Science Friday - Star Trek’s Science Advisor Reveals The Real Astrophysics On Screen

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Few pop culture properties have lasted quite as long as Star Trek. A dozen Star Trek television shows have aired over the last sixty years—not to mention countless movies, novels, and comic books. Science concepts have always been integral to the Star Trek franchise: from warp speed travel to dilithium. But how much does the series accurately depict?Ira speaks with astrophysicist Dr. Erin Macdonald, science consultant for Star Trek about the legacy of the franchise, and how accurate the science is within the series.The transcript for this segment is available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Few pop culture favorites have lived as long and prospered as, well, Star Trek. So I'll pop into a writer's room and they'll be like, hey, Aaron, tell us about this new black hole finding and I've got to go look it up. Star Date Tuesday, January 2nd, but it's also Science Friday. Sure, Star Trek is science fiction, but it does try to get the science right. In this conversation from the sci-fri archives, Ira Flato talks with astrophysicist Dr. Aaron McDonald, Star Trek Science Advisor and takes listener calls. Here's Ira. There are few pop culture franchises that do science quite like Star Trek.

Is there a more recognizable opening line on television? More iconic than that one, the Star Trek series released in 1966, starring William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Leonard Nimoy, as Spock. And since then there have been a dozen shows exploring the Star Trek universe. Some have been live action, some animated, but all explore concepts in astrophysics. And when I watch these shows, you know, I love them. I always think, how accurate is the science in this franchise? It's an apt question for our next guest is going to tell me all about it.

Dr. Aaron McDonald, scientific consultant for the Star Trek franchise. She has a PhD in astrophysics, and she joins us from Los Angeles. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi, Ira. I'm really honored to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to have you. Tell me a bit about your history as a science consultant for Star Trek. When did that all start? How did you get involved? Yeah, it's been going back till season three of Star Trek Discovery was when I came on, when they jumped forward to the future. My background, as you mentioned, is in astrophysics, particularly in gravitational waves.

I've always used science fiction to teach science. And when I left academia, I started giving talks at pop culture conventions, which sort of led me into the entertainment industry. Were you always a big trekker and Star Trek fan? Yeah. I mean, I wasn't really exposed to it until I was in college. I was doing my undergraduate degrees in physics and math. And in the Venn diagram of Star Trek fans and physics majors,

there's a big overlap in the middle there. And so at our sort of college parties, we would watch next generation. And that was kind of my first exposure to it. And I fell absolutely in love with it. The big moment for me was when the 2009 Kelvin film came out. That was the night we all graduated. And so we did our big graduation. And then we went to the midnight premiere back when those were actually at midnight.

And surrounded by Star Trek fans, I realized, like, these are my people. This is where it's at. And how many Star Trek shows are airing at the same? time these days. Now I think we've had five going. So there's a lot different flavors, as you mentioned, some are live action, some are animated, some are targeted at kids. And what's great is that they all kind of have different flavors of science. They all approach their storytelling differently, as Star Trek always has. Yeah. So give you an idea of what a day in the life of a science consultant looks like. What kinds of things are you actually doing? Yeah, a lot of it is working directly with the writers and

showrunners. And so they'll reach out to me if they have specific questions. And then I sometimes try to sit about once a week in the writer's room itself, helping them break ideas. If they have questions in the moment or come up with story concepts, you know, I work as a writer. I'm a big fan of science fiction anyway. So being able to help with that process. And then a big part of my job is literally just editing scripts, going through them. And at the very minimum, making sure we don't say anything wrong. That's the big job. What do you mean say anything wrong? For example.

For example, like refer to our solar system or a star system as a galaxy. That's a common mistake that happens in science fiction all the time. And getting those things conflated, you know, making sure we talk about planets the right way, making sure we talk about nebula is the right way and, and, you know, that they're just dust and gas. And all of those little nuances that can sometimes slip by. You know, one of the central tenets of watching a film, a fiction film, is the way. willful suspension of your belief, right? Absolutely.

How does that play into what you do and in Star Trek in general? Well, I think sometimes, you know, a lot of what I do when I say I don't want them to say anything wrong. Sometimes we'll have great fun, fantastical storylines that isn't really rooted in science. And the advice is to just not try to explain it. Because I think that's when that suspension of disbelief when you're talking about a giant energy being that's grabbing a hold of the ship. Right. As soon as you start to apply science to it, that's when you're going to start to lose people, when if you just let it be, you could just ride the story. But, you know, sometimes over the years, if you wait around long enough, some of the things that you may think are, you need to suspend your belief actually come true.

