From: CXMP <CXMP@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Riping into Leon Myerson's Star Trek Technology article
Organization: McGill University
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:53:16 GMT

>                S T A R   T R E K   T E C H N O L O G Y

>                          by Leon Myerson

>COPYRIGHT 1988 by Leon Myerson

is great except he forgot to include all the smilies. :) I mean, surely,
anyone who would try to explain all of Star Trek technology would have
to find the whole idea rather amusing, right?  >sigh<  Maybe it's just
me.  Anyway, Leon gets an A for effort, especially since he tries to
explain everything using warp technology (YAY!).

>    Warp numbers do not directly refer to speed, but to power.         s the

He starts off well.

Warp 1 is the
>power level required to enter the warp continuum, and is known as      old
Threshold
>power.  Warp 2 is twice that power level, etc.  Fractional warp is     y
simply
>less than Threshold power while the ship, though traveling via warp    d
field
>effect, is still "in" the Einstein space-time continuum at sub-light   ed.
speed
>The unit of power between whole warp factors for a given vessel is one
>"Impulse", as in the ST:TNG episode "Conspiracy" when Geordi answers   er's
Riker
>command to increase from Warp 5 to Warp 6 by acknowledging the additionof
>yet another full impulse to the power already coursing thru the warp
>nacelles.

No, no, no!  "Impulse" is a measure of *acceleration*!  There is
absolutely nothing wrong with the way this word is used on STTNG and it
doesn't have to be explained away like this.  For that matter, I
disagree with the notion that warp 2 uses up twice the power that warp 1
does.  I'll have more to say about this later.

>    The formula relating the Warp number W to velocity in terms of C isnot
>not the hopelessly inadequate V = W^3.  In Trek Classic's very first    the
episode
>Enterprise was seen at the edge of our galaxy.  Even assuming this to   the
>be near edge reached by going perpendicular to the galactic plane, it  ill
is still
>at least 1500 light years from Earth.  At a cruising speed of Warp 6 = 16 C,
216 C
>the ship would have spent at least 7 years getting out there, then 7   e
> more back.

In "That Which Survives" (which features pretty holograms which destroy
cells :) ) the Enterprise travels at warp 14.1 which, canonically, is
2803 C.  At that speed the Enterprise would reach this particular
phenomenon (it isn't much of a "barrier" as they could just have gone
around it :) ) in 6 months and 5 days *assuming* they left from Earth.
It's entirely possible that the Romulan and Klingon empires are closer
to the edge of the Galaxy than we are (although some bright trekker may
be able to dispute this by identifying planetary systems by their name).

*However*, the Enterprise is capable of going even faster than that.
In "By Any Other Name", the Kelvans managed to improve the Enterprise's
engine efficiency so that they could reach the Andomeda Galaxy in a mere
300 years.  If the Andromeda Galaxy is 2 000 000 light years away then
this corresponds to a speed of 6667 C or warp 18.1.  At this speed, a
journey from Earth to the edge of the galaxy would take only 2 months
and 11 days.

>    Nor would that formula fit the size of the United Federation of    ets'
Planets
>Treaty Exploration Zone mapped in the "StarFleet Technical Manual".    s zone
This
>was pictured as being approximately 12,000 light years in radius, with oth
both
>the Klingon and Romulan empires located at the rim some 60 degrees     .
apart
>Clearly, Enterprise did not require an excess of 50 years to reach the eutral
>neutral zone.

At warp 18.8, the Enterprise would reach the neutral zone in one year,
9 months and 18 days.

I deleted 19 paragraphs here to save bandwidth (and also because I got
tired of word rapping :) ).  Anyone wanting the entire article can look
for it on the net or at pdq.coe.montana.edu in the /ftp directory via
anonymous ftp or, hell, I've got it so you could email me and I could
send it.

Anyway, I have to disagree with Leon's idea that the warp speeds for
TOS and TNG come about as a result of exponentials and trigonometrical
functions especially since, as he points out in his first line, the
warp units refer to the power in the warp coils and not the velocity
themselves per se.  Leon really should have considered what approach
an *experimentalist* would take to get a best fit warp equation,
namely to plot the warp units against the velocity on a log scale
and find the slope of the line.  In TOS, the best fit slope was
close to 3 whereas in TNG, after improvements in warp technology, the
best fit slope was approximately 3.33.  There's no way that an
empirical equation would contain exponentials or triginometric
functions.

