figthefruit's review against another edition
3.0
This is a fun book if you love Star Trek and want to know how everything goes. The author has a funny, relaxed style which is really helpful considering the complex stuff discussed. Definitely an interesting and worthwhile read if you have the time.
clarissa_pos's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.75
Borrowed it at the library, didn't finish it whole, but it was really informative and as a person who only starts with physics and all that stuff i can say it's well put and understandable. I loved the comparisons and examples on Star Trek series, helped a lot with understanding.
weaselweader's review against another edition
4.0
A serious romp through the cosmology of Star Trek?
The Physics of Star Trek is a light-hearted, informative, thoroughly entertaining and yet, paradoxically, entirely serious overview of the physics of Star Trek - arguably the longest-running, most popular, and most famous franchise in the history of television and movies. Dr Krauss regales us with essay after essay on what the writers got right, what they got wrong and how their imaginative brilliance sometimes made them look like prescient scientists instead of script writers - black holes, parallel universes, time travel, quantum gravity, phasers, holographic virtual reality, warp drives, teleportation, replication, alien life forms, scanners, tractor beams, antimatter fuel and much, much more.
Similar in content and style to Michio Kaku's popular Physics of the Impossible, Krauss' approach to the academic side of the physics involved is just a little more light-hearted and easy going which, of course, will appeal to the less-informed readers of popular science. If you feel up to the challenge, this makes a great prequel and companion read to Michio Kaku's excellent book.
For diehard Star Trek fans, Krauss also regales us with a set of laughable physics bloopers and ends with the hint of a sequel to come that he will entitle Physics of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Krauss! Now that's hilarious.
Well done, Mr Krauss. Highly recommended. On a side note, I recently had the privilege of hearing Mr Krauss speak live in a physics "debate" at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. If you ever get the chance to hear, be sure to take the opportunity. His speaking is every bit as entertaining as his writing. (Or is it the other way around?)
Paul Weiss
The Physics of Star Trek is a light-hearted, informative, thoroughly entertaining and yet, paradoxically, entirely serious overview of the physics of Star Trek - arguably the longest-running, most popular, and most famous franchise in the history of television and movies. Dr Krauss regales us with essay after essay on what the writers got right, what they got wrong and how their imaginative brilliance sometimes made them look like prescient scientists instead of script writers - black holes, parallel universes, time travel, quantum gravity, phasers, holographic virtual reality, warp drives, teleportation, replication, alien life forms, scanners, tractor beams, antimatter fuel and much, much more.
Similar in content and style to Michio Kaku's popular Physics of the Impossible, Krauss' approach to the academic side of the physics involved is just a little more light-hearted and easy going which, of course, will appeal to the less-informed readers of popular science. If you feel up to the challenge, this makes a great prequel and companion read to Michio Kaku's excellent book.
For diehard Star Trek fans, Krauss also regales us with a set of laughable physics bloopers and ends with the hint of a sequel to come that he will entitle Physics of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Krauss! Now that's hilarious.
Well done, Mr Krauss. Highly recommended. On a side note, I recently had the privilege of hearing Mr Krauss speak live in a physics "debate" at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. If you ever get the chance to hear, be sure to take the opportunity. His speaking is every bit as entertaining as his writing. (Or is it the other way around?)
Paul Weiss
david611's review against another edition
4.0
This book can be very interesting for someone who loves Star Trek as well as Physics. On several occasions episode titles are referenced to, and it could be interesting to pay attention to the matter dealt for that episode while also viewing it. These can also be directly navigated from within the index at the end of the book; I would certainly be doing the same.
Section One deals with Inertial Dampers, Tractor Beams, Time Travel, Warp Speeds, Deflector Shields, Wormholes, and other Space-time Stuff. How they are used, its physics and possibilities. If anyone has read a certain couple of books by [a:Michio Kaku|18800|Michio Kaku|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1379758804p2/18800.jpg] (or any Popular Science books on Physics), these ideas would be nothing new. This was precisely the reason why it failed to fascinate me because personally I have already read much about these. For a newbie, it can strike to be extremely appealing, no doubt!
Section Two deals with Transporter Beams, Warp Drives, Dilithium Crystals, Matter-Antimatter Engines, and the Holodeck. This was more interesting to read than the earlier, having comprised of subjects and ideas that fascinate me much.
With transporter beams, the writer talks about the possibilities of transporting matter as information or as atoms themselves, and how could it be ever done if possible. The details of how "dematerializing" would work have been very nicely explained, along-with how much energy is required to perform the teleportation, how that can be attained, and its feasibility in real life. It also talks about the thought of how a presence of a soul has studiously been avoided in Star Trek, but that at the same time the notion of a "life force" has been embedded in its themes in various episodes.
Its following chapter deals with Matter-Antimatter related problems, why matter should or is relatively lesser than antimatter in the universe, and how it can be produced and used for Warp Drives in real life perhaps in the twenty-third century for Space Travel.
Section Three involved a complete chapter dealing with the possibility of various kinds of life in the universe. Its following chapter dealt with a selection of ten exotic physics possibilities including the Dark Matter, Neutron Stars, Cosmic Strings, Anyons, Other Dimensions, Quantum Measurements, Solitons, Quasars, and Neutrinos. The final chapter was based upon selection of ten errors in Star Trek.
Upon reading, I felt more of a need to view more of the Trek Episodes, while also reading through a couple of their novels. Personally, I have never viewed a single episode from Deep Space Nine, Voyager and the Enterprise series and would like to do so soon. But their references were truly interesting anyway. Mr. Krauss has explained most of the ideas with good detailing and being as concise as possible for a layman's understanding of the various concepts.
