Any Trekkers out there? Nellie and I will be discussing this deep (haha) subject, probably starting around July 1. Come on down!

I'm not a Trekker, but both my kids are, I'll be lurking. And maybe saying a few words too.

Jackie, I'm a Trekker too but can't start another book yet. I'll definitely be lurking and will hop in if I can.

Eileen Megan

Hey, RUth, Eileen: GOod to see you. Lurk all you like. Even if you aren't reding the book, you may have something to contribute to the discussion. This sounds like fun. Nellie said, once she started the book, she couldn't put it down.

Jackie: This forum sounds exciting! I haven't watched Star Trek for years and can't consider myself a Trekker when I see how devoted others are but back a few decades when it was regularly on TV, I sat down and watched it without fail. I'm also an amateur (emphasis on amateur) scientist. Congratulations on this new endeavor!

Robby

Robby: We are so glad to have you. I am long, long past my phsysics schooling, so I am going to have a back-up: Richard Feynman, who was one of the Manhattan Project fellows, was reputed to be an entertaining speaker. His physics into: Six Easy Pieces, is available as a book, and it will be my companion while on this Star Trek journey. Our Nellie is a BRAIN, so she can help us through the rough spots.

I also will be a lurker. My brother in law is a "died in the wool" Trekkie. I am almost afraid to get into this, what with my Grandson and brother in law talking about people I never heard of! Luke Star Walker as an example. Is it O.K. if I just lurk if I don't cause any trouble?

NORM!! Is it OK? Heckers, are you KIDDING??!! It's FABULOUS to see you here!!

But I know Nellie and Jackie will want you to do more than lurk, why, at the end of this, you may AMAZE your brother in law and grandson! hahahahha

SO glad to see you here, wait till the others see who's HERE!!

Ginny

One thing I always enjoyed about Star Trek was that each program had some sort of moral attached to it (if I may use that word.) Although the theme was surrounded by technologies of one sort or another, the program always ended with my pausing, looking off into space (no pun intended) and thinking about what I had just watched.

Robby

Robby: Don't be shy about puns, if you have 'em, let us have 'em. My children pun mercilessly; I am hopelessy outclassed by them (again). SF can be profound. There are writers who have presented a "reality" that made me rethink my values.

Jackie: When I was a Boy Scout (centuries ago), my counselor taught us:

The great and good should always shun
The reckless and abandoned one
Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.

Robby

How delightful to see more folks joining us, even if they threaten to only lurk LOL. We'd love to see you all participate...let your thought flow free.

What is this about me being a BRAIN? Me, who can come up with the weirdest ideas?

Can't wait for the discussion to begin...Nellie

Nellie:

Why don't you begin the discussion and I will pick up from there?

Robby

Robert, give me a day to gather my thoughts and I'll get the discussion on the way. Since tomorrow July 1 is a holiday in Canada, shall we begin on July 2nd?

Nellie

Nellie:

What is the connection between a holiday and "gathering thoughts"? If we're going to do that, then I'll need time to react to your thoughts because the American Fourth of July is coming along. Imagine if Captain Kirk had taken that long!

Robby

Robby: You scamp!

I haven't heard the word "scamp" in years! Is it similar to a "bounder?"

Robby

First of all, I had a thought afterwards that perhaps it should be our esteemed leader who starts things off, and secondly that it would be better to begin after all the holidays when everyone is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to put down their thoughts and respond to same. What say you all?

Note, the delay is because I have in no way gathered my thoughts, they are scattered all over the place LOL.

Nellie

What does Mr. Spock think of all this?

Robby

When I went to B&N to get the book, the computer showed one copy. Alas, it was not to be found. Metaphysics of ST, Beyond the Physics of ST (by Krauss, yet), Cookbook of ST, etc., etc. So will continue searching. From StarTrek to Medieval times is a stretch, but: In History we are beginning to read A wWorld Lit Only By Fire, by William Manchester. He is a Professor of History Emeritus, and his other books include American Caesar (MacArthur), Death of a President (Kennedy), etc., etc. Looks to be a Connections kind of thing. Drop in if you're in the neighborhood.

Under the heading of the question "Could this really happen?" I wonder if "Beam me up, Scotty" will some day come true. This would involve, I assume, a complete "dinintegration" of all the atoms of the body and then a re-integration" of them in exactly the same way. What do you think?

