10 Predictions About The Future Star Trek Probably Got Wrong
4. Early 22nd Century Onwards: Scrambling Your Molecules
We've all dreamt about it. Who wouldn’t want to ditch the travel and just materialise wherever you need to go? Well, Reg Barclay and Dr Pulaski, but I digress.
The transporter has been a Star Trek staple ever since Gene Roddenberry and co. realised they didn't have the budget to land ship or shuttle each week. In canon, the transporter (the human version anyway) was invented and built by Emory Erickson at some point around the 2120s. Like the best inventors, he was also the first to try it.
A century might seem like enough time, but in reality it's going to take a lot longer to develop the transporter, or we'll find the technology was never possible in the first place. Yes, we could talk about all the amazing achievements in quantum teleportation until the cows beam home, but to do the equivalent for the average human would require insanely precise data on 7 octillion (7 followed by 27 zeros) atoms.
Assuming you could acquire the information you needed without Heisenberg getting in the way — compensators just won't cut it — sending it would take significantly longer than the actual age of the universe. And that's just one of numerous technical hurdles.