A 4-star rating from me, having read much of the topics in other Popular Science books before, the only fascination for me being in context with Star Trek, and a few of its relevant notions.
Section One deals with Inertial Dampers, Tractor Beams, Time Travel, Warp Speeds, Deflector Shields, Wormholes, and other Space-time Stuff. How they are used, its physics and possibilities. If anyone has read a certain couple of books by [a:Michio Kaku|18800|Michio Kaku|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1379758804p2/18800.jpg] (or any Popular Science books on Physics), these ideas would be nothing new. This was precisely the reason why it failed to fascinate me because personally I have already read much about these. For a newbie, it can strike to be extremely appealing, no doubt!
Section Two deals with Transporter Beams, Warp Drives, Dilithium Crystals, Matter-Antimatter Engines, and the Holodeck. This was more interesting to read than the earlier, having comprised of subjects and ideas that fascinate me much.
With transporter beams, the writer talks about the possibilities of transporting matter as information or as atoms themselves, and how could it be ever done if possible. The details of how "dematerializing" would work have been very nicely explained, along-with how much energy is required to perform the teleportation, how that can be attained, and its feasibility in real life. It also talks about the thought of how a presence of a soul has studiously been avoided in Star Trek, but that at the same time the notion of a "life force" has been embedded in its themes in various episodes.
Its following chapter deals with Matter-Antimatter related problems, why matter should or is relatively lesser than antimatter in the universe, and how it can be produced and used for Warp Drives in real life perhaps in the twenty-third century for Space Travel.
Section Three involved a complete chapter dealing with the possibility of various kinds of life in the universe. Its following chapter dealt with a selection of ten exotic physics possibilities including the Dark Matter, Neutron Stars, Cosmic Strings, Anyons, Other Dimensions, Quantum Measurements, Solitons, Quasars, and Neutrinos. The final chapter was based upon selection of ten errors in Star Trek.
Upon reading, I felt more of a need to view more of the Trek Episodes, while also reading through a couple of their novels. Personally, I have never viewed a single episode from Deep Space Nine, Voyager and the Enterprise series and would like to do so soon. But their references were truly interesting anyway. Mr. Krauss has explained most of the ideas with good detailing and being as concise as possible for a layman's understanding of the various concepts.
A 4-star rating from me, having read much of the topics in other Popular Science books before, the only fascination for me being in context with Star Trek, and a few of its relevant notions.
innae's review against another edition
2.0
While I enjoyed a lot of this book, and it brought many physics ideas down to my level -- much of the book was still WAY UP HERE, and I am just not up there -- especially when it comes to Physics. I liked the last chapter the best when they discussed the errors.
greeniezona's review against another edition
3.0
One could almost believe this book is contemporary, with the recent Star Trek reboot movie bringing Trek back into popular culture, but alas, this book is from 1995. (It would have been really interesting to see what Krauss would have done with all that black hole sloppiness in J.J. Abram's movie.) But I finally got around to reading this, partially thanks to the TBR pile and Science reading challenges. It's not good to let books sit ignored for so long!
Reading this book, as with most popular science books, was an interesting experience. At one time, not so far distant, I had a really good grasp on most of the concepts explored in this book. But really, it's been years since I've thought of most of it in any sort of sustained way. So on one level, it was a light and interesting romp through some of the most profound concepts of physics, using the storytelling of the Trek universe to illustrate the implications. But on another level, I kept getting stuck, demanding my brain return to an earlier condition in which all of this was as native and easy to understand as my frivolous Facebook game strategies are now. But that state is hard to achieve when you're only getting to read the book in two-minute snatches, having to reread as much to remember where you were as you read new in any given sitting.
Sigh.
This book is dated and yet not. Engaging and easy one moment and mind-twisting the next. It would be very interesting to see an updated edition -- to bring into account the new movie as well as the detectors that Krauss mentions being built as he is writing that now have recently started producing interesting results. Amazon suggests there is a Kindle version revised in 2007, but the movie came out in 2009. I say another edition is due!
Interesting, but I will probably be releasing into the wilds of paperbackswap, as I have plenty of other reference physics texts.
Reading this book, as with most popular science books, was an interesting experience. At one time, not so far distant, I had a really good grasp on most of the concepts explored in this book. But really, it's been years since I've thought of most of it in any sort of sustained way. So on one level, it was a light and interesting romp through some of the most profound concepts of physics, using the storytelling of the Trek universe to illustrate the implications. But on another level, I kept getting stuck, demanding my brain return to an earlier condition in which all of this was as native and easy to understand as my frivolous Facebook game strategies are now. But that state is hard to achieve when you're only getting to read the book in two-minute snatches, having to reread as much to remember where you were as you read new in any given sitting.
Sigh.
This book is dated and yet not. Engaging and easy one moment and mind-twisting the next. It would be very interesting to see an updated edition -- to bring into account the new movie as well as the detectors that Krauss mentions being built as he is writing that now have recently started producing interesting results. Amazon suggests there is a Kindle version revised in 2007, but the movie came out in 2009. I say another edition is due!
Interesting, but I will probably be releasing into the wilds of paperbackswap, as I have plenty of other reference physics texts.
geekywoman14's review against another edition
3.0
I need to read the newer version. It's okay. Definitely not for someone who isn't at least a little physics minded.
arielx's review against another edition
4.0
For those of us that love Star Trek, this is pretty much a must read. It'll still be enjoyable if you like physics, as it's a nice comparison between science fact and fiction, written in a very accessible and humorous way.