Andre Bormanis is the Science Advisor to both current Star Trek television series (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager). Andre wrote the scripts for two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager - 'Fair Trade' and 'Waking Moments'.
Question: How is it that you came to become the science consultant for Star Trek? And will you be remaining in this position until the next (if any, but likely) Star Trek series?
David
Andre Bormanis: I became the science consultant for Trek about five years ago through my agent, Fredda Rose. She was in the process of arranging a pitch meeting for me at Next Generation when she found out they were looking for a new science advisor. They wanted someone with both a real science and a creative writing background, and I fit the bill. I haven't heard about any plans for a new series, but I will be back next season as the science advisor for Voyager and DS9, and I'm also helping out on the new Next Generation film, which starts shooting in a week or two.
Q: How do replicators work, and what do they use to materialize things????
Nigel
AB: Replicators use a technology similar to transporter technology. They begin with a molecular pattern for the object or material to be replicated, and then create that object out of 'feedstock' material using a transporter to rearrange the atoms into the appropriate molecular patterns. The replicator cannot reproduce living matter, although it can replicate edible food.
(Andre's new book is 'Star Trek Science Logs', and it's available in bookstores now.)
Q: What is a protouniverse?
Joshua
AB: A protouniverse is a patch of 'false vacuum' that can, under certain conditions, evolve into a full-blown universe that expands and evolves much like our own universe. We don't know for certain if so-called false vacuums exist in nature, or under what circumstances they might be triggered into expanding into new universes, but there are good theoretical reasons for believing that such things exist. I discuss this a bit in the Science Logs book.
Q: I work at Star Trek the Experience. Have you had a chance to see it yet? Were you consulted about it? Stop in and say "Hi".
WesinLV
AB: I haven't seen it yet, but would love to. I hope to get up there soon. I was consulted just a little on a couple of small issues in the simulator ride, but I really had very little involvement in the development of it.
Q: How exactly do you add new sciences to Star Trek? Is it the latest developments or what?
Mike
AB: It's a combination of things. I try to stay current on new developments in science of technology, and extrapolate how today's breakthroughs might become tomorrow's advanced technology. I read science fiction as often as I can to see where science-trained writers like Greg Bear and others are going; they often learn about or anticipate breakthroughs before they become public knowledge. Our writers also stimulate my scientific imagination by pushing me to find ways to make the science elements in their stories work in the context of our present understanding of physics, chemistry, and biology.
Q: Did Star Trek inspire you, or did your vocation inspire you to work in Star Trek?
Ben and Syl
AB: I vividly remember watching the original Star Trek when I was seven years old, and being completely mesmerized by it. I didn't understand what was going on in the story, but the image of the ship flying through space visiting exotic planets, and the crew beaming down to explore those planets, got me hooked. It definitely fueled my interest in real science, particularly astronomy. Probably half of the scientists and engineers I've met and worked with over the years also cite Star Trek as one of the things that got them interested in pursuing technical careers. My other big inspiration was the Apollo program. I was ten years old when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, and was glued to the television for the entire Moon walk.
Q: I am reading the sequel to 'When Worlds Collide' called 'After Worlds Collide' written in the 1930's. It talks about transparent steel structures, in Star Trek IV transparent aluminum was used on the ship, is there any way an alloy such as this can ever become a reality?
Joyce
AB: The answer is a qualified yes. I talk about transparent aluminum in Science Logs. Basically, you would need to find a stable configuration of aluminum atoms that held onto their orbiting electrons rather tightly. The outermost electrons of aluminum are easily kicked up to higher energy levels by visible light photons. These photons are absorbed, and therefore cannot pass through the aluminum, making it opaque. If you could get aluminum atoms to bind together in such a way that higher energy photons were required to boost the energy levels of the electrons, visible light photons would pass through an aluminum sheet without too much trouble, and the aluminum would be transparent. Incidentally, it follows that transparent aluminum, like glass, would not be a good conductor of electricity, because the electrons are too tightly bound to serve as conductors.
Q: When you write an episode, do you write it from a scientific standpoint or a storyline standpoint?
HowardK
AB: It depends on the story. 'Fair Trade' was mostly about characters: Neelix getting involved with an old friend who suckered him into some nasty business on a space station. The science required by that story was fairly minimal.
(Andre wrote the scripts for two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager - 'Fair Trade' and 'Waking Moments'.)
