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Subject: 
Re: Hypothetical design question
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.space
Date: 
Tue, 24 Jun 2003 00:47:22 GMT
Viewed: 
702 times
  
In lugnet.space, Leonard Hoffman wrote:
   i think because of all the major scifi shows out there, Star Trek paid the most attention to actual physics and in making their technologies plausible. maybe not probable, but who knows what the future will hold?

Eesh. Star Trek script writers tend to accept hypothetical physics as gospel truth (with the result that much of Star Trek physics has since been disproven), and a lot of hard-core Trekkies do the same thing with any physics presented on Star Trek (mostly because they keep telling each other that Star Trek physics is all true, and partly on the long-standing singular fact that warp travel was an existing theory during the days of ST:TOS). Star Trek is nice candy-fluff sci-fi as far as science goes, but a lot more credit is given to Star Trek physics than it deserves. If you want to see a show that actually paid attention to real physics, watch Babylon 5 (it should be noted that B5 had not one, but two physicists on the production staff). Without getting into the whole FTL debate (it’s all still largely hypothetical at this point, and therefore moot), all of the standard sublight travel obeys real physics. When your engines conk out, you stop accelerating, but you don’t stop moving. When life support conks out, you don’t instantly start suffocating (why is it that Federation air is only warm and breathable as long as some machine is able to say it is?). When you want to shoot someone on your six, you spin the ship around and fly backwards instead of doing wide banking curves through, um, near vacuum.



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Hypothetical design question
 
(...) If you spin anything around without curving or coming to a complete stop, you'll be sorry. Inertia still applies in space, and at the speeds probably used, a 180-degree spin will turn the entire crew into little puddles on the back of their (...) (21 years ago, 25-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Hypothetical design question
 
(...) i think because of all the major scifi shows out there, Star Trek paid the most attention to actual physics and in making their technologies plausible. maybe not probable, but who knows what the future will hold? -Jr.Mar.Hoffman (URL) (21 years ago, 23-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)

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