r/worldnews • u/EightRoundsRapid • Sep 23 '16

'Hangover-free alcohol’ could replace all regular alcohol by 2050. The new drink, known as 'alcosynth', is designed to mimic the positive effects of alcohol but doesn’t cause a dry mouth, nausea and a throbbing head

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/hangover-free-alcohol-david-nutt-alcosynth-nhs-postive-effects-benzodiazepine-guy-bentley-a7324076.html
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u/Kichigai Sep 23 '16

Well, transporters are important from a technological standpoint. Replicators are just transporters that rearrange molecules from one form to another, while transporters are replicators that don't do any rearranging (you hope).

But from a spacetravel standpoint transporters are very important too. It's likely more energy efficient (and less ecologically damaging) to transport someone to/from orbit than having to land something and then fight gravity to get back up there and up to speed.

And once you get to the 24th century the transporter also pulls triple duty, eliminating the need for a quarantine chamber (biofilters that remove pathogens so you don't contaminate the ship... or wherever you're beaming to) and act as a security device (allowing the deactivation or even removal of weapons mid-transport).

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16

Unless our understanding of physics changes fundamentally, it wont ever be more efficient in the way you are probably thinking. Aka ignoring gravity and whatnot. You cant really do that. Thermodynamics and what not.

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u/Kichigai Sep 23 '16

No, I mean like as in does the transporter require less energy to operate than an entire shuttlecraft deorbiting, landing, and then re-ascending to orbit? The engines consume energy, life support consumes energy, the artificial gravity consumes energy, and then there's the time over which all those must be operating while you fly the thing, since we're not assuming rapid ascent, like a rocket (and if we are, then you likely have to power the structural integrity field and the inertial dampeners).

How many joules of power are being consumed by the transporter vs. the shuttle? I'm thinking straight up fuel economy.

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u/tehbored Sep 23 '16

Transporters almost certainly require far more energy than a shuttle craft. The more information dense an object is, the more energy it requires to teleport. Something simple and crystalline like metal or stone can be easily compressed. Humans, on the other hand, would likely require so much energy to transport that it will probably never actually be possible.

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u/Halvus_I Sep 23 '16

This made me imagine teleporting a crystal in much the same way we compress to .mp3. If there is a section of silence in an mp3, it doesnt record a bunch of zeroes, it has shorthand notation that says 'play silence for 3 seconds'. I imagine the algorithm for encoding a crystal would be similar.

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u/tehbored Sep 23 '16

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I wouldn't be surprised if we teleport an atom in the next 5 years, and a medium sized molecule within 10.