What's more, warp 10 is supposedly *defined* to be infinity.  Why?
Well, according to the STTNG technical manual (or the FAQL list),
warp units represent points of maximum efficiency.  There are nine
points of maximum efficiency on the STTNG warp scale, namely warps 1
through 9.  Warp 10 is defined to be infinity because, after warp 9,
efficiency decreases monotonically.  Note that the efficiency curve
need not be periodic, i.e. warp 2 need not require twice the power
that warp 1 does.  For that matter, warp 10 requires infinite power,
not twice the power warp 5 requires.

Greg Berigan includes the following warp formula for STTNG in his .sig:
             speed == W^(10/3)+(10-W)^(-11/3)
This formula is (apparently) a good fit for the curve given in the
STTNG Technical Manual.  I think this is the formula we should use from
now on.

One could object to this scale by asking what would stop one from
getting arbitralily close to warp 10.  This is actually more of a flaw
in Leon's reasoning as there doesn't seem to be any barrier preventing
one from exceeding warp 10 in his theory.  I've actually given this
problem a bit of thought and, based on what one actually sees on Star
Trek, it would seem as though increasing one's warp speed is analogous
to stretching a rubber band because 1) rubber bands cannot be stretched
indefinitely, 2) rubber bands return to their original shape when let
you let go and 3) a rubber band will break when you exceed it's elastic
limit; the latter, of course, corresponds to a ship being torn apart
by exceeding it's warp capabilities.

>    The relativistic time dilation experienced at Tertiary threshold
>velocity is such that time passes at 64.6% per cent, or roughly 2/3's,
>the "normal" rate of objects "at rest".  This time dilation factor goes
>along with the ship as the warp effect envelope separates from normal
>space/time in crossing over the threshold, and remains stable
>thereafter, so that all the time spent under way at superluminal
>velocities is discounted by 1/3 for those on the vessel vs. those
>staying behind.  The effect is rather conveinient for starship crews,
as
>it effectively cuts by 1/3 the travel time between stop-overs, and
since
>all Tertiary warp vessels experience it, there is no disadvantage in
>reaction time against opponents.

Leon quite arbitralily decided that attaining warp speed corresponds to
a discrete acceleration from .763 to 1.31.  I prefer to think that one
can enter warp from any speed.  Suppose in particular that the
Enterprise entered warp at .93 C.  In such a case, 1000 days would pass
on Earth while only a year passed on the Enterprise.

The main problem with such a scheme is that when two ships approach each
other in warp (or otherwise for that matter) they could be in two
different frames of reference, making communication difficult (each
party would see the other moving slowly).  For brief conversations,
however, the ship's computer could automatically speed up the rate at
which the image is displayed on the viewscreen so that everything
appears normal.  One can imagine that given enough time and with close
enough proximity, warp space interactions occur between them so that
the two ships gradually become "in phase" and both parties agree on
the passage of time.  Of course, it would be simpler if the ships were
to simply come out of warp and remain a fixed distance apart.

Then there's shuttlecrafts.  In "Time Squared", the Captain Picard from
the future is found on a shuttlecraft.  The crew is surprised that the
shuttlecraft is "out of phase" with the rest of the Enterprise.  This
could be because this phase adjustment should have occured automatically
once the shuttlecraft had been brought aboard.  Picard is also,
apparently, out of phase.  Beverly assures everyone that he is slowly
coming back into phase with his surroundings.  The Picard from the
future spends much of the time unconscious, supposedly because he is
overwhelmed by the dream-like state he finds himself in.  When he
finally is back in phase with his surroundings (the delay, supposedly,
being a side-effect of having gone back in time) he reacts as though
what he experiences is not real.

Another problem is causality.  This has already been discussed on the
net.

>    There are social aspects to the cumulative effect of a lifetime    er
care
>devoted to star travel, in that one's age starts falling behind that of
>friends, family, and above all spouse's left behind.  In the 2nd, 3rd  nd
and
>4th feature films, we see James Kirk wearing four bars and three dots   his
onhis
>sleeve, indicating 23 years service in StarFleet.  Yet his birthday
>depression in ST:TWOK and the presence of the fully grown David Marcus ll
both
>point towards a 50th birthday.  Assuming Kirk graduated the Academy at he
the
>normal age of 22, adding 23 years leaves a 5 year gap.  The gap is     y the
simply the
>cumulative effect of the time he's spent cruising at warp speed.  For  rried
married
>personnel, this "age gaping" becomes a serious problem over a lifetime,and
>and was a major factor in StarFleet's decision to allow families to go  on
>along on its latest vessels of the ST:TNG era.

