black holes in star trek
May 13th, 2009 by AriMore spoilers from the Star Trek movie. Seriously, just go watch the darn movie already.
I know I’m not the first to complain about the physics of star trek, but a few things bugged me, especially J.J. Abram’s use of black holes.
- If you want to make a black hole that can destroy a planet, there is no need to create it at the center of the planet. It will still destroy the planet if you create it on the surface of the planet, or even near the planet but not actually on it.
- Black holes do not grow spontaneously. They grow from absorption of matter and energy. At the end of the movie, the black hole seems to just grow for no apparent reason.
- Nothing can escape from a black hole, not even Nero’s “never surrender” transmission. (Although as an interesting side note, the energy transmitted from the surface of a star the instant before it becomes a black hole will be received over an infinite period of time).
- A black hole shouldn’t be able to stop a supernova as Spock tries to do. In fact, supernovae often have black holes at the center, and that doesn’t stop the outer layers from being thrown off in a violent explosion.
- The black hole inside Nero’s ship at the end should have almost instantly destroyed the ship (without even needing to grow). Because parts of the ship were so much closer to the black hole than others, the whole thing would have suffered from very unequal gravitational forces acting on it, and would have been pulverized in a process called spaghettification. (Stephen Hawking made up the word, I swear).
- Vulcan has a red sky. (Stop messing with continuity Abrams!)
- Old Spock is on Delta Vega so he can see Vulcan’s destruction. Think about how we see other planets in the sky (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, etc.). They’re all dots in the sky. If Delta Vega is close enough to Vulcan to see it that clearly in the sky, then it must be so close that it’s hard to imagine they both have independent orbits around the same sun(s). Also Delta Vega has been seen before, and is nowhere near Vulcan. (Stop messing with continuity Abrams! Pick an original name!)
Tags: J.J. Abrams sucks, star trek
May 13th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Regarding #4, a black hole could in fact stop a blast wave of a supernova, much in the way that a rock can stop a wave on shore: there would be a teardrop-shapped “lee” behind the hole. However, then you’d have to contend with the presence of a local black hole, which is certainly a greater long-term threat than the immediate supernova threat.
Romulus was clearly doomed – perhaps Ambassador Spock’s approach was designed to give it time to be evacuated?
May 13th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Regarding #4, a black hole could in fact stop a blast wave of a supernova, much in the way that a rock can stop a wave on shore: there would be a teardrop-shapped “lee” behind the hole. However, then you’d have to contend with the presence of a local black hole, which is certainly a greater long-term threat than the immediate supernova threat.
Romulus was clearly doomed – perhaps Ambassador Spock’s approach was designed to give it time to be evacuated?
May 13th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Except that’s not how the black hole was being used, and it wasn’t the blast wave they were trying to stop.
Every supernova ever known to man has caused a massive explosion localized to that star system, which is then visible from afar, but causes no harm outside its own star system. this was some sort of “special” supernova which kept growing and growing until the supernova itself actually consumed matter beyond its own star system, eventually including Romulus. (They never explained how – must be magic).
The point of the red matter was not to use it to shield anything (which probably wouldn’t work in the face of the magical supernova that consumes everything anyway, but who really knows), it was being inserted into the center of the supernova, with the goal of collapsing it from the inside. (Apparently JJ Abrams thinks black holes only work if they start inside of an object). That was the whole point of the funny looking ship Spock was on. (It was designed by LaForge to be super strong and could theoretically stand up to severe stresses.)
May 13th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
One more thing I forgot – remember that a black hole is still normal mass, it’s just incredibly dense. Assuming our magical supernova had enough force, there’s no reason it couldn’t push the black hole (sort of like the waves on the beach can push the rock farther up the shore). The black hole would then be heading towards Romulus along with the explosion – two catastrophes for the price of one!
May 17th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Isn’t it more appropriate to blame the writers of the movie for getting the physics incorrect? And if we’re going to attack the physics of this movie, why not go after the entire series (faster-than-light travel, teleportation, etc.)?
May 19th, 2009 at 11:06 am
In “Physics of star trek”, someone who knows far more about physics than I ever will (in that he’s a physics professor) already went through all the ST basics – transporters, inertial dampers, warp drive, etc. Some of the things are impossible, but a surprisingly high number are theoretically possible, even if they are very unlikely, difficult, or have side effects that are simply ignored.
May 25th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
yeah the whole red matter thing was a poorly conceived exercise. but st stopped doing anything remotely approaching fact-checking/scientific consulting years ago. i could probably come up with a dozen examples off the top of my head…