Science of "Star Trek"??

Question

Does anyone truly know how far away we are (intelligently) of actually seeing some of the technologies seen in "Star Trek"?? For example; warp drive, transporters, phasers, shields, tractor beams, etc...

Answer 1

Believe it or not they've already done the transporter. The only problem is they can only do it one atom at a time. An atom was de-constructed, transmitted to another location on a beam and then re-constructed. To do a human being would require more computer memory than currently exists on the entire planet. They got the warp drive thing right though. By surrounding the ship with a "warp field", inside of which the ship is stationary, it's possible to travel at "powers of c", ie 10,000 times the speed of light. Since nothing is really moving and the warp field effectively removes the ship from this universe then that pesky Einstein can just go play his fiddle. How you would do this in actual fact remains out of our reach just yet but it would likely involve more energy than you would get from several city-flattening nuclear weapons.

Answer 2

Well, like everybody else has stated, it would be a very long time from now, since we don't even know how to attempt most of these things, but theoretically many of these are possible.

I'd reference you to the cloaking device that was recently created by scientists. And while it's nowhere near big or powerful enough to disguise a Romulan Warbird from Starfleet sensors, it's been invented, and it only reaffirms that anything is possible.

... And in reference to an above answerer, I would eagerly use a transporter, regardless of the fact that I would be disassembled at the atomic level (as long as it's perfected first).

Answer 3

Well the transporter is an impossibility

phasers they have already, as you know

Force fields , well a company recently developed an electrical force field, if some one tried to walk past it they get zapped by electricity, no wires, no conductors, it really exists as a wall of electricity, so based on that I think they can develop it.

Tractor beam... hmmmmm using light to capture something, it might work if it was an electromagnetic thing, like how magnets attract iron objects, have a highly focused magnetic beam

Warp drive, I don't even know how that works on star trek, but folding space to go from A to B very fast is a possibility ( like wormholes) at least theoretically.

But you know what all of it might be possible or non of it, science has no limits, 500 years ago who would have imagined we'd be flying in space like we do now

Answer 4

Warp Drive - we are currently infinity years away from developing.

Transporters - we are currently 80,000 years from developing.

Phasers (or something like them) - have already been invented (stun guns, tasers, laser dazzlers, etc.) It figures if its a weapon, we humans get right on it.

Shields and 'force' fields we are currently hundreds of years from developing.

Tractor beams - Also hundreds of years from developing.


But hey, my cell phone is way cooler than Kirk's communicator was.... did you ever see him playing video games on it? Or looking up stuff on the Internet? Or sharing booty pictures with Dr. McCoy? Hell no... and I can do all that and more.

Answer 5

We are not even close to any of that. Most of it is probably bad science. It is really no different than magic. If we do invent ways to go to the stars in 500 years or whatever, I bet it will be nothing like Star Trek.

Answer 6

Warp drive (faster than light drive) is basically warping 2 points in space and joining them or bringing them closer together whilst on the move , the warp engines bend space in front then return it to normal as the vessel passes (ie: bend release, bend release as it moves forward) this is theoretical possible but we do not have the technology to do so.

Answer 7

Only if I actually know the answer-- which doesn't happen too often. I'm definitely a Humanities and Social Sciences kind of girl.

Answer 8

These 'technologies' were creations of fantasy and not even loosely based on real science.
Warp -Faster then light travel using a singularity - Never.
Transport - Even if it could work, who would allow a machine to destroy them then recreate them?
Phaser - maybe possible when we learn how to reduce a small electricity sub-station into a hand held device.
Shields - maybe when we figure out Plasma technology.
Tractor Beams - We dont even know how gravity works much less how to make a gravity beam.

We cant make technology manifest fantasy, we can use fantasy to utilize science in new ways.

Answer 9

Except for the shape of cell phones (communicators) most of it defies the laws of physics.

Answer 10

Except for the shape of cell phones (communicators) most of it defies the laws of physics.