Robby

Of course, it may take a long time to get there, but I believe if it can be imagined, it can happen, in some way or another. It would take a massive memory storage device to store just the youngest of minds, not withstanding all the physical details of the human body. I believe we will get there after a few great leaps in high technology. I have already seen a three dimension figure being created from a computer AutoCAD file database. Similar to the replicators used in Star Trek. Sure, it takes a long time to do, but you can see it coming into shape layer by layer of liquid plastic being created in what looks like a microwave oven, in an office enviornment. It's called Rapid Prototyping and being done in Minnesota by Stratasys, Inc. I've seen the beginnings of the future, and it looks good!!!

Of course I've forgotten the name of the sf book but in the book, people could"jump"(wrong word too) from one location to another, for instance from Chicago to Boston. It was such an everyday thing for the "masses" that wealthy people would travel by "antique" cars, trucks etc. If anyone has watched "Earth, Final Conflict" they have "portals" to transport you from one place to another. SF seems to be always one step, or maybe several steps, away from science fact.

Eileen Megan

Fireman:

Can you say a bit more about Rapid Prototyping? Who is financing this and what is the purpose?

Robby

Robby, Check out their web site for yourself. I found it quite interesting. If you are interested in a contact, you can call Jonathan Cobb, VP of Marketing, at (612) 906-2258. Tell him the President of SESM (Society of Engineering Systems Management) referred you. He gave our society membership a presentation last month, and everyone was impressed.

Check out the "What's New" section. Virtual prototyping allows interested consumers to receive an actual Stratasys model, at no cost. This virtual process allows prospective customers to view the building process and to obtain an actual model via mail.

From a computer file to an actual model, materialize right in front of your eyes...Jon laughed when I mentioned the Star Trek replicator technology. He said they are working on speeding up the process.

Have fun. DonE

Star Trek has become one our cultural icons, obviously. Is this effect world-wide, I wonder? Sociologists must be having a field day, there is so much exciting stuff to study about the world's populations. Is the tsunami of immigration we are seeing composed of middle-class techies, or of lower-class but educated techies? Are other parts of the US seeing such increases in immigration as we see here in SV? Back to the book. . .

Krauss begins with Newtonian physics and G-forces to discuss what happens to a person on a starship that accelerates swiftly to half-light speed. Not a pretty picture! Of course the Star trek writers created something called an inertial damper to overcome that problem. That is something that is easy to do in writing a story but perhaps not as easy in real life. However, I'm going off track...A starship such as the Enterprise is a perfect example to use in a study of action and reaction, which is what Krauss does; he uses the starship to teach us about Newtonian physics. The fusion reaction pushes gasses and radiation away from the engines at a high velocity, the engines react by recoiling forwards away from the gasses, and the ship recoils forwards along with the engines, and the captain and crew also recoil forwards with the ship; if seated the chair will push forwards against them and they in turn will push back against the chair with their body. We've all felt that when we are in an airplane that takes off.

So is Krauss saying that the things done by a starship at impulse power are impossible? If one wants to go from rest to half light speed in a few seconds yes, because physical dictates that it would kill you. But if you accelerate more slowly, so that you never exceed a force of 3Gs then you can safely accelerate to half light speed. The only problem is, it would take 2-1/2 months to reach that speed. Not very exciting LOL.

"The Fist Law of Star Trek physics must surely state that the more basic the problem to be circumvented, the more challenging the required solution must be...A Star Trek fix must circumvent not merely some problem in physics but every bit of physical knowledge that has been built upon this problem. Physics progresses not by revolutions, which do away with all that went before,but rather by evolutions, which exploit the best about what is already understood."

I will stop for now. I was going to say that I was just going to lurk a while since my mind is not on reading much of anything lately. I may still do that a bit more than I post.

One more thought: all through the book I had this feeling that Krauss was saying essentially that the things being done in Star Trek are not really feasable. Basic physics is not going to change, as Krauss points out Newtonian physics will be with us to the end of the universe...a dropped item will always fall to the ground; and an acceleration will always cause a push on the body while the body pushes backwards with equal force. You can never say that the "old" stuff no longer counts. Jump off a cliff and quantum physics and Einsteinian physics notwithstanding, you will become well acquainted with the inexorable facts of Newtonian physics.