There's a problem with this reasoning: Kirk was depressed about how
*old* he was *not* how much time had passed on Earth while he was on
the Enterprise.  It seems to me that people would celebrate their
birthdays in what *for them* would be yearly intervals.

In the case of severe time dilation, there would be even more trouble.
Would people celebrate Christmas more than once a year or would they
celebrate it on a yearly basis based on the time that had passed since
the ship was commissioned?  It seems to me that Starfleet personel
would have a lot of calenders to check: their own, the ship's, back
home, etc.  This situation would not be unlike referring to a Chinese
or Jewish calender to see when the next festival or holiday is coming.
In such a case, a standard calender would have to be adopted.  One can
imagine that in 2261, on the one hundredth anniversary of the
Federation, that the stardate system was adopted.

-two paragraphs about passing near stars deleted

>    One of the greatest scientific discoveries made by the original
>NCC-1701 Enterprise was that if a ship went EXTREMELY close to an
object
>of stellar mass while in the normal continuum, then poured on maximum
>power to force its way to threshold before putting significant distance
>between itself and the gravity field of the celestial body in question,
>then the effective threshold velocity could actually be slightly above
>lightspeed, and the associated time dilation not only extremely large
>but NEGATIVE.  This is the essence of time travel under what has become
>known as the breakaway maneuver.

This is also known as the slingshot effect.
According to the formula t'=sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)*t, when v>c t' is *not*
negative but purely imaginary.  The irony of the term "purely imaginary"
is not lost on me :).

>    The class of phenomena known as "time travel" are extremely complex
                                                                 ^^^^^^^
This is also ironic.

>and remain poorly understood.  Most recorded incidents have involved
>multiple effects which, in the absence of a fully developed theory of
>time, are often difficult to untangle for separate description and
>analysis.  The Enterprise's unintentional journey to the Terra of the
>late 1960's began with an accidental encounter with an uncharted black
>hole.  The unusual properties of this particular hole had attracted
>their attention, resulting in the Enterprise making a low warp speed
>sensor pass.  The anomalous readings prevented them from realizing the
>nature of this object until it was too late.  The hole's intense
>distortion of the continuum pulled the Enterprise out of warp, where
>ship was in iminent danger of being sucked into the hole itself.
>    On Kirk's orders, Sulu applied full emergency power in a desperate
>attempt to fight their way back to threshold so as to to re-enter the
>warp continuum, but even as the mighty starship trembled under the
>effort, the threshold power level was moving higher and higher as they
>neared the event horizon.  With seconds left before the end, Mr.  Scott
>in engineering surmised the nature of their situation.  Knowing the
ship
>could never make the rising tertiary warp threshold in time, he engaged
>the emergency circuit breakers to take the tertiary booster coils
>offline, and diverted 100% of the reactor output into what was now a
>lower threshold secondary warp field system.  The collapse of the
>tertiary field into a secondary one "collided" with the rapidly growing
>overall power level, kicking the ship into the warp continuum with such
>explosive force that she briefly left sub-space itself on a kind of
>"ballistic arc" OVER rather than thru the warp-space she would normally
>traverse.

This is, of course, what appears in Kirk's log and the inquiry believed
it. :) From the episode in question ("Tomorrow is Yesterday"), it is
clear however that the slingshot effect occured when they passed around
the sun.  One may note that if exceeding the speed of light causes time
travel, then it is surely the miracle of warped space that prevents it
from happening all the time.

-thirty two paragraphs which sound very impressive have been deleted
including four on phasers.

>    Unlike sub-space "radio", which simply attenuates under an inverse quare
square
>law, phaser beams have a much shorter range due their propensity to    ay"
"decay"
>by losing their energy to the creation of visible spectrum photons all long
along
>their path of travel.  This is what the observer sees, not the phaser  am
beam
>itself.  The actual phaser effect is one of micro-range random         e
space/time
>fluctuations in the topological gradient of the space encountered,     ting
imparting
>warp impulses to the atoms encountered.  The effect tends to spread and
>propagate thru solid matter, so that material objects are likely to
>distribute the effect throughout their particularly shaped volumes.

Riiight.

