The writers of Star Trek went above and beyond to make the universe as realistic as possible.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 From the technology found on the starships to the strange new life forms found on different planets,
00:06 Trek just sprinkles just enough science within all the technobabble to make those worlds seem just that bit more realistic and also immersive.
00:14 So with that in mind, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture here with 10 examples of real science in Star Trek.
00:21 Number 10. Silicon-based life.
00:24 All of life on Earth is carbon-based.
00:27 Carbon is perfect for biology because of its abundance and its ability to maintain four valence bonds with other elements,
00:35 especially hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other carbon elements.
00:40 And these types of bonds make up most of the biological molecules that allow life to exist.
00:46 While it is true that carbon can create more possible molecules than any other element on the periodic table, by a long shot,
00:53 many scientists theorise that aliens that evolved on a different planet may also be silicon-based.
00:59 Silicon, like carbon, can form four stable bonds with itself and other atoms and can create long chemical chains known as silane polymers,
01:07 which are very similar to hydrocarbons, an essential ingredient of life made with carbon.
01:12 But the two elements are still vastly different.
01:16 Silicon is far more reactive to chemicals like oxygen, so silicon-based life may not be possible in reality.
01:24 But the rampant scientific speculation around silicon-based life led to one appearing in Star Trek.
01:31 In Star Trek, the original series episode "The Devil in the Dark", the Enterprise crew encountered a silicon-based life form known as the Hauter.
01:39 The Hauter is one of the strangest creatures ever encountered by Starfleet, with an appearance more similar to molten rock than a living animal.
01:47 Number 9. Fusion Impulse Engines
01:50 The main propulsion system of Starfleet ships, impulse engines, are powered by nuclear fusion.
01:55 These engines are what the ships use to navigate whenever they're not at warp.
01:59 Nuclear fusion is when atoms merge together under immense pressure, releasing their excess mass as energy.
02:05 It happens every second in the sun due to incredibly high gravity and is the source of the sun's light.
02:11 Earth's gravity is much too weak for fusion to take place,
02:14 but scientists have been able to induce nuclear fusion in labs using extreme temperatures and pressure.
02:21 Unfortunately, so far no experiment has been able to produce more energy than it costs to induce the fusion.
02:27 In other words, there is no net power gain.
02:30 But apparently at some point in the Star Trek timeline, prior to the 22nd century,
02:36 scientists managed to perfect nuclear fusion and ever since then, every ship in the fleet had a fusion-powered impulse engine.
02:45 Number 8. Subspace Communication
02:48 Subspace is an entirely fictional concept, but it was created by the writers to explain a very real scientific issue with Starfleet's interstellar communication.
02:59 Now, without using a warp drive or any other fictional device, nothing can travel faster than light through the universe.
03:06 But Starfleet's ships often communicate with Earth or other planets when they're hundreds of light years away.
03:12 If these signals travelled merely at the speed of light, the communications would have centuries of lag.
03:17 Real-time conversations would be impossible.
03:19 And it's for this reason that the writers came up with subspace, another dimension layered on top of ours,
03:25 likely inspired by the extra-spatial dimensions proposed in Superstring Theory.
03:30 In the subspace dimension, energy can travel faster than light.
03:33 Communications are sent through subspace and then back into normal space when they arrive,
03:37 allowing for instant face-to-face interactions across light years.
03:41 Now, subspace communication does have a limited range though,
03:45 which is why Voyager couldn't simply send a message to Starfleet Command when they got lost in the Delta Quadrant.
03:50 But it is extremely effective and used quite often within Federation space.
03:56 Number 7. The size of the galaxy.
03:58 Our galaxy, the Milky Way, was actually portrayed rather faithfully in Star Trek.
04:04 Just like in real life, the galaxy is about 100,000 light years across and contains hundreds of billions of stars.
04:11 Most stars are at least a light year apart from each other and contain at least one planet.
04:15 The location of Earth is also just where it should be,
04:18 positioned halfway between the galactic core and the edge of the galaxy.
04:22 There are, however, a number of scientific inaccuracies with the Milky Way in Star Trek.
04:28 For example, it's been known for quite some time now that at the centre of our galaxy,
04:32 and presumably all galaxies, there is a supermassive black hole.
04:36 In Star Trek, this is not the case.
04:39 As we see in Star Trek V, The Final Frontier, the centre of the Milky Way in Star Trek
04:43 is actually a hidden planet known in Vulcan mythology as Sha'kar-Re.
04:48 Psybock, Spock's half-brother, believed this planet to be the home of God and the source of all creation.
04:53 Unfortunately for him, it turned out to be merely the home of one very angry alien entity.
04:58 The fate of this mysterious planet in the galactic core is yet to be explored.
05:02 Number 6. Technological telepathy.
05:05 When the Borg were first introduced in the Next Generation episode "Q Who?",
05:09 the idea of enabling telepathy or mind-reading with technology was nothing more than a fantasy.
05:14 Nowadays, as neural implants get more and more advanced, companies such as Neuralink
05:19 claim to be close to making technological telepathy a reality.
05:23 Already, Neuralink has shown that its test implants can allow a monkey
05:28 to control a computer using just its brain.
05:31 Now, the wires from the implants connect to parts of the brain that fire off electrical signals.
05:37 And these connections allow for information to be interpreted into data by a computer.
05:44 So theoretically, in the future, these signals could be sent and received between two Neuralink users,
05:50 and therefore they can communicate using just their brains.
05:53 The Collective itself is a society of millions of Borg drones,
05:57 connected telepathically with each other.
