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