And I'm thinking about all the times we used to watch Captain Kirk or John Lupacart talk to the computer, right? Like, you verbally speak to it. Like, really? It understands what you're saying. but now we can do that. We have that indeed. In fact, my own little in-home listening system responds to computer as well. Can't be a Star Trek fan without that.

And, yeah, I mean, this long legacy, even I remember the original series, you know, Kirkwood video called down to the medical bay, and that seemed so fantastical, and now that's almost how we live our lives. Or Hur would have a little thing in her ear. You can't have a tiny little receiver in your ear, right? Right, right. A little wireless receptor, who doesn't. of thought. Do you have a favorite science potline you've consulted on? Yeah, I mean, there's been a few.

My first one was to do the big story arc for season three, which was called the burn. And what I was brought on for was to really apply some science to the dilithium, which is a fictional Star Trek element that's been around since the 60s and, you know, plays a role in the technology of these starships. And I was able to kind of add on some canonical explanations to it that was really exciting and really special. And then in that same season, I also consulted on episode five, I believe, where they encounter a coronal mass ejection. And that was the first time that we've had one of those in Star Trek before. So that was fun. That is. Dilithium crystals. Really? Where did they come from? Do we have a history on that? Well, yeah, the first thing I had to

establish was, is it dilithium or is it di lithium? Because as many Star Trek fans who are also The chemistry majors will point out that lithium does not allow itself to be combined in such a way. And so we established, nope, it is just called dilithium and it's its own thing. I came up with these subatomic particles that tap into subspace to make the story work that way. You know, you talked about just having to accept things when something big happens. You don't want to explain it. And I think one of those things that I've always wondered about, and we have gotten calls about in the past, is warp speed, right?

Yes. How do you survive going to warp speed? The human body can't really take that kind of acceleration. No, this is true. I mean, the ships do have inertial dampeners, which is kind of the equivalent of seatbelts. I forgot about that, the inertia is the thing that's going to get you, right? Right, right. But when you do go to warp, the whole concept of warp drive mathematically is really interesting,

and it is actually possible. The concept is that you're building a bubble of space time around your ship. So on the ship itself, you're still traveling, I mean, at the speeds they are much faster than we can conceive of now. But even then, they're not quite at the speed of light. And then the bubble of spacetime just carries the ship faster than light. Because in our rules of general relativity, nothing says that space time itself can't go faster than the speed of light. It's just stuff on the surface of it. I love that explanation.

Let's go to, I'm going to hit, there are a couple of harder ones on the phone. I'm going to get them to ask you. Marty in Ellenberg, Washington. Hi, welcome to Science Friday. Hi, thanks. I'm just wondering, especially since I just got a new knee, are the Bork really possible? Oh, the Borg. Yeah.

Tell us what the Borg are, if you will, first. Absolutely. So the Borg is probably something a lot of young Star Trek fans remember is the first thing that gave them nightmares. But it's essentially a sort of cybernetic species that goes around assimilating different cultures. and they incorporate a lot of technology into their beings. But the big thing that the Borg have that was kind of established in Star Trek Voyager in more detail is these nanoprobes. So these little itty-bitty mechanical devices that swim throughout your bloodstream

and coordinate all of these cybernetic implants that you've got. So I don't think we're quite there yet. I don't know if you have to worry about that with your knee. But it's certainly interesting. and I think this idea of integrating, it's really biotechnology, right? Integrating robotics with our bodies. We are not far away from. Do you ever go in the opposite direction?

Do you ever suggest something that they could incorporate into the script that you're thinking about? Yeah, quite a few times. I mean, I don't want to take too much credit because these writers, you know, they come up with really, really cool stories. But like the CME, the coronal mass ejection that I mentioned, you know, that was a big one where it was like, let's just have a space disaster. We just want a cool space disaster that's going to interrupt the transporter. What would be a fun one that we could use with that? And so then we kind of built the story around it being a coronal mass ejection, which is for people who aren't aware, it's like a solar flare plus.

It carries a lot of massive radiation particles in addition to the kind of normal solar flares that we see. Yeah, a lot of people want to talk to you. Let's go to Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. We ought to think we've ever been there. Jeff, welcome to Science Friday. Hi, yes, thanks. I'm reading a series of books now, and they use something called an Alcubeer drive. I suppose it's a real theoretical thing. And I was just wondering, is that the same thing as the warp drive? Yeah, absolutely. So the Alcuberer drive was kind of the first major warp drive that was mathematically laid out.

