SPECIAL FEATURE: SPACE AND SCIENCE FICTION

www.iop.org/journals/physed

Science in science fiction

Jonathan Allday
Kings School, Canterbury, UK
E-mail: Jonathan.allday@btinternet.com

Abstract
Science fiction, from Star Trek to Star Wars, is hugely popular and pupils
will surely have encountered good and bad physics there, but do they really
notice? Discussing the science implied in books and movies, such as in the
use of transporters, can be a good way of getting students interested in
physics.

I imagine that we, as teachers, are all continually
searching for something (anything!) that will keep
us in contact with our pupils. Most of us would
agree that the chances of interesting pupils in our
subject are substantially improved if you can get
them moderately interested in you personally to
start with. For a while it helps if you are reading
the same sort of books, listening to the same
sort of music and watching the same sort of TV
(fortunately I think Buffy is worth watching. . . ).
However, this cant last and eventually ones taste
is going to start appearing to be quaint, dated
and perhaps dinosaur-like. I am beginning to feel
evolution catching up with me already. However,
for those lucky enough to be in more nearly the
same time zone as their pupils, I would like to
offer some suggestions as to how science fiction
(especially TV science fiction) can be drawn into
physics lessons to illuminate some interesting
issues.
Star Trek
As a starting point let us consider the doyen of
science fiction shows on TVStar Trek. Like it
or loathe it, this show has been responsible for
introducing a large number of SciFi staples into
the genre. Chief among these have been the warp
drive, which propels the ship from star to star in the
length of a 50-minute episode, and the transporter
device. Warp drive does not give us much scope
for sensible work with pupils, since the basic
notion behind it is beyond projectable science. The
transporter, however, is another matter.
Transporters
The transporter device was introduced by the
series creator Gene Rodenberry as a means of
keeping the progress of the storys plot as rapid
as possible. Roddenberry realized that using
shuttlecraft to move the characters to and from
the surface of planets would lengthen the story,
since there would be a need to explain to the
audience exactly what was happening. A device
capable of instantly beaming the crew about would
speed things up considerably. Since the early
days the uses of the transporter have become more
sophisticated, even to the point when it has been
used to beam a child out of the womb rather than
bothering with a caesarean section.
According to the detailed technology bibles
developed for the series, transporters work
by scanning the body and recording all the
information regarding the atoms and molecules
within it. The matter is then broken down into
energy and stored in a beam that is focused on the
arrival point, and then the information (pattern)
used to re-create the matter.
All this sounds quite unpromising as far
as discussing serious science is concerned. At
one level, Heisenbergs uncertainty principle
prevents the storage of information as required
(the transporters have Heisenberg compensators