Nellie

I am the fool rushing in where angels fear to tread so just bear with little old high school physics me - and I wasn't very good then either. I will be filled with more questions than answers.

Why would you want to go to a half-light speed? Is it necessary to go that fast to arrive at various galaxies? If the nearest star is four light years away, then is my math correct that we could arrive there in eight years at half-light speed (after the original starting up speed of 2 1/2 months?) Eight years is not too bad. While on the way various experiments could take place. And would another 2 1/2 months be required to decelerate?

Robby

Recently Nova repeated Terror in Space about the fire on Mir. What a white knuckler that was! The fire, and then the obstinate insistence of the Russian mission control people that the crew practice docking the "trash" capsule, which resulted in breaching the station, and threatened their survival again. Today, I read how a flight from California succeeded in its mission to air drop medical supplies to a researcher at the South Pole who has discovered she has a lump in her breast, and she can't be rescued for another seven months. So, what difference does it make if the flight takes 8 years, plus 2.5 months to accellerate and another 2.5 to decellerate, plus the same again to return? Crews on such a journey could be in major jeopardy. What about speed of communications? I must get back to the book.

Just a very quick answer to Rob's question. In the example the ship is just travelling to the other end of the solar system they are in, so there is no need for using the warp engines, impulse is fine. I'm doing a rough estimate here without the numbers, but I would say that at half the speed of light you could be at the orbit of pluto in a couple of hours. But only if you accelerate to that speed in a few minutes or less; in which case you would also be quite dead.

More to come on how Star Trek solves the action -reaction problem inherit in accelerating quickly to a high final speed.

Nellie

I found the book at our library. So far it's been easy to read. Physics was not my best subject. (Major understatment). However, I am curious. I guess that is the only requirement. Plus watching Star Trek since the begining of time.

Welcome to our little group, Mary! I hope you will join in and tell us what you learn from this book.

You sound like you belong, Mary. It is an easy read, though the reality of physics is somewhat disappointing: Warp seven, Mr Sulu, doesn't sound as exciting when you realize that the consequences of performing that action turns the Enterprise into a giant can of "tomato" soup!

Jackie: 'giant can of tomato soup' ugh what a picture! I think the author uses the term 'human salsa. The writers of the show solved that problem by invoking something called 'inertial dampers'; Krauss states that these inertial dampers must work by cancelling out the reaction force that responds to the accelleration force; essentially it must set up an artificial gravitational field which pulls in opposite direction to the reaction force and cancels it. He also points out that accelleration gives the same feeling as being pulled by gravity. This may provide a hint as to how the inertial damper may work. That's what I have been thinking of...how do you create an artificial gravitational field? Carry along a mini black hole? Sound feasible, but wouldn't the ship tend to 'accelerate' towards the black hole when it is not under accelleration? Plus you can't turn a black hole on and off, nor control the amount of gravitational force being felt. Going back to the accelleration giving the same feeling as being pulled by gravity thought...not only acceleration gives that feeling but so does deccelleration. So if the starship were deccellerating at the same time it was accellerating then there would be no 'tomato soup or human salsa' problem because the two forces would cancel each other out; also the ship would get nowhere very fast. So it must deccellerate enough to make the G-forces bearable while still accellerating at a descent rate of speed. (Don't mind me, I'm on one of my crazy thinking jags LOL)

Now Krauss is moving into the realm of Einsteinian physics which may put a new light on things, or add to the confusion.

Chapter 2 Einstein Raises begins with one of my favorite subjects, time travel. Krauss states that we are all time travellers but we can travel in only one direction, and that is futureward. In someways we are not even travellers since we are forever captive in a single moment of the present; there is no way for us to move faster through time if we wished to get to the future faster, nor can we go backwards and visit the past.

Which leads me to a question: if time travel were possible would you like to travel to the past or into the future?

Krauss notes that 22 episodes of the first and second Star Trek series are devoted to time travel, and three of the movies. Also the origins of Science Fiction are closely tied to time travel. One of the first SF stories I read was The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

Now the question is: is time travel possible? More on what the book says later.

I haven't read the book but I've seen every episode and it drives me to distraction when the Cap'n says "Full Stop Scottie" and Scottie replies "Aye Aye. Full Stop it is." Don't these space travellers realize that there is no such thing as a FULL STOP in space. The closest Cap'n Kirk can come to it, is to say "Scottie, synchronize our movement with that of that space object over there (the space object can be anything from a star to an old derelict space ship) and then they'll be stopped AS COMPARED TO THAT OBJECT.