AB: A story that I wrote for an upcoming episode, 'Demon,' was much more science-driven because the premise of the story itself involves questions of how planetary environments become suitable for life -- an essentially scientific question.
Q: Shouldn't voyager be receiving subspace signals that where sent out by Starfleet 7 years ago by now?
trek wreck
AB: Subspace signals travel much faster than the speed of light, but without subspace relays to pass them along, they will degrade before they have traveled more than several thousand light years. The Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across; without relays, it would be impossible to send a signal that far.
Q: What is a Dyson Sphere and why would anyone need to build one.
Jason
AB: Freeman Dyson is a theoretical physicist at Princeton who, several decades ago, began thinking about how a civilization might continue to grow after it had exhausted terrestrial, non-renewable energy sources. He realized that in space, solar energy is constantly available, and could be harnessed for billions of years. He calculated that an advanced civilization could harness more and more solar energy by building solar energy collectors in orbit around their Sun, and given enough time, could convert all of the planetary material in their solar system into a shell surrounding their Sun that would absorb energy and convert it into electricity for doing work. This is the basic idea behind a Dyson Sphere. We saw a Dyson Sphere in the TNG episode 'Relics.'
Q: Star Trek has dealt with the issue in several episodes of Data's rights in regards to being human or not, and being treated accordingly? The movie "Blade Runner" also deals with this issue, that something we create, in a sense mechanically should not have the same rights as 'Humans.' What issues do you foresee with AI? Can we ever achieve something like him, Data? Is it theoretically possible? What moral and ethical dilemmas do you foresee with the creation of androids and other such related topics?
James
AB: This is a very good and very complex question. The first problem is how one would determine that a machine intelligence is sentient. So far, we've been able to build computers that play chess as well as the best human players, but we wouldn't say that those computers are sentient. They only do what they are programmed to do, and cannot act on their own free will. If we should someday build a machine that acts on its own, that is to say, a machine that has volition, then maybe that machine would need to be accorded some kind of rights. On the other hand, how would you know that the machine was really acting on its own initiative, as opposed to being a machine that was cleverly programmed to act like it was acting on its own initiative?!!!
Q: Will computers ever match the raw computational power of the brain?
Quark's lady
AB: I think there are a number of computers in the world today that outmatch the computational power of my brain! It really depends on how you measure computational power, but certainly computers will someday be able to performm more calculations per second than the number of equivalent 'operations' that go on in a human brain during cognitive processes. I'm not sure, though, that this would make the computer 'smarter' than the average human. As I discuss in my book, there are many different forms of intelligence, and many different ways of measuring intelligence.
Q: How far are we away from the 'fifth phase' of computing, the beginning of robots with consciousness and self-awareness? Can we still call them robots at that time? Do you foresee them turning on their masters?
Alan
AB: Again, I think it would be difficult to determine when a robot or computer has achieved consciousness. We would probably have to take the machine's word for it! I don't think they would necessarily rise up against their creators, anymore than children 'rise up' against their parents; there may be growing pains and autonomy issues, but I don't think we'll ever see widespread robot patricide! (At least I hope!)
Q: Are we searching in a foolish way for other civilizations? We are looking for radio and television emissions where we think they might transmit, wouldn't this be such a short period of time that we should be looking in a different spectrum altogether?
Cosmos
AB: Some people are looking in different parts of the spectrum, such as the optical region, for signals from other civilizations. The main problem is that we are limited by the sophistication of our own technology. The current SETI program, sponsored in part by The Planetary Society, assumes that more advanced civilizations are actively trying to contact other civilizations, even those that are so primitive they only use radio technology. Someone once made the point that aboriginal peoples living in jungle communities, without the benefits of technology, sometimes communicate by beating drums or sending smoke signals, unaware that radio and TV transmissions are passing through their villages. We may be in the same position with respect to extra-terrestrial civilizations!
Q: Are we alone in the galaxy?
Maria
AB: I think we might be. This probably sounds pessimistic from someone who works for Star Trek, but I think that if our galaxy were teeming with intelligent life, we would probably have seen some sign of it by now. I do believe there is life out in space, and maybe even lots of life. But intelligent, technological civilizations like ours may well be rare. It's possible that intelligent species like dolphins and whales are the rule in our universe, and we are the exception. On the other hand, the universe is full of surprises, and we may yet hear from other civilizations. I certainly hope so, and I certainly think the radio search is worth the effort. I hope I live to see it happen!