>    At high power, the effect is so severe that all molecular bonds are
>snapped, and all of the particles are "impulsed" in random directions. What
>What had been a solid object becomes an expanding cloud of particles   ast
moving fast
>enough to penetrate other solid matter to an enormous extent.  A body
so
>"disintegrated" on a ship would pass right thru the hull like a burst
of
>gamma rays, but because the particles are traveling via impulse rather han
than
>momentum, their behavior apes that of neutrinos in that they do almost o
>no damage to the matter they pass thru.
>    Lower power simply streches the molecular bonds without breaking   m,
them,
>their rebounding motions translating into simple heat.  In this manner,a
>hand phaser may be used to heat rocks for warmth, cook food, or even    as a
act as a
>very precise cutting torch.  At the lowest useful power, the jolting of
>molecules is too slight to really impact inanimate matter, but does     to
tend to
>produce neurological shock as large numbers of synapses have their     g
firing
>threshold randomly raised or lowered.  The vast number of additional   sus
versus
>inhibited synaptic firings causes a biological equivalent of "systems  ash"
crash"
>leading to unconsciousness, as the nervous system becomes hopelessly   fused
confused
>and overloaded by spurious signals.  As no actual tissue damage is     ined,
sustained,
>the nervous system "reboots" itself eventually.  Somewhat higher power an do
can do
>permanent, even lethal damage to the nervous system however, and can   se a
cause a
>seizure-like muscular convulsion.  This minimally lethal effect is not nlike
>unlike electric shock.

-two introductory paragraphs on transporters deleted

>    The transporter breakthru grew out of experiments attempting to
>manipulate matter via alterations of the continuum profile associated
>with an object.  If a continuum profile projection were maintained long
>enough, it began to fill itself in with atoms picked up from the
>environment.  Eventually, it would recreate the original, though in the
>meantime, if sufficient power was used to intensify the projection,
this
>profile construct could behave like the original, even appearing to be
>solid matter, as long it remained within range of the projection
radius.
>at the same time, it was shown that changes in the profile of the
>original were reflected in the original object as well in the
>projection, establishing the real-time linkage between the two.  Early
>attempts at matter manipulation were usually destructive, not until the
>early 24th century would the raw computer power be available for such
>things as the holodeck, where the projection could be based on computer
>simulations rather than real life / real time models, but in these
>pioneering efforts, the ability to project a profile back on its own
>source object, while maintaining an independent second projection
>elsewhere, was developed.

Leon forgot that replicators were available during TOS.  Holodecks are
considered an advancement in technology due to the speed at which matter
and light is manipulated.

>   Dr.  Janet Hester of the Deneva Research Station first conceived     idea
the idea
>that if one reversed the "topological polarity" of the image projected ack
back
>upon the source, in effect FLATTENING the impression it made in        me,
space/time,
>while simultaneously boosting the gravitational intensity, and thus theDEPTH
>DEPTH of the spatially projected image, one could create a situation inthe
which the
>probability of finding any given constituent of the source object at
the
>original location could be reduced to zero, even as the probability of
>finding it at the projection's location went up to unity.  Every       nt of
component of
>an object, its atoms, the chemical bonds between them, even the ongoing
>molecular processes, would cascade back and forth between the twin lociof
>of probable locations, finally coming to rest at the one brought to     Of
unity.  Of
>all the marvels that have sprung from Zephram Cochrane's insights, nonemore
more
>clearly demonstrate his success at unifying gravitational space/time
>continuum phenomena with quantum mechanical probability functions.
>    It would take another four decades of dedicated experiment and
study
>before Science Officer Winston of the USS Moscow became the first humanto
>transport across to the USS Tehran.  Still more work was required       the
before
>ability of the tranporter to project a "virtual" yet functional copy ofthe
the
>active components of the scanning and projection processes to envelope he
the
>retrieval site would eliminate the need for physical hardware at both  ds of
ends of
>the transport linkage, and theb to learn to bend the projection around he
the
>surfaces of planets using the natural gravitational field so that      ort
transport
>could be free of line-of-sight restraints.  The depth of dense
planetary
>matter the transporter can penetrate is still limited, but the often
>life-saving speed and conveinience of transport in general has proved  ll
>well worth the time, cost, and often sacrifice it took to perfect.
                                      ^^^^^^^^^
Makes you wonder what was left of Science Officer Winston when he
appeared on the USS Tehran, eh? :) Seriously, the idea of you and your
copy existing simultaneously during transport is a very satisfying one
although completely non-canon.

-eleven paragraphs and three Appendixes deleted.

All in all, I'd say Leon had some good ideas about warp drive, time
dialation, phasers and transporters.  Does anyone remember how these
ideas were received on the net four years ago?  What do people think
today, four years later?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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