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From: wws@whuxlm.UUCP (Stoll W William)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Transporters:a question (re: things attached to other things)
Message-ID: <756@whuxlm.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-May-85 18:27:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxlm.756
Posted: Wed May  1 18:27:44 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-May-85 00:02:12 EDT
References: <438@nmtvax.UUCP> <423@talcott.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 28

> > A few nights ago, I watched "A Piece of the Action" with a friend. We 
> > began wondering: when the Enterprise beams one of the crime bosses over
> > to where Kirk is, why doesn't the phone that the crime boss is holding
> > beam with him?
> > 
> > Our best explanation was that things that are attached to other things do
> > not beam up. 
> > 
> > Anybody else have any ideas???
> 
> That wouldn't make much sense at all, since not only does clothing get
> transported, but phasers, communicators, tricorders, daggers, filter
> masks (ad infinitum) also do.
> 

I think what the original query meant was that things attached to _things_
which_are_outside_of_the_beam_ don't get transported.  This makes sense
to me.  The receiver of the phone was in the beam, but was attached to
the "whatever the other part of the phone is called" (hook? sniglets,
anyone?) which was outside the beam (or perhaps the hook was in the beam
but the entire extension cord was not...).  If any part of the boss' body
was outside of the beam, he wouldn't have gotten transported either.

Of course, as everybody says, the transporter is one big inconsistency
and there are few if any hard and fast physical laws that we can apply
to it...

Bill Stoll, ..!whuxlm!wws