Court Martial is really an odd episode

[GSchnitzer]

That strikes me as something that DeForest Research would have caught; now I'm curious to see the report from that episode, if it's at UCLA.

Actually, I'm mistaken. (I was working from memory.) I just checked the script--but the plot thickens a tiny bit:

KIRK:
Gentlemen, this computer has
an auditory sensor. It can,
in effect, hear sounds. By
installing this booster...
(indicating Spock's work)
We increase that capability on
the order of one to the tenth
power. The computer should
now be able to bring to us every
sound occurring on this ship.

So, the scripted line was indeed "one to the..." (not the proper "one times ten to the...." But it was scripted as "tenth power" (yikes!) instead of "fourth power." (I'm glad the booster can't amplify the heartbeats ten billion times. I'm remembering the nurse who dropped the surgical scissors in Fantastic Voyage while the Proteus was in the inner ear.)

Of course, whether it's tenth power or fourth power, it's wrong either way.

 

[CoveTom]

Or then it's a valid way of saying that it can provide amplification in desired amounts, from one (that is, none) to the fourth power (that is, ten-thousand-fold).

While I appreciate your ability to always attempt to find the shades of grey, and find a valid and plausible reason for accepting an alternate viewpoint, I'm going to have to say that this is simply a mistake.

 

[Timo]

...And I'm going to have to agree.

Although of course it's a mistake a fallible character makes, and not a fundamental error in the art of mathematics in the 23rd century.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gary7]

^ No, it's a mistake that the script writer makes and director (as well as actor) fails to correct. Attributing it to Captain Kirk making a mistake, as if it were his own personal blunder, does not do the character justice. He's an extremely smart captain, well trained in... well, I need not go on.

 

[Timo]

Attributing it to Captain Kirk making a mistake, as if it were his own personal blunder, does not do the character justice.

...Yet insisting that Kirk is controlled by strange voices inside his head (or apparitions hovering around him with what look like cue cards) is?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captrek]

He didn't say "one to the fourth power," he said "one times ten to the fourth power," but Finney tampered with the log to make him look bad.

 

[CoveTom]

^ Why would you say "on the order of one times ten to the fourth power". Why not just say "on the order of ten to the fourth power"? Adding "one times" anything is just superfluous.

 

[Captrek]

That's what I said. Finney edited my post.

 

[Gary7]

...Yet insisting that Kirk is controlled by strange voices inside his head (or apparitions hovering around him with what look like cue cards) is?

Um, no. I don't take everything that happens on screen as fundamental canon. Some things are simply mistakes that make the effort to explain them away and make "everything fit nice and tidy" as not a worthwhile endeavor, that can lead one to run down the proverbial "rabbit hole" and get lost. Call it what you will, it's a script mistake and it's best to just overlook it rather than fabricate some cockamamie pseudo science to legitimize it.

 

[Captrek]

it's best to just overlook it rather than fabricate some cockamamie pseudo science to legitimize it.

Says who? We all enjoy the show in our own ways.

 

[Timo]

"Pseudo science"? Kirk misspoke. That doesn't take rocket science (which has never been Kirk's forte anyway).

I'm sure Kirk got a few stardates wrong, too. I mean, it would be utterly unrealistic if he didn't. Sometimes we'd see the version he had edited afterwards to correct the mistakes, sometimes not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr_Homn]

That's what I said. Finney edited my post.

hehe funnny

 

[A beaker full of death]

But what I find REALLY odd is Cogley's attitude against computers and related technology, his preference for hardcopy books and so on.

I can understand his attitude if he was a 1960s man, preferring the real paper past of his youth over the modern-day dehumanizing computerized society.
But Cogley isn't a 1960s man. He is a well-educated lawyer of the 23rd century. Computers are commonplace and should have been ingrained in Cogley's life since he was born. In fact, for CENTURIES before he was born. He can't recall a time before computers, or even a time hundreds of years before he was born.

I dunno. I'm a well-educated lawyer of the 21st century. And although I do all my research on the computer, I miss the days when we had the luxury of sitting down with a case reporter and actually absorbing a case, from start to end, rather than looking for "sound bites" and cherry picking sentences. Funny, a lot of the younger lawyers I know still like to print their cases. And, interestingly, many if those who don't can't write or communicate very well.

As for Sam Cogley... the printed word has a certain immutability about it; a permanence and tangibility that words strung together in the ether just can't replicate.

 

[Doug Otte]

As for Sam Cogley... the printed word has a certain immutability about it; a permanence and tangibility that words strung together in the ether just can't replicate.

Hmmm. When I read those words, I hear Elisha Cook Jr. speaking them!

Doug

 

[EEE]

I'm a well-educated lawyer of the 21st century.... Funny, a lot of the younger lawyers I know still like to print their cases. And, interestingly, many if those who don't can't write or communicate very well.

ROFL

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

...Which reminds me: who is who in the jury?

We have "Space Command representative Lindström" plus "starship captains Krasnovsky and Chandra". OTOH, we have two guys in gold (green) and one in blue. Connecting Chandra with the dark-skinned goldshirt probably won't bring down charges of racism - but what do you think, can we take the blueshirt for the representative and the other goldshirt for Krasnovsky?

Here you go:

Lindstrom

Krasnovsky
(Don't ask me why a starship captain would wear blue. They never explained it.)

Chandra

 

[Captrek]

Krasnovsky
(Don't ask me why a starship captain would wear blue. They never explained it.)

They happened to have one available, and didn't think anybody in 1966 would give a damn?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Works for me.

 

[CoveTom]

Could he have been in command of a medical ship?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I suppose he could. If that's the case, it's probably up to the captain as to which uniform color to wear (command or sciences), as the alt-future Beverly Crusher wore command red when she was the captain of such a ship.