Re: [Phys-l] Star Trek

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

I depends on the authors.  Sometimes it does when it is convenient for the
story.  Actually there was a science fiction murder mystery where one of the
clues was the temperature of the body, as I recall.  The murderer changed
the temperature by teleporting from a high location to a low one.  The
gravitational potential was converted in to heat.  Since teleporting
involves converting matter to energy and back again, presumably the small
amount of kinetic energy poses no difficulty.

However one story presupposed that teleporting was done by reconstruction of
the individual at the other end, and the original was destroyed.  So at the
end of the story one operator who was disgusted by the procedure awakened
the original, a US congressman, and now the society had to deal with 2
copies of the important man.  Hmmm, how was it done in Startrek?

Often the authors of movies only have a vague notion of what physics would
predict, so they put in what they think will be good for the storyline.
Since there is no way to teleport a large object, we can't do the
experiment!  If you want to enjoy the movie, too many questions about
physics can kill the plot.

But such movies can make for good student projects involving the realism of
various scenarios.  Some students analyzed the local gravitational constant
on some of the worlds in Starwars.  They came up with the amazing result
that all planets seemed to have g=9.8N/kg.

Maybe the students can come up with a good idea?

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> I watch the new Star Trek movie this weekend. My
> question is about the scene were Kirk and Sulu were
> teleported just as they were about to hit the ground at
> what I'd guess would be terminal velocity (no
> papachute). Would not the momentum transfer through
> the teleport?
> Tim O'Donnell
> Celina High School
> odonnt@celina.k12.oh.us