Beam Me Up, 23rd Century!

Why yes, this is an entry that centralizes around Star Trek. And yes, it will, indeed, still be scientific (for those who don't know, Star Trek is often—not always, I reticently concede—rooted in reality and legitimate physics. So why don't the things in Trek exist? It's not a matter of physics, but engineering!). Star Trek (and other science fiction shows and movies) actually have a lot to offer. Science fiction is really often prescient of what's to come (did you know that Simon Lake was inspired by Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to invent the submarine?). It bodes the future and inspires people of all generations to bring its creations into fruition.

Now you should know that I am a Trekkie. Not too hardcore—I don't speak Klingon—but I have seen pretty much every episode from every series. I attribute this to my father, for Star Trek facilitated a strong bond between me and him. He's been big into Trek since the original series came out in the late sixties, and I've always spent a lot of time with him on the couch going through all the seasons of the different series on the couch. We recently saw the movie and, frankly, we were both very satisfied (minus some discrepancies which, however, are resolved by some alternate timeline and all this funky jazz, but I shan't elaborate at the risk of 1, deterring your interest since my attack on discrepancies is silly to begin with, and 2, spoiling the movie if you've yet to see it). It spurred some conversation for us, too, about the possibility of Trekovations (a word I have just coined which means Star Trek inventions—please, hold your applause) becoming reality.

In all fairness, Star Trek has already beaten the future to the punch on multiple occasions. Take the communicators in the original series, for example. Can you say: "Hello, cell phones!"? But that's really something that wasn't too farfetched. But what about the more intense ideas and technologies explored in Star Trek? Yes, you guessed it (or maybe you didn't, though I won't hold it against you): I'm talking about stuff like teleporting humans and warp technology (that is, technology that enables warp travel, or a certain type of travel that is faster than the speed of light—and by that, I mean 299, 792, 458 meters per second).

Warp technology plays a huge role in all of the Star Trek series: their ships all travel at warp speeds, which basically enables them across the galaxy in times that put our ships to shame. While it would currently take four months (at the least—we're talking when the two are the closest) to get to Mars, it would take no more than twenty minutes to get there at warp speed. If you haven't seen any Star Trek, you should watch this video to just to see warp speed in action:

Scientists used to scoff at the notion of Star Trek's warp speed, especially since Einstein's theories of relativity suggest that it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. Now, however, warp speed seems an actual possibility (okay, a distant one, but hey, Star Trek is 23rd century and beyond, so it's conceivable). You see, around ten years ago, a physicist named Miguel Alcubierre came up with a new solution to Einstein's general relativity equation. It capitalizes on a loophole that Einstein had not conceived of—negative matter. Negative matter basically is contrary to what you'd expect, possessing exotic properties like negative mass, falling up rather than down, and so on. Alcubierre's solution is very similar to the warp drive of Star Trek—they use negative matter in Star Trek to power their ships for warp drive, except they call the negative matter dilithium crystals.

With negative matter, rather than going to the stars, you make the stars come to you. This basically frees you form violating the laws of physics (you don't have to break the light barrier in this case). You compress space like an accordion—such a space wrinkle can be formed since empty space can expand or contract faster than the speed of light (it's what happened with the Big Bang—empty space expansion to the universal max!). You experience space and time normally, but the stars in front of you would come at you very, very fast. So basically, you would compress the space in front of you so that the distance you have to travel is less (you bring your destination to you), and, meanwhile, you expand the space behind you so that the distance you've traveled is already more (even if you haven't really traveled the far). Unfortunately, we haven't ever seen negative matter, but I have hope!

Below is a model of the idea of compressing space in front of you and expanding it behind you. That is, travel of the 23rd century!

Now let's take a look at one more Trekovation. Human teleportation. Alike warp travel, teleporting humans is featured prominently in every movie and series since the original series. Just a fun fact, they actually came up with the idea for using teleportation when the original series was being written because they wanted to avoid having to show a smaller ship flying down to a planet whenever Kirk and the crew were going off on one of their many great adventures. In other words, it was just easier and cheaper to "beam" them down! But still, we (I) thank Trek for its brilliant creation. But time for that question: is it even possible to transport things?

Energize!

Quantum teleportation has actually existed for ten years. What this means is that scientists have been able to teleport photons (the basic unit of light) and certain atoms (i.e., cesium, rubidium, terbium) distances as great as 1,800 feet. The problem, however, is that it is very difficult to teleport things beyond the molecular level. All of the atoms of, say, a human have to vibrate in unison, and this is very, very difficult. We're talking 100 trillion cells, each comprised of a whole ton (trillions+) of atoms. Not to mention, the information required to store the specific configuration of this many atoms is...well...out of the picture (currently). That is, when something is teleported, it's actually destroyed; it is analyzed so that its very structure is understood atom by atom (so the Star Trek transporters understand the precise architecture of human, atom by atom!), and then a carbon copy is created at the transport destination. Put simply, the technology behind a transporter exists (at a simple level), but it is not (remotely) advanced enough yet to transport something as large as a human (let alone a molecule yet). But come the 23rd century, who knows! It certainly is conceivable that the technology will have advanced that much.

Anyhow, the point of examining these two 'trekovations' is that science fiction is more than just entertainment. As I said, it often foretells of things to come, and, beyond that, it inspires scientist to make certain things a reality. When you understand the history of Star Trek, its offerings beyond a fake language (Klingon), silly catchphrases (Beam Me Up, Scotty), and a...well...very dedicated (NOT ridiculous) subculture, you gain a deeper appreciation for what it really means. There's more truth to it than meets the eye! Anyhow, if you haven't seen the new movie, I highly recommend you go and see it! In the meantime, if you're interested in seeing the original episodes, check out this website.

Also, if you found this post at all interesting, you should really check out this book. It's entitled "Physics of the Impossible", written by Michio Kaku, and it contains chapters entirely devoted to 'Trekovations'!

Catch ya in the 23rd century (sigh, I do mean next post)!