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May 12, 2023 · How Scientifically Accurate Is Star Trek? Dr. Erin Macdonald, the official science advisor to the Star Trek series. Courtesy of Star Trek: The Cruise. Few pop culture properties have lasted quite as long as Star Trek. A dozen Star Trek television shows have aired over the last sixty years—not to mention countless movies, novels, and comic books.
Jul 25, 2023 · Science Friday host Ira Flatow speaks with astrophysicist Dr. Erin Macdonald, science consultant for Star Trek about the legacy of the franchise, and how accurate the science is within the series. And Universe of Art host D. Peterschmidt chats with Science Friday producer Kathleen Davis about producing the segment and the role expert consultants play in TV and movies.
- Scientifically Accurate: Matter-Antimatter Generator
- Makes No Sense: Holodecks
- Scientifically Accurate: Phasers
- Makes No Sense: Dr. Crusher's Healing Rays
- Scientifically Accurate: Androids
- Makes No Sense: Replicators
- Scientifically Possible: Impulse Engines
- Makes No Sense: Transporters
- Scientifically Possible: Cloaking Devices
- Makes No Sense: Warp Interstellar Drive
Though it might sound like the most far-out space jargon, having a way to generate "matter-antimatter" would be the most efficient way to move and power a starship like the USS Enterprise. Even the way its containment is depicted is accurate. Considering that when antimatter comes in contact with matter it cancels itself out, the antimatter (made u...
We have methods today for creating virtual reality, such as using the technology in the Sony Oculus Quest or the Samsung Virtual Gear goggles to create seemingly 3D maps of a virtual world. But we will never get (not for thousands of years anyway) to the point where we can make holograms you can touch and interact with like in the holodeck. As of r...
The phaser, which stands for PHASed Energy Rectification, is a sort of energy "blaster" used in Star Trek to either stun or wound individuals. Like the blasters in Star Trek and the ray-guns of '60s sci-fi movies, they're intended for use only when necessary by Starfleet. Right now, the army has made advancements in both the "stun" aspect of phaser...
How cool would it be to get a hold of one of Dr. Crusher's healing rays? She just waves a sensor over a wounded patient and their lesions, abrasions, and bones knit instantly. The only reason they have to stick around sickbay is for some bed rest! Today, lasers are used by doctors to cauterize tissue or things like retinas, but the wounds actual he...
Though we aren't yet capable of making an artificially intelligent life-form on par with Commander Data, there have been vast strides in AI technology even in the last ten years that can get us closer to replicating a humanoid robot. Scientists today often disagree on what constitutes AI, but we have humanoid social robots, like "Sophia" built by H...
The ability to make matter from a pre-programmed pattern is beyond our physics today, yet in Star Trek, the characters on a starship can ask for anything they can think of, from food to spare parts for the ship, and the replicator creates it instantly for them. Today, we can suspend atoms in an electromagnetic field and experiment on them, and even...
The concept of impulse engines on Star Trek begins with rocket engines like we currently have based on fusion reaction. This is currently beyond what we're capable of with our chemical-fueled rockets, but by the 24th century, today's scientists believe they might be possible given the direction rocket engines are headed. For instance, in the case o...
The transporter is one of the most high-tech pieces of equipment in the Star Trek universe and current scientists have no idea how such a device would work. It takes a person placed on a transporter pad and after a light shaft passes from point A to B, it takes a mapping of their "digital DNA blueprint", rematerializing them elsewhere (their atoms,...
The cloaking devices seen by non-Federation groups such as Romulans and Klingons aren't within the realm of our reality today. We can't cloak ships the size of a war-bird and make them completely "invisible" because they're too large, but we can cloak smaller things. RELATED: Star Trek: 10 Crazy Captain Kirk Theories That Have Actually Been Confirm...
Perhaps one of the most complex yet indecipherable concepts in the Star Trek universe (other than the transporter) is the warp interstellar drive. Huge energy discharges and subspace fields are needed for it to work, in a way that's not explainable using today's science. While today's scientists have a solid handle on the continuum of space-time, t...
- Kayleena Pierce-Bohen
May 6, 2009 · 8 min read. The Final Frontier: The Science of Star Trek. As the new movie warps into theaters this week, we ask physicist Lawrence Krauss, author of The Physics of Star Trek, how the sci-fi ...
Sep 8, 2023 · A rich visual history of science fiction's impact on real-world technologies, this book is perfect for lovers of H. G. Wells, Star Trek, Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley, and 2001: A Space ...
Jun 16, 2016 · June 16, 2016. • 15 min read. Resistance is futile. For half a century now the Star Trek franchise has been winning new fans and inspiring real-world innovators. Over the course of 12 feature ...
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Aug 23, 2023 · Macdonald – whose own Ph.D. is in gravitational astrophysics – has served as Star Trek’s science adviser since 2019, ensuring the venerable science fiction franchise gets its physics right. On Aug. 1, she visited NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to discuss how science informs Star Trek, and how Star Trek ...
