Lawrence M. Krauss - The Physics of Star Trek

Stephen Hawking

I was very pleased that Data decided to callNewton, Einstein, and me for a game of poker aboard the Enterprise. Here was my chance to turn the tables onthe two great men of gravity, particularly Einstein, who didn'tbelieve in chance or in God playing dice. Unfortunately, I nevercolected my winnings because the game had to be abandoned onaccount of a red alert. I contacted Paramount studios afterward tocash in my chips, but they didn't know the exchange rate.

Science fiction like Star Trek is not only goodfun but it also serves a serious purpose, that of expanding thehuman imagination. We may not yet be able to boldly go where no man(or woman) has gone before, but at least we can do it in the mind.We can explore how the human spirit might respond to futuredevelopments in science and we can speculate on what thosedevelopments might be. There is a two-way trade between sciencefiction and science. Science fiction suggests ideas that scientistsincorporate into their theories, but sometimes science turns upnotions that are stranger than any science fiction. Black holes arean example, greatly assisted by the inspired name that thephysicist John Archibald Wheeler gave them. Had they continued withtheir original names of "frozen stars" or "gravitationallycompletely collapsed objects," there wouldn't have been half somuch written about them.

One thing that StarTrek and other science fiction have focused attention on is travelfaster than light. Indeed, it is absolutely essential to StarTrek's story line. If the Enterprise wererestricted to flying just under the speed of light, it might seemto the crew that the round trip to the center of the galaxy tookonly a few years, but 80,000 years would have elapsed on Earthbefore the spaceship's return. So much for going back to see yourfamily!

Fortunately,Einstein's general theory of relativity allows the possibility fora way around this difficulty: one might be able to warp spacetimeand create a shortcut between the places one wanted to visit.Although there are problems of negative energy, it seems that suchwarping might be within our capabilities in the future. There hasnot been much serious scientific research along these lines,however, partly, I think, because it sounds too much like sciencefiction. One of the consequences of rapid interstellar travel wouldbe that one could also travel back in time. Imagine the outcryabout the waste of taxpayers' money if it were known that theNational Science Foundation were supporting research on timetravel. For this reason, scientists working in this field have todisguise their real interest by using technical terms like "closedtimelike curves" that are code for time travel. Nevertheless,today's science fiction is often tomorrow's science fact. Thephysics that underlies Star Trek is surely worth investigating. Toconfine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit thehuman spirit.