Q: How do you think 'First Contact' will happen?
Art
AB: That's a very good question. I bet we will all be surprised by how it happens. The most likely scenario is the discovery of life within our own solar system. Simple, single-celled life forms may have flourished on Mars billions of years ago, when that planet was warmer and supported water on its surface. Life may still exist there underground. There may be an ocean of liquid water under the surface if Jupiter's There may be an ocean of liquid water under the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, and if that proves to be the case, I wouldn't be surprised to find a variety of life forms flourishing there. NASA currently has a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, studying Europa, and plans to send another mission there in a few years. Ultimately, I think first contact will involve us finding living organisms or their fossils somewhere else in our solar system.
Q: Transporting...will it ever become reality...I recently heard it is closer to reality than most think...am I wrong?
DUKAT
AB: Unfortunately, the transporter, at least in terms of how we have always described its workings on the show, will probably never happen. Disassembling a person atom by atom, turning those atoms into energy, and reconstructing them someplace else violates a hallowed principle of modern physics: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. A transporter that involved a temporary wormhole on the other hand might be possible. The experiment you're referring to involved something called quantum entanglement, which, although very interesting and important in its own right, doesn't really help much in terms of building a bonafide Star Trek transporter.
Q: How do the Heisenberg compensators work?
Geer
AB: As Mike Okuda likes to say, Very well, thank you!
Q: Have you heard of the Honda 'Human' Robot project? Do you think this is the first real step towards a 'Data- type' being?
Junior
AB: No, but it sounds very frightening! I assume they want to build a robot that looks like a human, but frankly, that strikes me as an exercise in ego, rather than something that would have a practical application. Industrial robots are designed to optimize a specific function, and typically that means it will look and operate very differently than humans. For the most part, humans are not very efficiently designed for the kinds of tasks we would like robots to do.
Q: Have you heard about The 1998 High-Z SN Search and their finding of anti- gravity? If this is validated do you think this will dramatically change our future?
Fred
AB: I have about this. Some astronomers have measured the brightness of supernova (SN) far from our galaxy (at what astronomers call "high Z"), and based on their studies it looks like there is a force that pushing along the expansion of the universe, opposing the gravitational forces. That would tend to make the expansion slow down. It's too soon to tell whether this finding might indicate the existence of a true anti-gravity force, or something else entirely. But it certainly is exciting, and it's the kind of discovery that may someday help us develop spacecraft that can travel to the stars. We just looked at the Honda Human Robot website. We'll post the URL.
(Thanks, JJ, for the address of the Honda Robot site: http://www.honda.co.jp/ home/hpr/e_news/robot/index.asp)
AB: It's scarier than I thought! But if they can build a walking robot, maybe they can make an efficient electric car and a leaf blower that doesn't pollute and wake me up at 6:00 a.m. with a terrible noise!
Q: Do you think we will ever break the light-speed barrier in space travel in our lifetime?
Craige
AB: I think we may someday break the light-speed barrier, in the sense that if we can figure out how to warp space, we can probable travel at speeds that are effectively greater than light, even if we are travelling at sublight speed within the space warp. It's hard to say whether we will live to see such a breakthrough; breakthroughs by definition are impossible to predict! There is a small group of researchers at NASA who are studying some of the more exotic possibilities for future space travel, including anti-matter propulsion and warp drive. I hope they succeed soon!
Q: Star Trek has dealt with unforeseen problems with its technology, such as with its warp drive creating dangerous rifts in the fabric of space-time. Is it possible that if we start experimenting with space-time we may open up a proverbial 'Pandora's Box' of trouble that we can not control.
Richard
AB: I think that's a good question, and a legitimate concern. I don't think that anything we're doing in physics right now will create a local rift in space time that threatens the Earth, for example, but who knows what may happen hundreds of years in the future? We don't have to look any farther than our own ozone layer to know that human industrial activity often has unintended consequences that are sometimes very difficult to reverse.
Q: Shouldn't we be concentrating on here with our problems and not worrying about what is out there?
Hanson
AB: For the most part, we do focus on our problems down here. For example, Congress will probably authorize about $200 billion this year for building roads, bridges, and rail road tracks in the U.S. NASA, on the other hand, will get less than $14 billion. The NASA budget is less than one percent of the total Federal budget. I think that a nation with our resources owes it to future generations to learn as much as we can about our environment, including outer space. You never know how important that knowledge may someday become. Lots of important advances have come out of pure research, by scientists simply pursuing their curiosity without any thought given to whether their work would have any practical benefit.