0031-9120/03/010027+04$30.00 2003 IOP Publishing Ltd PHYSICS EDUCATION 38 (1) 27

J Allday
to get round this problem. . . ), and some discussion
of this point could usefully be made. However, if
we imagine that a transporter device is possible,
then some interesting basic physics points can be
made. A ship in geostationary orbit (or more
correctly synchronous orbit) above a planet would
be travelling at a much greater speed than the
surface. Hopefully the crew on board the ship is
traveling at the same speed, so they must have a
certain amount of kinetic energy associated with
this. What happens to this kinetic energy when
they materialize on the surface? If it is transported
with them, then they will materialize moving at
considerable speed relative to the surface, with
unfortunate consequences.
A similar thing happens in an H G Wells story
when the hero is given God-like powers. At the
climax of the story, he is so confused and desperate
that he orders the world to stand still to give him
a moment to think. Unfortunately, he forgets to
specify that all the objects not rigidly attached to
the world should stop as well. . . .
There is another problem associated with
energywhat happens to the gravitational poten-
tial energy (GPE) lost by the crew when they trans-
port down? An A2 group should be able to use
the mgh formula to calculate how much this is,
and then to refine the calculation using the correct
formula for GPE = GMm/r. My calculations
suggest that a man of average mass would lose
something like 50 MJ of energy in such a trans-
port from geostationary orbit. To put this in more
accessible terms, the pupils should then estimate
what temperature rise this would cause in the per-
son (assuming them to be composed of water)
giving an answer of about 180 C!
While on the subject of geostationary orbits
(sorry, synchronous orbits), it might be worth
mentioning another piece of technology that
sounds like science fiction, but actually is being
explored as a technical possibility. A satellite
in synchronous orbit would appear to float
motionless above the planets equator, in which
case why not lower a cable to the surface?
Such a structure would need to be very strong
to support its own weight, but perhaps mono-
filament carbon fibre could be used. These fibres
would be woven together to provide a cable (or
multiple cables) and an elevator system set up
capable of lifting payloads to the synchronous
satellite. It is an interesting exercise to sketch
28 PHYSICS EDUCATION
such a system and consider the forces acting on
it. At the orbiting station the gravity is sufficient
to provide the centripetal acceleration, but lower
than this the gravity is too strongimplying that
the cable is in tension.
The structure would be constructed by
manoeuvering a small asteroid into the correct
orbit (and this would be mined for the construction
resources) and lowering the cable. In fact, the best
way would be to send another cable out from the
asteroid upwardsthis would maintain the centre
of gravity of the system at the orbital radius. The
second cable would also provide a bonus. At its
extreme end the gravity is not strong enough to
maintain a synchronous orbit, so the cable is in
tension with the force on it pulling towards the
centre. Any payload that is winched to the satellite,
and then sent to the end of the upper cable, could
be launched into space simply by letting go! The
system would act as a catapult.
Space elevators of this form have been
used in some science fiction stories, but they
were first considered by the Russian engineer
K E Tsiolkovsky in 1895. The author Arthur
C Clarke made their use more popular in
the literature (see his novel The Fountains of
Paradise). Kim Stanley Robinson has put an
interesting twist on this by using an elevator to
help in the colonization of Mars in his book Red
Mars. However, the Martian application has a
problem associated with itthe Martian moons
orbit at a lower altitude than the elevator asteroid
and would periodically crash into it. The solution
is beautifully simple, yet grand. Small rockets
are placed at the centre of the cable and fired
to displace it slightly. The result is a first-order
stationary wave oscillating like a sonometer wire
and timed so that the elevator moves out of the way
just as the Martian moon passes. There are plenty
of references to space elevators on the web. Try:
www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/
space elevator 020327-1.html and www.eureka
sci.com/SPACE ELEVATOR/Space Elevator
Homepage.html as good starting points.
Deflectors and screens
The various star ships in the Star Trek series
are capable of travelling at hundreds of times
the speed of light. (By the way, the warp
factor is supposedly based on a logarithmic scale
asymptotic to factor 10, a fact that is sometimes
January 2003

