Transporters are somewhat possible but transporing takes....

[Ensign Harry Kim ()]

Transporters are somewhat possible but transporing takes some time, with the current computers and networking speed. Going on the current scientific research that a normal, average adult human has approxiametly 10^28 atoms inside him, the following calculations prove how long transporting would take. (Note that the calculations do not include computer processing time and go by the fact that memory is not sufficient enough to hold the required amount of data.)

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of information to catalogue every atom in the human body in sufficient detail to transport it..
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 trillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilobytes of information
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 megabytes of information
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 gigabytes of information
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 terabytes of information
The largest hard drive available on the market is 120 megabytes, or 0.12 terabytes.
It would take 8,333,333,333,333,333,334 of these hard drives to store this information.
The fastest computer available to date can only handle a maximum of 720 gygabytes or 0.72 terabytes.
It would take 1,388,888,888,888,888,889 of these computers to store this information.
The fastest network speed is 100 megabytes or 0.1 gygabytes or 0.0001 terabytes of information per second.
If every computer has its own connection to a recieving computer, it would take each computer 12 minutes to transfer its data to the receiving computer.
But, each atoms information would need to be its own file so that a program did not select an incorrect atom.
The receiving computer would then need to send back the file it receives, and the computer would then have to verify it and send a confirmation that the file was received intact.
This takes approx. 20 seconds plus transfer back times.
This means that the total amount of time to transfer the information, receive it, and verify it would take:
12 minutes transfer to recieving computer.
12 minutes transfer back from receiving computer.
1,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,667 minutes verification time.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 minutes transfer of verification files.
__________________________________________________________
2,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,691 total minutes to trasfer atom information between computers.
44,444,444,444,444,444,444,444,444.85 total hours to transfer atom information between computers.
11,111,111,111,111,111,111,111,111.2125 total days to transfer atom information between computers.
30,441,400,304,414,003,044,140 total years to transfer atom information between computers.
3,044,140,030,441,400,304,414 total decades to transfer atom information between computers.
304,414,003,044,140,030,441 total centuries to transfer atom information between computers
30,441,400,304,414,003,044 total milinia to transfer atom information between computers.

[webtaz99]

"There's more than one way to skin a cat." {Actually, I like cats }

Several companies have already developed holographic memory systems and CDs that store data as holograms. Mankind is also trying to develop holographic/optical "computers".

NASA has developed a technology using holograms {called an optical correlater} to recognize images. They built a prototype that searched a "database" of human faces which operated at a speed equivalent to checking a given face against every face in the world in 2.5 seconds.

Even if we can't imagine it now {and who in 1900 could imagine our current computers!} Star Trek requires a new way of storing, transferring, and processing data on scales that we find impossible.

I find this much easier to believe than exceeding light speed.

[Whitehero]

The largest hardrive on the market is 250 Giga Bytes

4 = 1 tera byte


300GB hardrives you can expect to see by Xmas or early next year.

Oh, and the best home PC can handel upwards of 8 of these hardrives (2TB) and that would probably put and industry sized computer storage around 25,000 GB so...