Season 2 of the critically acclaimed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiered June 15 (streaming on Paramount+). So today, Short Wave Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber chats with two Trekkie physicists about the science powering the show and why they love the franchise. Astrophysicist Erin Macdonald is the science consultant for Star Trek, and Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a theoretical physicist and author of the book The Disordered Cosmos. This episode, the trio discusses not only the feasibility of warp drive, global cooperation and representation and how the transporters that beam crew members from the surface of a planet to the ship might be breaking fundamental laws of physics.Questions about the "scientific" underpinnings of other pop culture? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We'd love to hear from you!
They frequently mention the Stargate operates using wormholes, but also that things dematerialize and get reconstructed on the other end. The iris works because it’s so close to the wormhole that it doesn’t leave enough room for things to be reconstructed. Also Teal’c got stuck in the Stargate “buffer” once when the power was cut prematurely from the other end.
They frequently mention the Stargate operates using wormholes, but also that things dematerialize and get reconstructed on the other end. The iris works because it’s so close to the wormhole that it doesn’t leave enough room for things to be reconstructed. Also Teal’c got stuck in the Stargate “buffer” once when the power was cut prematurely from the other end.