And so as I talked about where warp is about building a bubble of space time around your ship, the Al-Qubei-air drive takes that concept. And the key with it, so mathematically this warp drive, the Al-Cubei-Air drive, could work. The issue is the amount of energy required to do it because mass spends space time, that's the bowling ball on the trampoline analogy. If you don't have that mass to build a warp bubble, you need an equivalent amount of energy, which, you know, is time. the speed of light squared. So that's a level of energy. We don't know how to harness yet. So that's the barrier

that's keeping us from getting there. You have to keep up with all these things, don't you? Yeah. And sometimes the writers get to it before I do. You know, a lot of the writers love science. They're really interested in it. And so I'll pop into a writer's room and they'll be like, hey, Aaron,

tell us about this new black hole finding. And I've got to go look it up. And, you know, it's really cool. It's great to have a team that's so invested in science as well. I'm talking with Dr. Aaron McDonald's science consultant for the Star Trek franchise. She's based out in Los Angeles, of course. Dr. McDonald, do you ever view this as more than just a science fiction thingy, but maybe a teaching experience? Oh, absolutely.

I think it's hard to undersell how influential Star Trek has been on science. You know, it's been around for 60 plus. years at this point, and it has influenced and inspired people to become scientists. And so there is some responsibility to uphold that legacy of inspiring people and getting the science correct. And particularly with the new show Star Trek Prodigy, which is targeted at kids, you know, a lot of that is actually more of a teaching job and leaning on my teaching background to try to explain difficult concepts to kids and hopefully inspire them to become scientists. Yeah, because it can inspire a lot of people to think about the laws of physics.

I mean, seriously, let me go to, for example, my next caller. Let's go to Nicholas a new Bedford-Mass. Hi, Nicholas. Hi. So in the latest season of Star Trek Discovery, we see the ship go past the edge of our galaxy into another galaxy where the laws of physics seem to differ very greatly. Now, is this something theoretical? Is there actually evidence that suggests that in another galaxy, but still in our same universe, there could be very different laws of physics?

Understood. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that question. So, yeah, in season four of Star Trek Discovery, the crew go past the galactic barrier, which was inspired from all the way back to the original series. And then they enter what's actually a star system where Species 10C lives. And what the species 10C has done is they create. a bubble that's almost like a Dyson sphere plus that surrounds the entire star system and is protecting them from the outside. So that was more on the science fiction side. It's always a bit of a spectrum. But was fun about exploring the galactic barrier because that was more on the legacy of Star Trek. We did actually try to look up if there was any science based on that. And just really quickly, you know, we do have this thing called the heliopause at the edge of our solar system. where radiation particles from the sun kind of gets stopped because they don't have enough escape velocity to fully escape our solar system in the gravity well of the star. And I was thinking like,

well, what if there's something similar at the edge of our galaxy, like galactopause, if you will? And actually, since we kind of were coming up with that idea, I did actually see a paper hit the preprint archive on the idea of a galactopause. And so this idea that there is radiation particles. Now, it's not so much that the laws of physics in the species 10C star system had changed, but more that they had created an environment in which they could live and be protected from the exterior intergalactic space. Very well put. That's like a master's thesis right there. A lot of science in one sitting, I know.

I want to talk about data because data is, I think, one of the unique things about Star Trek, you know, Data, for both of you who've been in a cave for decades, data is an android. He's a key star in Star Trek and his desire to become more human all the time. Is giving him a personality now less science fiction-like and more science present, do you think? I do think so. And, you know, for people who might not be aware, I could recommend it's in my top five episodes of Star Trek to watch as a measure of a man from an original series.

or from the next generation, excuse me, that explores the rights of data. And I think watching that with a context now that we have with artificial intelligence and these great strides that are happening faster than we can keep up with is even more interesting than it even was back in the day because it really forces you to think about the rights of artificial intelligence. And I do think this is a conversation that we're going to be having for a long time. It is going to dominate our culture in the next decade. Kurt in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Hi, Kurt.

Yeah. Well, I was just wondering, through all the different shows and the exploration that they represent and everything that they do in the universe, I was just wondering, how come you don't really see a whole lot of exploration or explanation around trying to understand black holes? You do, but you can't see it. No, that was a bad job. I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, we do try to incorporate some of that. I mean, thinking about the history of sort of science, I talked about how science is integrated with Star Trek for so long. One of the cool things is that in the original series, back in the 60s, we still hadn't

detected a black hole. It hadn't even been coined in the literature. And I think Captain Kirk at one point says that there was like a void of blackness in space. And within a year, the term black hole had been coined in publications, which is a bit chicken in the egg. We don't really know which came first with that one. But we have tried to integrate some, and even with things that we've discovered through gravitational waves, we're starting to build out our pictures of black holes even just better than we knew 10, 15 years ago.

