3.5 stars

Hard book to rate, but I rounded up since it does capture a sense of human achievement that Star Trek is all about. It does get very technical at times but the book isn't called "Trek Physics for Dummies"

This book takes a laymans-understandable look at physics, using various Star Trek examples as a frame for exploring how things work around us. Brilliant!

Krauss is great. Fun read.

While this book was interesting and described various phenomena in the field of physics, the title is misleading. The author used concepts from the Star Trek universe, in some cases only the word itself and then proceeded to explain in detail where Star Trek was either wrong or the concept couldn't be accomplished. In the few cases where Star Trek got something right, the author then went into detail as "not really".

If the author wanted to explain various concepts in physics, I'm sure it could've been done differently. If he really wanted to criticize the Star Trek franchise, I'm sure he could've done that also, however I don't think his book would've sold as well.

I'm as much of a Trekkie as the next person, probably a little more, so this was so very fun to read.

Lawrence Krauss has an easy-to-read conversational style of writing. At times I couldn’t put the book down, despite its seriously scientific subject matter. The book is a discussion of the forces that make up our universe, from the entertaining perspective of Star Trek. While neither compendium nor companion to the TV series or movies, this volume uses on-screen examples to discuss experiments in and theories of quantum physics.

I like the way the author focuses on the quantifiable, calculating how many atoms must be present in the human body, and how much energy would be required for the transporter to “shoot” matter a certain distance down to a planet. In this way, the author questions the plausibility of space travel and adventure as depicted in the stories of Star Trek. Will our species ever be able to explore the galaxy in a starship, encounter other intelligent life, and unite to form a federation of planets? Our understanding of physics can limit those possibilities.

Although quantum theories are complex topics, and much of it doesn’t yet make sense to me, the author drew me along, reasonably explaining the various topics. I may have come away with a slightly less vague understanding of our universe; and certainly a deeper appreciation for its vastness and variety.

While I enjoyed the references to particular Star Trek episodes or movies, I often found my memory strained by the name of the episode and its context in this book. Although I understand the purpose of the book is not to regurgitate each plotline, I could have used an additional descriptive sentence to deepen my understanding of the author’s illustrative points.

I was not enthused by the section that speculates whether intelligent life really exists elsewhere in the universe, or how many years old is the universe, or why its expansion seemingly increases. An acknowledgement of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle here might limit speculation about such subjects until we have more accurate measurements. Meanwhile, as our brightest minds ponder galactic mysteries, we cannot seem to figure out how to provide food to the people of Haiti.

Immediately after this section, however, Krauss goes into a fascinating discussion about how our solar system may have developed from the remnants of a supernova – creating the elements which make up our bodies and our environment on Earth.

I would have liked the author to discuss Artificial Intelligence as it relates to the holodeck, or to Commander Data. However, I appreciate that Krauss draws primarily from his own expert knowledge of physics and cosmology. Admittedly, our understanding of all these concepts is subject to constant evolution of thought.

Overall, I found this book a good way to explore the universe without actually embarking on a starship.

Read this in high school. It really gave me a way to apply physics to something I knew in Star Trek. Well written and thorough, but not too heavy.

It's a trope that SF writers have been inspired by cutting-edge sciences as much as they have inspired back scientists and engineers when it comes to develop new technologies. What about Star Trek, then? Are some of the imaginary sciences used in this otherwise amazing and highly intelligent show ever possible to start with? Lawrence M. Krauss offers here his own thoughts, based on his expertise as a physicist.

Now, I have to say, his is quite pessimistic.

Would we ever be able to travel at near-light speed as required by the warp-drive technology? His answer: probably not because, quite simply, near light speed slows down clocks and so a star ship travelling at such speed away from the Earth would ultimately have its crew ending as being seriously out of synch with time as unfolding on Earth!

What about interacting with intelligently advanced alien civilizations, then? Well, same sad perspective. First, because to boldly go seeking them out is not an option (again: because of the issue of journeying through the galaxy, taking into consideration both the mindbogglingly high distances and the speed of light that would be required to travel them). Then, because getting them to discover us may not be an option either, as their technologies could be far too advanced for detecting our crude, probably outdated (to their own standards!) radio technology.

Ha! But what about holograms such as the Doctor in the Voyager series, then?! Pffft. Forget it too. It's not that holograms dispensing medical advices are an impossibility (on the contrary!) but that, being reflected-light, there is no way that an hologram could perform the physical, handling tasks required in practicing medicine. Oh dear...

Is it all that bad, then?

Surprisingly, where Lawrence M. Krauss shows himself optimistic is when tackling the issue of the transporter. Would it be possible to dematerialise a whole human being; hold it in a "transporter buffer"; then re-materialise it somewhere else as is often done in Star Trek, especially when characters are regularly "beamed out" onto/ from planets' surfaces? Well... Are we talking about transporting atoms? Or are we talking about bits that is, the information (e.g. DNA/ genetic code) making up a person? The nuance may seem extremely geeky, but highly relevant to decide if it could be done or not. And, according to the author, it could be done if we're talking about bits (the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle prevents it if we're talking about atoms...).

All in all, then, I really enjoyed reading this. I am not scientifically-minded, and so it took me a lot of efforts to get the basics of quantum mechanics, the implications of curved-space, and the problems raised by space-time as described by Einstein. Even so, I am pretty sure that a lot of it still went completely over my head -and so I had no choice but to take at face-value what the author stated despite him admitting to his own limited understanding at times (e.g. as he makes it clear when discussing transporters: he is not a computer scientist, and so his optimism may be misplaced...)! This, thought, reflects only my own, personal intellectual shortcoming. The Physics of Star Trek, for all its geekiness and hassle to get through if you're not one to gets physics easily, remains a must-read for anyone interested in what is possible or not when it comes to some of the most compelling technologies put forth in Star Trek. "Make it so!"? Meh. That's another issue!

K tejto knihe ma priviedlo to, že aktuálne pozerám niektoré Star Trek seriály, no fyzika a astronómia ma nikdy nebavili - tak som sa chcela dozvedieť viac. Kniha je zaujímavá aj vtipná, na konkrétnych príkladoch z univerza Star Treku autor vysvetľuje technológie, ktoré producenti ST v seriáloch použili a autor sa zaoberá tým, či sú možné alebo nie. So základmi stredoškolskej fyziky sa to číta dobre a ešte sa človek kopu vecí dozvie.

Cool book if you like physics and star trek. It explains a lot of the scientific phenomena often mentioned in the show, as well as some things the show also gets wrong. Some of it is kind of dense to read, but i think the author does his best to explain it in a way that’s easier to understand.

Reading this book only brings up one question: Did Star Trek name things after Science or did Science name things after Start Trek? hmmmmm.....

Perhaps because of my background in engineering and physics, I had desired for this book to go into greater technical detail. So I could not give the book 5 stars. However, because the book remains accessible to a wide audience, and does at least touch on many of the problems encountered in trying to explain the physics of Star Trek, I can still recommend the book to others.