No need to go that far, as it turns out - it seems to be a perfectly legitimate term which can be found in chemistry texts or technical papers and which is used to refer to a substance that is present during a reaction but which--for the purposes of that reaction--is inert.
It might still be, for all I know--I don't recall ever seeing anything which had JJ or the writers being asked about it one way or the other. I just found it interesting to discover that what at first seemed a self-contradictory term wasn't necessarily so. Fun with language!
Exactly, and the transparent (aluminum?) rotor housing was nothing more than a Hollywood conceit, together with Kirk's quick glances and "No, no, no!" conveying to the non-Trekkies (and the non-hydraulic engineers) in the audience that "Oh, dear - Scotty could be in some serious trouble, here!"
Ah, well that works, too.
To say it short and sweet, it was realistic enough to me that my mind immediately rationalized it with similar existing technology, and it didn't take me out of the movie.
Even if not, water is not always a reactant; in many reactions where water is present, it is--for the purposes of that reaction--an inert compound, serving perhaps only to moderate the rate of reaction without being chemically part of it. And if it's part of a circulating system in which such reactions take place, "inert reactant" makes more sense than "fresh water," which would be part of a different and completely isolated system, denoted perhaps by blue flanges rather than the "inert reactant" orange.
Exactly, and the transparent (aluminum?) rotor housing was nothing more than a Hollywood conceit, together with Kirk's quick glances and "No, no, no!" conveying to the non-Trekkies (and the non-hydraulic engineers) in the audience that "Oh, dear - Scotty could be in some serious trouble, here!"
Ah, well that works, too.
To say it short and sweet, it was realistic enough to me that my mind immediately rationalized it with similar existing technology, and it didn't take me out of the movie.
Even if not, water is not always a reactant; in many reactions where water is present, it is--for the purposes of that reaction--an inert compound, serving perhaps only to moderate the rate of reaction without being chemically part of it. And if it's part of a circulating system in which such reactions take place, "inert reactant" makes more sense than "fresh water," which would be part of a different and completely isolated system, denoted perhaps by blue flanges rather than the "inert reactant" orange.