And so those start to fold into our stories a little bit more, this idea of roaming black holes. And, yeah, obviously you have to have some visual imagery that's going to be fun to go with it. In the recent season, season one of Strange New Worlds, they actually escape an enemy. spoil it too much. They escape an enemy by utilizing gravitational time dilation and slingshotting around a black hole. So it's all about just trying to find the right scientific phenomena that fits the story. You're never fearful of going through your wormholes though, right? Oh, no. It goes through wormholes a lot. Exactly. In fact, Deep Space Nine was pretty much set at a wormhole. Here you go. Jerry in Hebrew Spring, Arkansas. Welcome to

Science Friday. Hey, how you doing? Hey there. Go ahead. Hey, so I got just kind of an off-the-wall question. It's more in, like, personalities than technology. But for your guest there, has there ever been anything that was presented by a writer or the staff where you just went, ah, yeah, no, that's not going to work. I appreciate that question. Do you have that power, is? Right. I will say, you know, I do think it's important as a science advisor to be a positive force in the room and to not.

squash people's dreams and ideas. And so I try to take a yes-and approach to story ideas that are presented to me. And, you know, sometimes it's more important to just say, like, that's a really cool idea. Let's not explain it. Let's just let that be. And try to adjust as necessary to what we do know in science. Yeah, because Rich and the, was it, your Belinda, California is going to ask about something like that. Go ahead, Rich. Yeah, thanks. My question was, how legitimate is the transporter and the replicator? What kind of science do you justify that whole concept? I love, I love the transporter. Okay, I'll make this really brief. So the transporter with our physics knowledge we have now could never work because you break down all. all of the particles of the body down to almost a subatomic particles,

and you have to know exactly where they are to put them back together. And Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which is a physics concept, doesn't allow that. The more you know about where a particle is, the less you know about the speed it's going, and then there's an ultimate Heisenberg limit that you can't reach. But in Star Trek the next generation, they're repairing the transporter at one point, and there's a Heisenberg compensator. Oh, wow. And that compensates for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

And how does the Heisenberg compensator work? It works very well. Thank you. You know what I want to see in Star Trek? I want to see bring in spooky action at a distance somehow. That would be really fun. You know, one thing happening on one side of the universe being reflected on the other side of the universe in the same way. That would be awesome.

That, yeah. Have you had moments where you've actually had to change the science because there's not working for the story, you know? Yeah, actually, we did with, in discovery, there was one time where they were trying to escape what we had the dark matter anomaly and they were writing the gravitational waves out of it, which is my technical scientific background. And gravitational waves don't exactly work the way we were visualizing it. The visuals as they're all standing around the table, you know, in the ready room,

trying to plan this, were looking like ocean waves. and gravitational waves really look more like sound waves, like compression waves that are happening in multiple dimensions. And so they tried, to their credit, they tried to image it correctly like gravitational waves look, and it immediately pulled people out because you hear wave and you expect to see something. And so we decided to just leave it looking like an ocean wave because it wasn't worth the time and explanation it would take to explain to people why it looked that way. They're just trying to say they're going to ride the waves out. Yeah, yeah. One concept that we're getting closer to with virtual reality is the holodeck.

Yes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Was that one of the original ideas in Star Trek? Did someone in the early years come up with that? Or did that trickle down later on? I think it was really more in the next generation is when they explored the holodeck. And I will say, I mean, I have a virtual reality device and it does throw you.

Like, it is a weird experience, and it does feel like the holodex sometimes. And I do think, yeah, we are going to get close to that technology soon. Jeffrey in Pittsburgh. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi there. Jeffrey, are you there? Hello. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I just had a break in the signal and then your voice, Ira. I wrote, Dr. McDonald, thank you for the very entertaining and interesting conversation. My name is a comment and then a quick question. And as an emergency physician and somebody that's old enough to be a fan of the original Star Trek, a medical tricorder was fascinating to me. And as I see patients today in my practice, it occurred to me that with the micronization of sensors as well as artificial intelligence machine learning, which I'm getting into and interested in, we're getting close faster than I think most people realize to an early,

medical track order. And Dr. McDonnell, with your access to the scientists that you talked to, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, good question. Thanks, Doc. Yeah, I mean, you know, what's interesting is I do think necessity drives invention. And in the last couple years, we've tried to, we've been at a place where we've had to have more remote medical diagnostic capabilities where you're able to diagnose people from a distance or without touching them. And And then also technologies, I mean, I'm wearing a device on my wrist that's measuring my heart rate, you know, is measuring my pacing and all of those. And so, yeah, certainly our technology is getting us there. And I think even a few years ago, it's probably close to a decade now, there was an XPRIZE to try to develop a device that could diagnose, I think, was like five vital signs and diagnose 12 diseases.

