Overview

What warps when youre traveling at warp speed? What is the difference between a wormhole and a black hole? Are time loops really possible, and can I kill my grandmother before I am born? Anyone who has ever wondered could this really happen? will gain useful insights into the Star Trek universe (and, incidentally, the real world of physics) in this charming and accessible guide. Lawrence M. Krauss boldly goes where Star Trek has gone-and beyond. From Newton to Hawking, from Einstein to Feynman, from Kirk to Picard, Krauss leads readers on a voyage to the world of physics as we now know it and as it might one day be.

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9780006550426

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Reviews

Physicist Krauss (Case Western Reserve Univ.) has tackled the daunting task of explaining the complexities of modern physics to the uninitiated before (Fear of Physics, 1993), with mixed results; here he uses concepts from the super-popular Star Trek television series as a kind of hook to make the lessons a little easier to swallow. Krauss leads off with a look at travel in the futuristic Trek setting: Does all this talk of warp nine amount to anything? Might we ever leap from star to star like Kirk, Picard, and the others? The answer is a hesitant maybe, as Krauss explains with reference to Newtonian, Einsteinian, and more modern theories of space and time, which do indeed seem to leave room for warping space as a means of travel. (A recurring theme throughout is how often the Trek writers seem to get the terminology at least close to correct - the original series, for instance, used the term black star before the name black hole had been coined.) From warp drive he moves on to the transporter, with somewhat less encouraging results (the physical hurdles suggest we'll never beam anyone up at all), and then to the holodeck, which seems the most likely of all Trek tech to actually work. Thereafter the book drifts further and further from Trek specifics, glancing at the likelihood of alien life, cosmic strings, solitons, and other edgy subjects, with only a few allusions to maintain the Trek theme. That theme certainly makes it all more user-friendly, but Krauss's brevity will leave readers who don't subscribe to Scientific American a little lost, and those who do without much new to chew on. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Lawrence M. Krauss is Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy and Chairman of the Department of Physics at Case Western Reserve University. He is also the author of two acclaimed books, Fear of Physics: A Guide for the Perplexed and The Fifth Essence: The Search far Dark Matter in the Universe, and over 120 scientific articles. He is the recipient of several international awards for his work, including the Presidential Investigator Award, given by President Reagan in 1986. He lectures extensively to both lay and professional audiences and frequently appears on radio and television.

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