Welcome to the premier of the Science of Star Trek, a podcast series inspired by my review of Star Trek, the Original Series in the summer podcast special series Trekking Through Compliance.In this series I am joined by Astrophysicist and Healthcare Futurist Ben Locwin. In this podcast we consider the TOS episode Mirror Mirror as a starting point for the consideration of the science around the transporter.
In this episode, a landing party Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura beams back up to the Enterprise. Interference from an ion storm, however, causes them to be transported into a parallel universe and a mirror image Enterprise. Now aboard the Imperial Starship Enterprise, the landing party discovers crew members who are mirror images of themselves and belong to an evil Federation known as the Empire. Their first experience is the torture of transporter operator Mr. Kyle with an agonizer for his alleged failure to beam the landing party up quickly enough. Immediately, Kirk realizes that a mirror image landing party must have been beamed aboard the real U.S.S. Enterprise.
Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty impersonate their mirror image counterparts while finding a way to return to their universe. When Kirk and the party return, they find that their Empire counterparts were immediately recognized and put in detention. The Enterprise’s crew attributes this to the fact that it is easier for logical men to appear barbarous than for barbarous men to appear civilized.
Highlights include:
- Quantum transportation of information.
- While we cannot yet teleport, we can recreate.
- How does the telegraph signal explain this science used in Star Trek?
- What about the radio signals from the Apollo moon flights?