Q: Did you get to meet Steven Hawking?
ABH
AB: No, unfortunately. He was a guest star on the show before I worked here. But I did attend a lecture Hawking gave at CalTech a couple of years ago, and it was wonderful just to be in the same room with him. He gave a very clear and fascinating lecture on the future of physics and his research into cosmology.
Q: Do you think all of the great technology will ultimately lead us to an Orwellian type of society and not a Star Trek type?
Anson
AB: I'm more and more optimistic that we're headed toward a Star Trek kind of society. For a long time people were very afraid that computers would 'dehumanize' people and be used to monitor us around the clock. But really the opposite has been true: computers make vast amounts of information freely available to people, through the internet for example, and the technology would be very hard for a single government to try to control. All in all, I think technology has the potential to be more liberating than constricting, but we certainly need to be careful to not allow new technologies to be solely controlled by governments, or to become too dependent on technology as the solution to every human problem.
Q: Now that you are involved with the glitter and glitz of Hollywood do you regret your job choice? Would you now rather be involved in the industry making movies?
Quark's Lady
AB: I like doing both. I still consult for a planetary science research institute, The San Juan Institute, in San Juan Capistrano. I also run a telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory a couple of times a month, and help promote science education with The Planetary Society. I really love writing, both fiction and non-fiction. Isaac Asimov is my role model.
Q: Do you see yourself ever winning a Noble prize?
Peter
AB: Unless they create a Nobel Prize for Star Trek Science, I really doubt it.
Q: What is the 'Holy Grail' of physics?
Fred
AB: Most physicists would say that developing a unified field theory is the 'holy grail' of physics. Right now we recognize four fundamental forces in nature, and a slew of fundamental particles. Physicists are trying to combine these various forces and particles into a single theory that explains everything we can know about the physical universe. It's not clear that such a unification scheme is possible, but many people are working on it.
Q: Is there a real reason why you can hear the explosions and stuff in space or is it just the hydrogen and plasma vented from the nacelles that carry the sound wave to our ears?
Joey
AB: I like it! Yes, it's the vented plasma! Obviously, sound waves can't propagate through space, but most television and movie producers feel that an explosion without a boom is not very dramatic. Another 'faux' science explanation for why the viewer hears a sound might be this: If you're in space to witness the explosion, you must be on a ship or floating around in a space suit. The EM pulse from the explosion would overload your com system, creating the sound you hear from the explosion!
Q: I know this off the subject, but can you explain Schrodinger's Cat?
Mot
AB: Schrodinger was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics. He developed the Uncertainty Principle we discussed earlier. He also realized that physical changes in atoms and subatomic particles don't actually happen until they are observed. This led to an infamous example of how strange this notion really is: suppose a cat is placed in a box with an atom of radium. When the radium decays, it triggers a device that opens a bottle of poison that kills the cat. But the radium is in an indeterminate state of "decayed" and "not decayed" until someone observes it (according to quantum mechanics). But then this also means that the cat is in a mixed state of "dead" and "not dead" until we observe it! This is one of the more bizarre notions of quantum mechanics that Einstein and other scientists were very uncomfortable with. Einstein once quipped that quantum mechanics implies that the moon doesn't exist unless there is a mouse or some other observer around to see it!
Q: In various episodes of all the Star Trek series they deal with time travel. How is this possible? How can you use a black hole to time travel? How do you get back? Finally how do you pick the time you want to go to?
Lisa
AB: Black holes, in some circumstance, might be used for time travel. If a black hole is rotating at a very fast rate, time could be warped to an extreme degree, permitting travel into the past and turning the black hole into something called a 'naked singularity.' Most scientists think naked singularities are unlikely to exist in our universe, but it's not completely impossible. Wormholes can also be used for time travel. Controlling how far back into the past you travel would be extremely difficult. Travel back to the future, however, would be relatively easy. Traveling at speeds close to the speed of light slows down the rate at which time passes relative to someone at rest. By traveling close to the speed of light for a certain amount of time, you could travel to any future date you wanted, and would have no problem controlling down to the minute the time at which you would arrive. Speaking of time, I'm afraid my time has run out! But I look forward to coming back and doing another chat very soon. You've asked some very good and interesting questions and I've enjoyed trying to answer them!