Brad, I always have the same thought about them coming to a 'full stop'; in space it is a total impossibility. The only time you could come to a full stop is if you hit a good sized planet headon.

I have to check this in the book...but I just had a thought about the transporter. Does it work on a line of sight basis? If so there should be times when the crew members who need to be transported up to the ship from a planets surface, are on the opposite side of the planet from the ship, and logically thinking they should have to wait until the ships orbit carries it their way again. But that never seems to be the case in the shows.

Nellie: If transporting works on a basis of "de-atomizing" and then "re-atomizing," then why would it have to be in line of sight?

Robby

I always thought the transport beam had to have something to lock on to. Hence the line of sight.

Seems like they have had no problem with small objects intervening, mountains, buildings, etc, so why would the mass of a planet slow them?

Jackie, you are right! I humbly stand corrected. But I sure cannot see how it would work. I know it is supposed to dissolve the person/persons being transported into their component atoms and then reassemble them -more or less. but does that mean when the transport beam passes through the roof and floors of a building, it disassembles and reassembles the atoms of same twice. I can see how the transporter would work if there were sending and receiving stations on both ends.

Interesting! Here is what Krauss says about the Star Trek transporter technology: "...but it a testimony to the impact that this hypothetical technology has had on our culture - an impact all the more remarkable given that probably no single piece of science fiction technology aboard the Enterprise is so utterly implausible. More problems of practicality and principle would have to be overcome to create such a device than you might imagine. The challenges involve the whole spectrum of physics and mathematics, including information theory, quantum mechanics, Einstein's relation between mass and energy, particle physics, and more." page 66

On page 67, he gives a bit from the The Next Generation Technical Manual which describes how the transporter is supposed to work:

"First the transporter locks on target. Then it scans the image to be transported, "dematerializes" it, holds it in a "pattern buffer" for a while, and then transmits the "matter stream" in an "annular confinement beam", to its destination."

He goes on to consider briefly such things as the soul and what would happen to it during transport; what happens when only the information about the person is transported and the 'body' has to be gotten rid of. He points out that turning a 50 kilogram person into energy is the equivalent to releasing the energy in a thousand 1 megaton H-bombs.

Then he looks at moving the atoms that make up the person or object.

I shall conitnue tomorrow or the day after...

More about 'transporting': one requirement is that the person being transported must be broken down into his/her component atoms, and perhaps the atoms broken down into their component quarks. This takes energy! How much energy?

" So all you have to do to overcome the binding energy of matter at its most fundamental level (indeed, at the level refered to in the Star Trek technical manual) is to heat it up to 1000 billion degrees...To heat up a sample the size of a human being to this level would require therefore, about 10 percent of the energy needed to annihilate the material - or the energy equivalent of a hundred 1-megaton hydrogen bombs."

Breaking the body up into atoms would take a lesser but still impoosible amount of energy; and another problem is run into...all the particles must be accelerated to light speed which takes energy. In fact it takes more energy to accelerate a particle like a proton to the speed of light, that it does to break it up into its quarks. But providing the energy to get the particles up to light speed is easier than providing the energy to break them apart.

To quote Krauss:

"So the future designers of transporters will have a choice. Either they must find an energy source that will temporarily produce a power that exceeds the total power consumed on the entire Earth today by a factor of about 10,000, in which case they could make an atomic "matter stream" capable of moving along with the information at near the speed of light, or they could reduce the total energy requirements by a factor of 10 and discover a way to heat up a human being instantaneously to roughly a million times the temperature at the center of the sun."

The facts of physics being what they are, I can't see something like the transporter existing in real life. Remember new discoveries made in physics do not negate the old. The things Newton discovered still hold true today, and will for all time.

I've been with the star trek bunch for over twenty years???or at least from the beginning. Like Robbie I was attracted to the basic morality plays and perfectly willing to suspend belief when it came to the scientific aspects of beaming and replicating etc. The book is put together by scientist who have accept ted the following

"impossible amount of energy;"

The word "impossible" reveals an inability to accept everything that doesn't yet exist within their realm of experience. It's tempting because some of the little tools of their trade have actually come to be. ie. hand held communicators, now badges, etc. I actually wish sometimes that Scottie would "beam me up", to where ever I have in mind to go. I think of it as a world of energy and all I need is a shove in the right direction with the right amount of energy to get me there. i.e. from california to new york to see my kids.

