Voyager'' (''VOY'') have introduced two anti-transporter devices: transport inhibitors and transporter scramblers. Inhibitors prevent a transporter beam from "locking on" to whatever the device is attached to. Scramblers distort the pattern that is in transit, literally scrambling the atoms upon rematerialization, resulting in the destruction of inanimate objects and killing living beings by rematerializing them as masses of random tissue; this was gruesomely demonstrated in the ''DS9'' episode "[[The Darkness and the Light (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)|The Darkness and the Light]]".

Transporter operations can also be curtailed when either the point of origin and/or the intended target site is moving at warp velocities. In the ''TNG'' episode "[[The Schizoid Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Schizoid Man]]", a "long-range" or "near-warp" transport was required as a transporter beam cannot penetrate a warp field. (In the 2009 ''Star Trek'' film Kirk and Scotty beam aboard while the ''Enterprise'' is traveling at warp, however, the movie takes place in an alternate continuity, thus not affecting the Prime Continuity used in all previous media and the ''Star Trek'' Online computer game.) To deposit an away team on the planet Gravesworld while at the same time responding to a distress signal, the ''Enterprise'' would only drop out of warp drive just long enough to energize the transporter beam. [[Geordi La Forge]] personally performed the delicate operation, which involved compensating for the ship's relativistic motion. After materializing, Deanna Troi commented that for a moment she thought she was trapped in a nearby wall, to which Worf replied, "For a moment, you were". In later stories (''TNG'': "[[The Emissary (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Emissary]]" and ''TNG'': "[[The Best of Both Worlds (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Best of Both Worlds]]"), it was confirmed that the transporter would work at warp only if the sending and receiving sites were moving at equal velocities.

In his book ''[[The Physics of Star Trek]]'', after explaining the difference between transporting information and transporting the actual atoms, Krauss notes that "The ''Star Trek'' writers seem never to have got it exactly clear what they want the transporter to do. Does the transporter send the atoms and the bits, or just the bits?" He notes that according to the canon definition of the transporter the former seems to be the case, but that that definition is inconsistent with a number of applications, particularly incidents, involving the transporter, which appear to involve only a transport of information, for example the way in which it splits Kirk into two versions in the episode "[[The Enemy Within (Star Trek: The Original Series)|The Enemy Within]]" or the way in which Riker is similarly split in the episode "[[Second Chances (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|Second Chances]]". Krauss elaborates that: "If the transporter carries both the matter stream and the information signal, this splitting phenomenon is impossible. The number of atoms you end up with has to be the same as the number you began with. There is no possible way to replicate people in this manner. On the other hand, if only the information were beamed up, one could imagine combining it with atoms that might be stored aboard a starship and making as many copies as wanted of an individual."<ref>Lawrence M. Krauss (1995), ''The Physics of Star Trek'', Basic Books, {{ISBN|978-0465002047}}, pp. 67-68</ref>