The Physics of Star Trek - Lawrence M. Krauss

I was born in 1966, the same year Kirk, Spock and McCoy launched the starship Enterprise onto an unsuspecting world. I have therefore, been watching Star Trek for most of my life. I, like many other people, was influenced by Star Trek into a science education so have that program to thank for my current career as an industrial chemist. Having a science background, however, makes me interested in how the gadgets and devices shown in the television series and films work, and in some cases, if they're even theoretically possible. Have you ever wondered, for example, if the transporter could exist, whisking us across the world without having to sit in a ...  Read the complete review

...but not a drop to drink. To misquote Coleridge. Everything 'has' physics. Even Star Trek. Any good science fiction has, at its base, science. That's what distinguishes it from Fantasy. Now - is Star Trek fantasy or science fiction. Perhaps once, it was almost pure fantasy (The Original Series - commonly abbreviated to TOS). Even Gene Roddenberry, the creator, the guru, famously described it as 'Horatio Hornblower in Space'). TOS used not science, but rather an imagined, ideal future as a setting - and not much else. Remember, the transporters were created, not as a prediction of the future, but rather to save money on special effects - it would have cost ...  Read the complete review