Holographic Physicians

[Bigkap]

So I was watching an ep of Voyager the other day and in this particular episode I believe Kes was shifting through time like Picard in AGT. The ship was under attack and sickbay was full of casualties.

My problem is this; sickbay is full and there is but 1 holographic doctor activated. Would it not stand to reason that if 1 doctor can be created, 12 -20 doctors can be created? What were they thinking?

[Darkthunder]

If memory serves, is this not the same episode where the EMH was offline for quite some time, due to excessive Krenim attacks?

Also, Voyager has tried to recreate the EMH on atleast one occasion, unsuccessfully ofcourse. I doubt it's as simple as "Copy and paste" to create multiple EMH's.

[Aeries]

To run a fully operable EMH it would be very, VERY system-intensive. He's not just a standard hologram.

[Villain]

Unlike the Prometheus, the Intrepid wasn't built to allow holograms on multiple decks, so it stands to reason they wouldn't have the emitters capable of doing something like have multiple doctors, and as it was stated, they had tried to make a second doctor, it didn't work.

Think of it like a mac, you can only have one instance of a program running at one time.


...You'd think they'd be using Intel based computing or something at least. :arms:

[mckinneyc]

Yeah numerous episodes make reference to how big the Doctor's programme is even before he started expanding it and in a few episodes it's also stated how power intensive running his programme is so in Voyager's case running more than one would not be practical although they did manage to create a medical consultant, Crell Moset.

[Villain]

I suppose it has to do with the Doctor being able to edit his own program, I'd imagine that'd take a bit, too.

[Shadowknight1]

Imagine if you would that BC had the capacity to scan mod-sites and pick the ones you wanted and immediately download and implement them after testing them for errors and correct them.  Imagine how much memory THAT would take up, then multiply it by 100.  THat's still not even close to how the EMH's program works.

[Furyofaseraph]

hahaha, I'm going to try the math on this.

Let's assume that the entire holographic matrix is based off of the human genetic code. That's 6 billion base pairs. with four possible bits (a,g,t,c) thats about 1.5 GB.

Now lets take the entire wikipedia database and multiply it by 100, and thats really conservative, of course. as of august of 2006 wikipedia was 400GB. 40001.5 GB.

Of course this isn't even close to an accurate portrayal, but its fun thinking.

[Vanguard]

Then you have to program a response to every feasible inquiry, character traits (beside manner =P), have to link certain files together, how to program how to improvise in dire situations.etc .etc

[Senator]

ST holograms appear to be as intelligent as humans, so I assume that running a holo-doctor takes at least as much computer power as simulating an entire human brain. I'd say the capacity is much closer, to the processing power required by the "Blue Brain" project. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain Right now in order to simulate a mere tiny bit of a rat's brain, they have to use an around 10.000 processor supercomputer.

I'd also say that simulating a brain is a lot more complicated than storing a DNA. It's like writing down the equation that creates fractals vs seeing all the fractal itself.
(In fact you cannot see "all" the fractal meaning that something finite contains the information of something infinite, yet deterministic which leads us to all kind of interesting philosophical conclusions that are completely irrelevant with this thread)