Astronomical Blunders in Science Fiction ~ Jan Drozd (Wadhurst AS)

Many of us will recognise the above catchphrase that has made its way into popular culture. It comes from the Star Trek TV and film series, although this exact phrase was never given by Captain Kirk to his chief engineer, Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, when he wanted to be transported back to the Starship Enterprise. A question that can be asked by anyone interested in science and astronomy, is how scientifically realistic is such a transportation device? This leads to the wider question as to how scientifically accurate is much astronomically related science fiction?
In this article, I can only cover a small part of a large subject and realise that not all readers will agree with my choice and critique of science fiction books, films and TV series.

WARP Factor 1:Shining light on light ~ David Pulley

There are many ways (dimensional units) to represent the speed of light but which are the ones acceptable in today’s parlance?  Standardisation of the three basic dimensional quantities (mass, length and time) was internationally agreed in 1960.  However, still expensive mistakes occur, including one of NASA’s costliest blunders.  From here we will explore Albert Einstein’s mass/energy equivalence which is dependent upon the speed of light and finish by looking at the potential consequences if we could easily turn mass into energy.