06:00 Number 5. Bazaar collectors.
06:03 Although we often think of space as a perfect vacuum devoid of any matter,
06:07 interstellar space actually contains about one atom per cubic centimeter on average.
06:13 Starfleet's vessels are some of the only ships in sci-fi to use this interstellar dust.
06:19 The ship's Bazaar collectors, the red devices usually positioned at the ends of the nacelles,
06:24 collect this dust as the ship travels through space.
06:26 These particles are then used to replenish the ship's fuel.
06:29 The Bazaar collectors can even be fine-tuned to filter for specific elements needed at that moment.
06:35 While interstellar space contains few particles,
06:38 the ships would often be able to scoop up huge quantities very quickly
06:42 by travelling at high impulse speeds or by visiting a nearby nebula.
06:46 Inside nebulae and solar systems, the ambient particle density is much higher.
06:52 And because of this constant replenishment of particles,
06:54 it means that Starfleet's ships are able to remain in deep space for longer periods of time
07:00 without needing to restock on basic materials like nitrogen gas.
07:04 Number 4. Antimatter photon torpedoes.
07:07 Antimatter is real and has been produced on numerous occasions by CERN, but at a very high cost.
07:15 Every particle has an antiparticle, which is exactly the same as the particle in every way,
07:20 except it has an opposite charge.
07:23 So for example, an electron has a negative charge and a positron has a positive charge.
07:28 Matter and antimatter reactions are believed to be the most efficient source of energy
07:32 in the entire universe due to 100% of the fuel being converted into usable energy.
07:38 That is why this interaction of matter and antimatter is what powers the photon torpedoes in Star Trek.
07:44 Now, so far CERN has only been able to produce small quantities of antimatter atoms,
07:49 but considering that one half a gram of antimatter is enough to create an explosion
07:54 even bigger than the nuclear bomb dropped in Hiroshima in 1945,
07:58 it's probably a good thing that it's so rare.
08:01 Number 3. Inertial dampeners.
08:03 In space, there is no gravity or atmosphere to slow objects to a halt,
08:08 so anything that moves in empty space will continue along its path forever
08:12 without stopping or slowing down.
08:14 Now, many, many sci-fi franchises just blatantly ignore inertia in space.
08:19 Now, often you'll see a spaceship run out of fuel and it'll gradually slow down
08:24 until eventually it stops, when in reality,
08:27 if a spaceship runs out of fuel, it will just continue moving at the speed it was already moving at.
08:33 Now, Star Trek explains this by including inertial dampeners on all Starfleet ships.
08:38 These small thrusters located all over the ship counteract the effects of inertia
08:42 by producing an artificial drag on the vessel.
08:45 They also assist with slowing down acceleration and deceleration
08:49 to prevent the people inside from being launched out of their seats
08:52 when changing speed too quickly.
08:54 Number 2. Building ships in space.
08:56 Many times in Star Trek, we've seen ships being constructed in space.
09:01 Voyager, for example, was launched from a space dock
09:03 at the Utopia Planitia shipyards in orbit of Mars.
09:06 This zero-gravity environment was perfect for large-scale construction projects
09:10 like building a starship.
09:12 Working in zero-gravity has so many real-world benefits.
09:16 Weightlessness means that large components of the ship,
09:19 such as the nacelles or the saucer section,
09:21 can be transported with very little force.
09:24 It also means that crew are able to experiment and are free to experiment
09:28 with different engine designs without the fear of destroying a planet's ecosystem
09:33 if something goes wrong.
09:34 Frankly, the only reason we don't build our spaceships in space today
09:38 is because we lack the infrastructure.
09:40 But this infrastructure is currently being developed.
09:42 With the upcoming Artemis missions that plan to establish a permanent base on the Moon
09:46 and talks of mining asteroids in the works,
09:49 it likely won't be long before we see the first ship constructed entirely in space.
09:54 Number 1. Warp drive.
09:56 Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity proved conclusively
10:00 that nothing in the universe can move faster than light.
10:04 For a while, it was assumed for this reason
10:06 that interstellar travel would forever be impossible,
10:09 or at the very least take thousands of years,
10:11 considering how far apart stars are from each other.
10:14 And even if the ships could travel at velocities near the speed of light,
10:17 they would go through drastic time dilation
10:20 and experience time much slower than people on Earth.
10:23 Fortunately, it was discovered that there existed a loophole in Einstein's calculations.
10:28 While it is true that nothing can move faster than light,
10:32 space itself can expand and contract.
10:35 So, if one was to expand the distance behind the ship
10:40 and shorten the distance in front of the ship,
10:43 one could traverse at the same distance in less time.
10:47 And this is how Star Trek's warp drives work.
10:51 The ship itself is not moving faster than light.
10:54 The space around the ship is merely bending to allow these distances to be shortened.
10:59 Many scientists now believe that a warp drive is the only method of faster-than-light travel
11:04 that could be possible in reality.
11:06 And that concludes our list.
11:08 If you think we missed something, then please do let us know in the comments below.
11:11 And while you're there, don't forget to like and hit that notification bell.
11:16 And while we've got your attention,
11:17 we are so close to 250,000 subscribers here on YouTube.
11:23 All we want for Christmas is you.
11:25 Specifically, 3,000 of you so we can hit that mark by Christmas.
11:29 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,
11:32 and Instagram as well, and I can be found across various social medias
11:35 just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:37 I've been Ellie with Trek Culture.
11:39 I hope you have a wonderful day, and remember,
11:41 to boldly go where no one has gone before.