Hollywood's Take on Technology
...nes. They have instant access to infinite amounts of information on the Internet. And they can spend hours staring at a big wall-mounted plasma or liquid-crystal display. That is, if they can afford one. The concept is also alive in physics today, in theories that our space-time may have eleven or more dimensions. But, Star Trek uses its own unrelated version of subspace, with signals that can travel as fast as the fastest starship. This is just a convenient notion to get messages to Star Fleet and back by the end of the movie, with no realistic physics behind it. The Borg (aliens): The antagonists of the movie are alien beings known as the Borg. The Borg were made popular during the Star Trek: The Next Generation T.V. series. The writers figured that there was a need for a different enemy that changes the focus from the Romulans. The Borg are a group of alien beings that are a mixture of human and machine-Cyborgs. The movie uses the audience’s exposure to prosthetics to enhance the believability. Though today’s technology is not at the extent that was portrayed in the movie, the audience can understand the relationship between the human-like features to the machine. The unrealistic characteristic of the Borg was their process of attaching the machinery. The picture to the right shows a human with his arm detached to prepare for the attachment of the cyborg arm. Just the mere fact the aliens exists ignites the imaginations of many people. Again, this fuels our image mapping of aliens based on the media exposure since the Roswell controversy. Most scientists now agree that life probably exists in other solar systems. The chemical elements for carbon-based life like the life forms on Earth are common in the Universe, so maybe life forms like us are numerous in the Galaxy. We can imagine all kinds of intelligent creatures, with any number of arms, legs, eyes, or antennae. It seems doubtful that humanoid shapes would be as common as the alien races on the Star Trek movies, though. Well, we have to allow the show some concessions to the shapes of available actors. Another question would be-Could half-human/half-alien hybrids ever exist, like Mr. Worf (Michael Dorn)? It seems almost impossible, but scientists have already created interspecies hybrids. Mr. Worf is not totally beyond biochemical reality, but definitely no time soon. Music Medium: The movie actually shows two eras of technology-2060s and the 24th century. The movie depicts the 2060s era still uses portable medium on some time of plastic in comparison to the Compact Disk of today. Of course, the writers had to make some differentiation of the technology. It basically looks like an octagonal-shaped contraption that is transparent green. The audience knew that it had something to do with music because Crochan places it into a device and pressed a button and music started playing. Sensors/Tricoder: The picture to the right shows a shot of the tricoder that was pretty popular in the newer Star Trek series. The device has two parts, one to probe a patient and the other is used to display the readings and house the controls. It works like an x-ray, blood tester, diagnosis device. In the movie, Dr. Crusher determined that Lily had “severe theta-radiation poisoning” after probing her. I do not know how this device was imagined, but it does work my imagination. Throughout all of the movies, the ship’s sensors provide information of atmospheric conditions. The ship’s sensors can determine element mixtures and identify personnel on the ship. Today, we have vibration sensors, sonar, radar, laser ranging, various kinds of light wavelength detectors and energetic particle detectors, and gravimeters. We also do a little three-dimensional imaging of the interiors of solid objects, like the human body, with magnetic fields and radioactivity detectors. The sensors and tricorders on Star Trek are quite different and more revealing as plot devices than anything we have. But with a stretch of the imagination, the tricorder scan could have today's magnetic resonance imager as its ancestor. The Enterprise's sensors must use the more imaginary) "subspace fields." Not all of the sensors on the show are possible. Holodeck (virtual aspect): The holodeck is a virtual world that was made popular in the Star Trek: The next generation series. The idea was to have a super-powerful computer generate a virtual world that is visually and physically realistic. This means utilizing 3D dimension and realistic stimulations to all of the human sensory organs. In the movie, Picard uploads a program that he created to allow him to live a holographic novel. The program placed them in a scene where Picard hoped a machine gun that one of the characters in the novel carries could be used to kill a couple of borg that was after him. Turns out that Picard selected the wrong chapter and asked the computer to jump to correct one. Today, virtual reality does exist through use of a special visor that feels different video feeds to each eye to “trick” the brain into believing a 3D environment is present. But, the movie’s holograms are apparent images with three-dimensional structure. I do not think technology can create a way to assemble matter in the same way as the light in a hologram. Computer (A.I.): The Computer on all of the U.S.S. Enterprises has been a captivating piece of technology. It is a voice recognition system translated to commands that the computer carries out. Most of the things it does are within the plausible realm of artificial intelligence that computer is programmed to understand. We have autopilot functions and navigational systems today, and these are the most used functions of the Enterprise computer. Our computers even approach the ability to interpret spoken orders that the Enterprise computer has. In 400 more years, the time when Star Trek: The Next Generation is set, it is reasonable to expect many of the abilities of this computer to really be achieved. Unfortunately, there are not clips of the computer because it is depicted as an audio feed. Category: Possible Phasers: As with the computer system portrayed in the movies, phasers have been part of Star Trek since the beginning. I do not know which came first, the phaser or laser tag. However, the two seem to be related in some form or fashion. I did notice one thing on the difference of the phaser gun and the phaser rifle. Pressing a button activated the phaser gun and the familiar trigger activated the rifle. This shows a design flaw between the two. Today’s guns and rifles have the same type of activation switch, the trigger. I assumed that they were designed to complement each other for easy of use. A shooter can transition between the two without pulling out a manual for each. On the other hand, the phasers of the 24th century would probably require addition training. They are really just spectacular energy blasters, with no detailed physics explanation. The original concept was probably that they were the next technological improvement upon lasers. To the extent that they differ from lasers, they are just fanciful props, descended from generations of blasters in science fiction of past. A flaw that I saw with the functionality of both devices was the single beam. Personally, I would like to have a phaser with rapid fire. Artificial Vision (Geordi’s eyes): Geordi Laforge (Levar Burton) was a major character in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. The one characteristic that he was known for was the noticeable visor that he used to restore some form of vision. I remember the episode that showed what he saw through the visors, but it looked like a bunch of kaleidoscopes bunched together. Only he could decipher the feed that the visors provided to him. In addition, he could see particles that others could not. In the movie, he is shown with out the visor. Instead, it looks as though it was replaced with a couple of artificial devices that either replaced the whole eye or used like contacts that cover the cornea of each eye. This may be considered an upgrade from the visor both esthetically and performance. The shot on the bottom left shows what he saw while looking for the stressed Dr. Cochran. First, he got a general location by use of the tricoder and used his visual devices to zoom in on the doctor. In addition, he is able to detect heat signatures displayed the reddish, orange shade of Cochran. Once scientists get a better understanding of mechanics of the eye, the possibility of vision restoration will be at the forefront. Android (Data): All of the Star Trek series and movie had a crewmember with some type of unusual aspect characteristic. The original Star Trek had Mr. Spock and his Vulcan ears. The writers of the Star Trek: The Next Generation scripted three in Mr. Worf, Geordi, and Data. Data was an Android that was created by a human to function like a human-but better. Maybe he enhanced the popularity of other science fictional portrayals of artificial life. In Star Trek: First Contact, Data played a major role in the success of the mission to preserve first contact. The Borg had the ability to “assimilate” beings into their “collective” by injecting them with some virus that prepares them for the transformation to a cyborg. However, Data was android that was totally artificial made of a nero-net system, metal, and wires. Creating Star Trek's Mr. Data would be a historic feat of cybernetics, and right now it's very controversial in computer science whether it can be done. Maybe a self-aware computer can be put into a human-sized body and con...