Stephen Hawking wrote a book called BABY BLACK HOLES which I purched just beause I liked the title. It didn't take me long to get lost though, so I won't buy this book. I'll just follow along and see what the quotes provide.

As to transportation of the SOUL . . . not a problem for me to consider since I don't believe we have any. All we have to do is to dissolve into our energetic parts...matter does hold shape no matter what shape it's in doesn't it?. . .

I am a very well versed trekki though, never mis a new version or installment if I can help it and . . . I even watch reruns.

Claire

Claire: I'll probably puzzle over the answer to "matter holds it shape no matter what its shape." question for a while. Interesting to think about: if all the atoms that make up your body were no longer 'attached' to each other would they still stay together, or would they each go their own way and become part of other molecules or crystals? I've never heard of single atoms just floating around in the air or laying around on the ground (Mind you I've not read every book on earth either, so it may be mentioned somewhere).

I for one am glad that it takes an almost impossible amount of energy to get the atoms that make up my body to separate from each other. If it took only a very small amount of energy I could see myself flying apart when the temperature went up to 100F or while cooking over a hot stove; and everything else would come apart too.

Now some more from the book: Krauss goes on to look at the amount of information encoded in the human body. He assumes there are 10 to the power of 28 atoms (a 1 followed by 28 zeros) in the average human body. For each atoms its location must be encoded -which requires three coordinates, x, y, and z. Then the internal state must be recorded -this means such things as which energy levels are occupied by electrons, is it bound to another atom in a molecule, is the molecule vibrating or rotating. Krauss states " lets be conservative and assume that we can encode all the relevant information in a kilobyte of data." (Don't forget this kilobyte of data is for one atom only) A total of 10 to the power of 28 (1 followed by 28 zeros) kilobytes of data would be needed to store the human pattern in a pattern buffer. ( He is using information from the Star Trek Technical Manual which provides information on how the transporter is supposed to work as imagined by the writers of Star Trek). To get an idea of how large an amount of data this is: all the information in all the books ever written to date is about sixteen orders of magnitude smaller at 10 to the 12 power (1 followed by 12 zeroes) or to put it another way: the storage requirements for a human pattern are ten thousand times as large, compared to the storage requirements for the information in all the books ever written. The number of disks needed would, if piled one on top the other, reach some third of the way to the center of the galaxy. Retrieving this information in real time is another challenge. But he does expect that by the time 200+ years have passed that computing power will be up to that challenge.

But there are a few more little problems coming up with 'transporting' humans or anything else...

I've often wondered why the Star Trek stories were not developed with just shuttles to land on a planet with? I think in many ways it would have/will make the stories more exciting because there is no transporter to get the characters out of trouble.

I was glad to see your post Claire, thank you.

as we know it may be very different in the next two hundred years. We've had hints of what super cold can do to such things (i forget which, just the in suing hullabaloo and ultimate disappearance0. We haven't begun to play with all our toys. scientists need to be creative artists as well as mechanics. I love startrek because it suggests the possibilities it does. MO<Claire

Don't forget 'Energy equals matter multiplied by the speed of light squared' (easier to write it out like that since I can't do the c with the little number two near the top right side).

Hm...just let me try something:

E=m$C2$

Hope I don't break the forums X fingers crossed. I didn't and what I tried worked!

I don't think energy will change because I don't think it can change. What may and most likely will change is the way energy is extracted from matter or the way it is collected in its raw form.

that's what I meant. That we would use our natural resources in different ways. Thanks for the formula . . .

Claire

Claire: While I do think it is fun to imagine that such a thing as being 'beamed' from place to place might one day exist; I personally don't think, given the constraints known in physics as to how much energy it takes to break the atoms in a human body apart from each other, that it will ever happen; no matter how good they get at obtaining the needed energy.

What I can see happening is the space ships and possibly some sort of warp drive. I can see the Borg happening, and they will be 'us'. Already there are a few folks who have chips implanted for test purposes; and there are wearable computers are in development; so who knows how soon someone will decide that implanting the components will be more convenient yet?

But I'm wandering off topic...more from the book soon