What do Emc and Star Trek Have In Common explicating a theory using popular science

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What do Emc² and Star Trek Have In Common?
(explicating a theory using popular science)
Was this man the worlds first trekky?

• By Dr. M.B. Debowski

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Contents

• 1 Outcomes of this presentation
• 2 What is reality?
• 3 The workings of the mind
• 4 Albert Einstein
• 5 About Star Trek
• 6 About Emc²
• 7 Contributions of others
• 8 Scientific meanings of Emc²
• 9 Practical examples
• 10 Space Travel and relativity
• 11 The Transporter
• 12 Star trek as a science show
• 13 Review of Outcomes

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Outcomes

• By the end of this presentation a student will be
  able to
• Experience how science fiction can trigger
  advances in science fact
• Recall Einsteins formula
• Define the components of the formula
• State the significance of the formula
• Describe the applications of the formula

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Background Concept 1 The Notion of Models

• What is reality? We have 5 limited senses and a
  hard wired (set structured) brain to interpret
  sensory inputs. How do we make sense of this
  input?
• Im sure all of you at some stage in your life
  have purchased a plastic model kit to assemble
  from the shows. It might be an aero plane, or a
  battleship or a dolls house. Is it real? No! Does
  modeling help explain the real item? Yes. It
  helps explain shape, function performance etc.
  but with extreme limitations.
• All science models should be viewed in this way
  also they are not real but help us better
  understand reality.

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Background Concept 2 The Workings Of The Mind

• Our brain collects facts in a certain way and
  then processes them to produce meaning from them.
  Hence a differently structured brain or different
  senses would see our universe totally
  differently. Look at this example!
• i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty
  uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
• The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig
  to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it
  dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a
  wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the
  frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The
  rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed
  it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn
  mnid deos not raed erve y lteter by istlef, but
  the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I
  awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

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Albert Einstein
It was Einstein who stated genius is 99
perspiration and 1 inspiration. I assert this
mans major contribution was not his formulas but
rather he enabled mankind to open our eyes to
other possible versions of reality.
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Background Concept 3 About Star Trek

• For those of you who dont know, Star Trek was a
  science-fiction television series, with 726
  episodes and ten feature films in addition to
  hundreds of novels, computer and video games, fan
  stories and other works of fiction all set within
  the same fictional universe created by Gene
  Roddenberry in the mid-1960s. Fans of the show
  are called trekkies.
• The setting depicts a future in which vices as
  sickness, racism, poverty, environmental
  destructiveness, intolerance, warfare and
  religious strife have been reduced between most
  intelligences in the galaxy. The central
  characters explore the galaxy, discovering new
  worlds while helping to promote peace and
  understanding.
• Interestingly one tiny aspect of this brave new
  world has transportation by groups of people by
  spaceships at warp factors of the speed of
  light while people move between spaceships and
  planetary destinations via energy beams.

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Background Concept 4 About Emc²

• The formula first appeared in 1900 in a paper by
  Henri Poincare in a treatese relating equivalent
  mass to radiation.
• According to Umberto Bartocci (University of
  Perugia historian of mathematics), the equation
  was first published two years earlier by Olinto
  De Pretto, an industrialist from Italy, though
  this is not generally regarded as true or
  important by mainstream historians. Even if De
  Pretto introduced the formula, it was Einstein
  who connected it with the theory of relativity.

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Contributions of others

• Einstein was not the only one to have related
  energy with mass, but he was the first to suggest
  it as a part of a bigger theory, and even more,
  to have deduced the formula from the premises of
  this theory.

Einstein derived the formula based on his 1905
inquiry into the behavior of objects moving at
nearly the speed of light. The famous conclusion
he drew from this inquiry is that the mass of a
body is actually a measure of its energy content.
It is a little known piece of trivia that
Einstein originally wrote the equation in the
form dm L/c² (with an "L", instead of an "E",
representing energy, the E being utilised
elsewhere in the demonstration to represent
energy too).
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About Emc²

• This formula proposes that any body has a certain
  amount of energy even if it is at rest, and
  having no form of potential energy.
• Conversely, a single package of light (called a
  photon) travelling in empty space can be
  considered to have an effective mass, m, due to
  its kinetic energy, despite having no rest mass.
• This formula also gives the quantitative relation
  of energy and mass in any process when they
  transform into each other.

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Practical examples

• A kilogram of mass completely converts into
• 89,875,517,873,681,764 joules or
• 24,965,421,632 kilowatt-hours or
• 21.48076431 megatons of TNT
• And approximately 0.0851900643 Quads (quadrillion
  British thermal units)
• In other words a tiny amount of matter is
  sufficient to supply huge amounts of energy.
• It is important to note that practical
  conversions of mass to energy are seldom 100
  percent efficient. One theoretically perfect
  conversion would result from a collision of
  matter and antimatter for most cases, by
  products are produced instead of energy, and
  therefore very little mass is actually converted.

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The space ships in Star Trek are all nuclear
powered.
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Space Travel and Relativity

• Given only two premises
• The speed of light in a vacuum is constant
  (specifically, 299,792,458 meters per second).
• The laws of physics are the same in any inertial
  frame of reference.
• Then the laws of physics observed by a
  hypothetical observer traveling with a
  relativistic particle must be the same as those
  observed by an observer who is stationary in the
  laboratory.
• This is called special relativity.
• This supplemented by the Einstein assumption
  (also from relativity) that space is not flat but
  curved and therefore foldable means that travel
  from one spot in space to another in space has
  other alternatives to the conventional (folded
  paper, circular paper etc.).
• This has important applications to space travel
  theory.

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Transport

• The famous line used by Captain Kirk was "Beam me
  up, Scotty." (The real line is "Scotty, beam me
  up", first spoken in Star Trek IV The Voyage
  Home.) (The line "Beam me up, Scotty." was
  actually used in Star Trek The Animated Series.)
  
• We don't have a clue about how to really build a
  device like the transporter. One can surmise
  however that matter is converted into energy
  through acceleration of particles, transported at
  the speed of light, and on being slowed
  reconstitutes as matter afterward. It uses a beam
  that is radiated from point A to point B where it
  STOPS at just the right precise place -- even
  passing through some barriers along the way --
  and reconstructs the person it carries on the
  spot.
• All of the rematerialized atoms and molecules are
  somehow in the precisely correct positions, with
  the right temperatures and adhering together just
  as if the transportee had not been
  dematerialized.
• Rematerializing, why doesn't everything fall to
  pieces if a gust of wind or just normal gravity
  disturb the reappearing atoms? Nothing in the
  physics of today gives a hint about how that
  might be possible. Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any
  sufficiently advanced technology is
  indistinguishable from magic." But we can't
  assume every magical feat could be accomplished,
  given sufficiently advanced technology.

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So, what are the features of Star Trek that a
person interested in science can enjoy. Here's a
list of the standard Star Trek features, roughly
in order of increasing scientific incredibility
as detailed in The Physics of Star Trek by
Lawrence M. Krauss (Basic Books, 1995)

• Features List
• The Ships Computer
• Matter-Antimatter Power Generation
• Impulse Engines
• Androids
• Alien Beings
• Sensors Tricorders
• Deflector Shields, Tractor Beams Artificial
  Gravity
• Subspace Communications
• Phasers
• Healing Rays
• Replicator
• Transporter
• Holodeck
• Universal Language Translator
• Warp Interstellar Drive
• Wormhole Interstellar Travel Time Travel

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Review Questions

• Recite Einsteins formula
• Define the components of the formula
• State the significance of the formula
• Describe two applications of the formula given
  in this presentation.
• Explain how science fiction can be used to
  enhance knowledge and understanding.