There is a lot of real world research going on to find viable super conductors by rearranging atomic bonds under pressure and/or cold temperatures. I think all the ones found so far need to be too cold or under too much pressure .
Military/engineering type fandom: Should DSC embrace technicality?
- Thread starter INACTIVERedDwarf
- Start date
Well yes But did you harvest any quadrotriticale or treat your xenopolycythemia?
Poot-poot motors.
All joking aside, genetic engineers are pretty much trying to create the stuff, so Tribbles can't be far behind.
Then they'd better create a lot of it.
Some of the sound procedural or scientific principles I can recall off-hand (not an exhaustive list by any shot, because I'm speaking off the top of my head). Please bear in mind the context of TV at the time:
- Matter/anitmatter powering the ship (at a time when TV sci-fi was principally powered by 'magic')
- Use of FTL at a time when TV sci-fi generally just 'flew' between planets (this continued for decades after)
- References to nuclear fission or fusion reactors as a power source, such as the one powering Janus VI
- Use of correct SI base-units of measurement, such as 'candela' for light intensity in "Operation: Annihalate"
- Use of correct space exploration terms like orbits, distances in light years, a fictional system of planet types
- Use of realistic medical terms, specialist surgeons, operations conducted professionally, crew physicals, etc
- Use of military principles, treating the USS Enterprise as a warship, such as during "Balance of Terror"
- Use of real stars and locations, such as Alpha Centauri, Capella, Aldeberan, Antares, the Andromeda Galaxy
- Showing the ship not as an aeroplane, but as a ship with crew working together to maintain it's functions
- Genuine wonder and investigation of the cosmos, it's stellar phenomena, and it's xeno-anthropology
- A memorable villain created not by happenstance, but by former states national eugenics policies
- The general institutional atmosphere of a functional civilization, with colonies, judicial procedures, etc
None of these things were usual for the time, and remained unusual until the advent of TNG in 1987. Now it's true that the TNG era with it's NASA advisors was even more scientifically sound than TOS, but TOS was no slouch, and was practically a work of hard-science-fiction when compared with the times. I'm sure that TOS and TNG played some part in establishing scientific ideas in my mind, and contributing to my ultimately getting a science degree, even if it was just seeing Spock use SI or McCoy talk about injuries realistically. Now that the TNG-era is the standard to beat, I don't think stepping backward to vague 'magic' is good. This stuff was important in establishing tone.
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I would add another important one actually:
Acknowledgement of the very real historical trend of civilization to overcome problems through technical advancement, changing social standards, and extrapolating that into a potential better future in which physics, engineering, medicine, social policy, and progressive ideas have evolved past the mid-20th century. In real life, this trend has continued unabated, with humanity living in the statistically most peaceful time in it's history, with no great power having fought another for 70 years. Star Trek has been born out while it's Cold War era contemporaries now look enormously dated.
National Geographic article on Star Trek's realism
Perhaps audiences these days don't have a good attention to detail, IQ has dropped across the western world in the last few decades, probably due to the promulgation of the internet, which we haven't yet come to grips with; it's spread of false science, and the ability of people to just Google things. The mid-60s especially were a high point of Cold War promotion of hard science in America, as it was seen as necessary to defeat communism.
Hell, some of this stuff isn't that common in sci-fi today.
Acknowledgement of the very real historical trend of civilization to overcome problems through technical advancement, changing social standards, and extrapolating that into a potential better future in which physics, engineering, medicine, social policy, and progressive ideas have evolved past the mid-20th century. In real life, this trend has continued unabated, with humanity living in the statistically most peaceful time in it's history, with no great power having fought another for 70 years. Star Trek has been born out while it's Cold War era contemporaries now look enormously dated.
National Geographic article on Star Trek's realism
Perhaps audiences these days don't have a good attention to detail, IQ has dropped across the western world in the last few decades, probably due to the promulgation of the internet, which we haven't yet come to grips with; it's spread of false science, and the ability of people to just Google things. The mid-60s especially were a high point of Cold War promotion of hard science in America, as it was seen as necessary to defeat communism.
Hell, some of this stuff isn't that common in sci-fi today.
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