Exploring the Real-Life Feasibility of Star Trek Transporters as a Means of Transportation

In “The Trouble with Transporters“, the wonderful CGP Grey examines the real-life feasibility of the infamous mode of transportation employed in the many generations of Star Trek and concluded that in every case, the transporter would be 100% lethal, but not necessarily in the traditional sense.

First the transporter scans you down to the park takes apart your atoms and sends the pieces of you to the destination for reassembly. But is it you on the other end or a copy that thinks it’s you. Well who is you? that’s a hell of a big question. …but you might still have his nagging feeling that your experience of stepping into the transporter will be a funny sound, a bright light then nothingness eternal. Down on the planet, a brand new life complete with all your memories up to the moment before your death, popped into existence and assumed its you. How could it otherwise? It lives a life as short as the mission and a new creature with the memories of you both makes it back to the ship.