ignored in the scripts.) Even at more sensible
projected speeds (say 0.25c), there is the danger
of collision with micrometeorites and interstellar
atoms, which would have a devastating effect. The
main deflector array (the dish at the front of the
ship) is designed to produce a beam that sweeps
the path in front of the ship clear of such debris.
Projected designs for small interstellar probes use
large lumps of material to act as barriers (blocks of
ice would do the trick). The screens mentioned in
the series are defensive barriers that repel hostile
particle beam weapons.
Gravity
One of the perennial problems that creators of TV
science fiction have to deal with is gravity, or rather
the absence of it. The brilliant film Apollo 13
actually constructed sets inside a jet plane and
flew it in parabolic paths so that the actors were
genuinely weightless for short periods. Such
expense, however, is well beyond a TV budget.
Normally the answer is to create some device
that produces artificial gravity. In Star Trek
the ingenuity extends to an inertial damping
field, which protects the crew from the incredible
accelerations exerted as the ship goes into and out
of warp.
A more realistic approach was taken in the
series Babylon 5 (in the spacecraft constructed by
humans). Bablyon 5 itself is a giant space station
constructed in the aftermath of a war that nearly
annihilated the human race. The station is intended
as a base for commerce and diplomacy to prevent
further war (if only it were that simple. . . ).
Figure 1. The Babylon 5 station.
January 2003
Science in science fiction
Figure 2. Gerard K ONeill with a painting of the
interior of his design for Island 1, a space habitat.
(Photo courtesy Space Frontier Foundation.)
Construction of the station is on a grand scale.
It is a cylinder over 8400 m long and 840 m in
diameter rotating about its long axis to provide a
simulation of gravity.
This only works with a large enough station,
because otherwise the rotation rate has to be
quite high, and the differential between the feet
and the head is sufficient to produce some rather
unpleasant side effects.
There are plenty of clips of the CGI-generated
station that can be taped from the series (the series
is also becoming available on DVD). It would be
an interesting estimation exercise to give the pupils
a clip and get them to measure the rotation rate.
According to the data about the station available
on the Internet, there is an acceleration of 1.4g on
the inside surface. This corresponds to a rotation
period of about 30 seconds. I am not sure that they
have got this right, but would be interested to hear
of other estimations that have been made.
According to the technical literature, Baby-
lon 5 is an ONeill class station, after the American
futurist and physicist Gerard K ONeill, who was
the first to take seriously the engineering neces-
sary for permanent colonies in space. Babylon 5
is large enough to have soil deposited on its in-
ner surface with plants growing and lakes dotted
about the curved inner walls. People interested
in following this up can consult www.b5tech.com/
babylonproject/babylon5station/babylon5station.
html for information about Babylon 5. There is
also a website devoted to the work of G K ONeill
with lots of very interesting and useful informa-
tion about how his work is being continued. This
latter site is highly recommended: www.ssi.org/
introduction.html. G K ONeill published a book
PHYSICS EDUCATION 29
J Allday
in 1978 that summarized his ideas in a popular
way. This was updated in 2000. Details are to be
found on www.space-frontier.org/HighFrontier/.
General movie physics
Generally when I go to the movies, I leave behind
any notion of being a physicist (sad to say) and get
swallowed up in the plot (although in Goldeneye
I was disturbed by Bonds ability to free fall and
catch up with an airplane falling under power. . . ).
Fortunately there are others who are diligently
inspecting and rating movies for the quality of the
physics that they contain. The interesting aspect of
this is that it is not just SciFi movies that are rated.
Even ordinary thrillers are rated according to the
quality of their physics. The website that deals
with this is www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ and
their mission statement is:
In the name of physics decency, to protect
the minds of children everywhere, so that
they may grow up in a world where they
know the difference between speed and
velocity, we have taken the responsibility
to rate movies for their portrayal of
excessively bad physics.
The rating system that they use is:
GP: Good physics in general
PGP: Pretty good physics (just enough flaws to
be fun)
PGP-13: Children under 13 might be tricked
into thinking the physics were pretty good;
parental guidance is suggested
30 PHYSICS EDUCATION
RP: Retch
XP: Obviously physics from an unknown
universe
NR: Unrated. When a movie is obviously a
parody, fantasy, cartoon or is clearly based
on a comic book it cant be rated but may
still have some interesting physics worth
discussing.
The website contains detailed reviews of
various movies (Star Wars: Episode 1 gets an XP
rating) with interesting discussions of where and
in what way the physics is lacking (or not). Many
of the reviews would make interesting reading for
pupils.
There are many other ways in which science
fiction can be used in the classroom. I have
only suggested a few to get people started. I
am always on the lookout for new references and
thoughts related to this and can best be contacted
on: Jonathan.allday@btinternet.com
Received 3 November 2002
PII: S0031-9120(03)99999-0
Jonathan Allday read Physics as an
undergraduate and completed a PhD in
particle physics at Liverpool. He is a
closet Trekkie, grew up on Thunderbirds
and likes Buffy the Vampire Slayer
because of the good script-writing. . . .
Jonathan has compiled a series of clips
illustrating the scientific foibles of SciFi
and will be using them as the basis of an
IOP-sponsored talk at the ASE meeting
in January.
January 2003