And someone did win that. It's just, at the time, prohibitively large and expensive. but the technology does exist. And I do think, you know, as you've mentioned, the miniaturization of technology will get us there as well, as well as machine learning. You know, I kind of think that you touched on this before a little bit about science education,

but I think, you know, speaking and talking about these things actually make some of them happen. I'm thinking of the first flip phone, right? That Motorola flip phone was based on Star Trek, wasn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Everyone wanted to pop open that phone and call the Enterprise. And it drives that. And I also, the one I think of, too, is when we all started getting e-readers,

those were the exact shape and size of the data pads in the next generation. And you can't avoid the fact that people are watching this on Star Trek or any science fiction and think, I really want that. And then they work toward it and they end up inventing these things. This is Science Friday from WNIC Studios. Comment from Dan on Twitter, who says, I teach a first year college course called Science Fiction Science Fact, and we watch some episodes of Star Trek the next generation

to discuss the importance of science fiction in understanding science. Which episodes would you recommend for teaching science? I love Measure of a Man on Data. Oh, that's a great question. You know, I think one of the best things, oh, there's so many good ones, It's like the science is so embedded in the DNA of Star Trek that, you know, my personal favorite episode of Star Trek ever is Voyager's counterpoint. And that's where Janeway is trying to discover where a wormhole is going to appear.

And it's not so much about educating like what a wormhole is, but I think seeing scientists science and Star Trek does have a lot of that where there is a scientific problem the crew is faced with and they approach it as scientists. And that's something, a role I play as well as a science advisors to advise on what information you need and how you approach problems. You know, I see the evolution, so to speak, of Star Trek from the Kirk days where they would settle things by fighting out in the back lot someplace on a cheap set. That's how they settled things. And then they got more cerebral later, right? But Picard solved everything with his brain. He outsmarted

you. He outthought you, right? Yeah, absolutely. They all have their own little approaches. And you mentioned the, you know, fighting on the planet with fisticuffs. But in that episode, in Arena, Spock and McCoy are up watching this fight going and be like, he's not going to figure it out. He's got to do the

chemistry. He's got to do the science. He eventually figures it out. If you could move Star Trek in some generation, some direction, I mean, where would you like to see it go? I've really enjoyed Prodigy and reframing

these classic Star Trek ethos, like you said, the philosophical, as well as the problem solving and the scientific to be targeted at kids. And seeing more of that, having these more hard sci-fi shows that are accessible and available to kids,

I think really can influence an entire generation and how they decide to pursue their careers. Is there a teaching material? I mean, did they make teaching materials out of Star Trek episodes that they could use in schools? Maybe they should be doing that. I mean, I've certainly heard a lot of teachers as the, you know, commenter mentioned, who used science fiction. In fact, I did as well. And for Star Trek Prodigy, we also did a series of

web episodes that people can watch that was the science of Star Trek Prodigy, where we did short five, ten minute explainers of the science in these episodes. So people can go and find them there, you know, where you watch Prodigy, and they're also available streaming online. Because we do want to find ways to teach through Star Trek. I think it is so effective. Yeah, it is. And I guess once you get hooked on Star Trek, you're hooked. You're hooked.

You're hooked. So if you get hooked on, you know, because kids are natural-born scientists. They want to know how everything works. They want to take it all apart. They'll make mistakes. And you kind of get that vibe from Star Trek. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree.

We're all scientists at heart, you know, starting out. We problem solve. Dr. McDonald, good luck. You have an enviable job, I think. Thank you. Dr. Aaron McDonald, science consultant for the Star Trek franchise based in Los Angeles. Thank you for taking time and sharing what you know. Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here. And that's it for today. A lot of folks help make this show happen, including Felissa Mayors, Kathleen Davis, Jordan Smudjik, Charles Bergquist, and many more. tomorrow a conversation with author John Scalzy about science, science fiction, and his book The Kaiju Preservation Society. See you soon. I'm SciFry producer Shoshana Bucksdown.