Heisenberg compensator
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In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Heisenberg compensators are part of the transporter system.
Heisenberg uncertainty principle is the statement that locating a particle in a small region of space makes the momentum of the particle uncertain; and conversely, that measuring the momentum of a particle precisely makes the position uncertain. In quantum mechanics, the position and momentum of particles do not have precise values, but have a probability distribution. There are no states in which a particle has both a definite position and a definite momentum. The narrower the probability distribution is in position, the wider it is in momentum.
In the Star Trek series the Heisenberg compensator is supposed to break the Heisenberg uncertainty principle by compensating any deviation of the momentum of a given particle in order to determine its precise location.
A Star Trek matter transporter is presumed to operate by reading the precise quantum state of every particle making up the person to be transported, breaking down that person from their component matter into energy, "beaming" that energy to the desired location, and recombining this energy back into their component matter according to the information gleaned when the precise quantum state was read. However, in quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states (in general terms) that one cannot know the quantum state of a subatomic particle to arbitrary precision. Therefore, matter transportation in this way was believed to be impossible, and this was formalized as the no teleportation theorem.
Thus, the creators of Star Trek created a plot device, the so-called Heisenberg compensators. It is unclear how exactly the Heisenberg compensators work. It is, of course, possible that they do not actually tell you the precise statistics of each particle; they could just compensate for not being able to know them.
When asked "How does the Heisenberg compensator work?" by Time magazine on 28th November 1994, Michael Okuda, technical advisor on Star Trek, famously responded, "It works very well, thank you."[1]
In a twist of irony, in 1993 it was shown that quantum teleportation, the transferring of the exact quantum state from one object to another, is in fact possible, at the cost of destroying the quantum state of the original object. This, in fact, arguably replicates the behavior of transporters and replicators on the show (replicators, contrary to their name, do not actually replicate anything, but function by rearranging stored matter into preprogrammed forms using technology similar to the transporters (but more limited)).
In the aminated TV show, "The Justice League Unlimited"-episode "The Return"; an android is seeking out Lex Luthor for revenge. As the android telepathically scans the minds of the Earth looking for Lex, he hears them all. Filtering people out until he hears Lex say to the Atom "...reroute the Drexler Limiters and connect the Heisenberg compensators in series." Evidently, an hommage from the "The Justice League Unlimited"-folks to Star Trek, The Next Generation.
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[edit] References
- ^ "Reconfigure the Modulators!", Time Magazine, November 28, 1994.
