The Physics of

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The Physics of
Presentation for the American School In Japan
Astronomy, Physics and Futuristic Lit classes on
11/18/04 By Mr. John OLeary, member of AAPT and
ASP
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What is wrong?

• Cant hear explosions in outer space
• Light and sound/particle waves never travel the
  same speed.
• You cant see photon beams cross the sky

What is right?

• Spherical Drops of Blood at 0 gravity

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Science Fiction

• If it is not all correct, that is ok
• Star Trek is about possibilities of the
  Universe.just like Physics!
• Provides a medium for people to connect with each
  other and science
• Stephen Hawking says Expanding our minds-where
  our minds can go!

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Star Treks Stage

• The Andromeda Galaxy is similar to our Milky Way
  Galaxy 100,000 light years across!

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Chunky salsa
Dealing with Newtons 3 Laws of Motion

• 1g acceleration at Earths surface 9.8 m/s2
• When the captain says Engage (the impulse
  drive)
• Accelerate to 150,000 km/sec (1/2 speed light)
• If accelerations are lt 3gs
• then it takes 2.5 months to reach that speed.

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The lack of seatbelts

• Inertial dampers invented to overcome Newtons
  Lawsshock absorbers.
• Theory artificial gravitational field that pulls
  in the opposite direction to the reaction force?
• Reaction time 60 milliseconds

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Einstein created 2 Major Problems

• 1Fast Clocks tick slow
• If you go very fast, your on board clock ticks
  very slowly compared to the clocks on other
  planets and ships
• Can you return home?
• If across the Galaxy Should I shoot?
• Answer would arrive more than 100,000 years later.

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Synchronicity

• Faster you go, the slower time appears to go
  relative to outside time
• At close to the speed of light, a journey to
  centre of galaxy in 10 years (to people on ship)
• But 25,000 years would pass for Earth
• Synchronisation of clocks and calendars across
  vast federation of civilisations
• --gt must use F-T-L travel

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How much!?!

• Problem 2 Energy needed
• Impulse engines for slower than light travel
• Nuclear fusion (hydrogen gt helium)
• 1 mass -gt energy (come out at up to 1/8th speed
  of light)
• Accelerate Enterprise to 1/2 light speed gt need
  81 times its mass in Hydrogen fuel
• 4 Billion kg of ship requires 320 Billion kg of
  fuel
• Use matter-antimatter drive (2 x mass)
• Ships can not go the speed of light, it takes
  gtmass of the Universe to accelerate 1 molecule to
  the speed of light.

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It gets worse...

• That was acceleration, now you need to stop
• Same factor of fuel (81x)
• So to accelerate to 1/2 light speed and then
  stop again would require 81x81 6561 times mass
  of ship

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Super-duper-scooper

• Collect hydrogen as you fly along?
• Average density 1 molecule per cm3
• To collect 1 gram gt
• need collection panels with
• diameter of over 40 km
• This would give you 1 hundred-millionth of fuel
  needed

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Federation Prime Directive

• Members of Starfleet will not interfere in the
  cultures of pre-warp civilizations in any way.
• Starfleet officers are required to understand
  that allowing cultures to develop on their own is
  an important right and therefore must make any
  sacrifice to protect cultures from contamination,
  even at the cost of their own lives.

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Temporal Prime Directive

• The Temporal Prime Directive policy of 29th
  century Starfleet (when time travel becomes much
  more accessible) to not directly interfere with
  history and thus alter the timeline. Unlike the
  Prime Directive, however, Starfleet time
  travelers are further charged with a duty to
  maintain the current timeline and prevent history
  from being altered.

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Time Travel

• 22 episodes in first two series alone.

Killing your mother before you were born Paradox
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Hello? Hellooooo?

• Pure energy beings
• Travel at light speed gt internal clocks
  infinitely fast compared to ours
• Impossible to interact
• with

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A singular wormhole

• Stable wormholes?
• Transitory and minute

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Warp Drives

• Warp space-time itself
• Expand space-time behind you and contract
  space-time in front of you
• Faster-than-light travel
• No time dilation
• No rocket fuel
• Energy for a Warp
• Drive? 1000 x
• Mass of the Galaxy!

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Nifty side effects

• Tractor beams
• Deflector shields

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That was the good news

• Possible on microscopic scale
• Energy requirements make impulse engines seem
  trivial
• Mass of sun bends light by 1/1000 th of a degree.
• What strength of gravitational field to bend
  phaser beam by 90o?

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Atoms or Bits?(aka Shift em or fry em?)

• One human 1028 atoms
• extract info -gt recombine it to form person
• matter stream -gt atoms are sent
• If only use info, what happens to original?
• 50kg -gt 1000 kiloton hydrogen
• bombs
• So take the atoms as well?
• (Create atomic matter stream)

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My hard drive floweth over

• To store info in human body
• 1 kilobyte data per atom(one page)
• 1028 kilobytes of data
• Storage -gt retrieval
• If on 10Gb HDs
• (10cm ea)
• 1/3 to the center
• of the Galaxy!
• Take 2000 times
• age of Universe

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Virtual playgrounds

• Interact with holo-objects and characters
• Illusion of 3D surrounding environment
• Replicator technology for objects

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Hyperspace
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Searching for ET

• 400 billion stars in our Galaxy
• Most have planets
• Life may be everywhere
• Intelligent life may not be abundant
• Earth has only sent out radio signals for last 60
  years

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SETI

• SETI (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence
• Has been searching for years
• Now searching billions of frequencies
• We are still waiting for a signal

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References

• Permission to use some materials were granted by
  Seranne Howis at Rhodes University from her
  presentation to the Rhodes University Astronomy
  Society. http//rucus.ru.ac.za/wolfman/Essays/Tre
  k/trektalk.html
• Lecture notes were taken by Mr. OLeary at Prof.
  Lawrence Krauss at his lecture The Physics of
  Star Trek at the American Association of Physics
  Teachers in San Antonio, Texas in August of 1999.
  
• Further information was taken from The Physics
  of Star Trek, book by Lawrence M. Krauss, 1995.