WEBVTT - Adventures in Wookieepedia 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.640 Forward Thinking Taylor, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:19.080 podcast that looks at the future and says earth below us, drifting, falling, floating, weightless, 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:23.200 coming home. I'm Lauren vocal Bum. I'm Joe McCormick. We 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.079 got some approval from Joe on that one. You know, 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.480 usually I just scowl at you while you say song lyric. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.240 you didn't like the last one at all. But today 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.680 we're going to talk a little bit more about tractor beams. 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.680 That's what we discussed in our last episode, but we 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.760 wanted to get a little more wacky and crazy and 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.680 talk about the science fiction side of tractor beams. Yeah, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:43.440 because in case none of you could tell, we are 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.240 all kind of fans of science fiction. Yeah, we're nerds. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:51.960 I'm not Joe watch Joe watches a lot of science fiction, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.440 but he does so begrudgingly, with a scowl upon his 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.040 face and his fist clenched and furious anger. Well, I 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.120 hate pleasure and us. Yeah, that's that would be why. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.840 Uh yeah, no, Whereas I'm actually the son of a 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.440 science fiction author, so I grew up around science fiction 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.039 all my life, so it was bound to seep in 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.560 one way or the other. I did not rebel against 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.480 my science fiction upbringing, so it is definitely part of 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.840 my personality. So let's let's talk about a tractor beams. Guys, 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:22.800 we can see it come through and your your captain's 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.600 chair PERSONA. Yeah, where I I before every podcast I 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.280 leaned back and say, engage bones. Yeah, well, now we're 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.880 mixing up our our captain. You got Kirk on my picard? Alright, 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.679 where does this come from? Where does that concept come? Possibly? 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.440 The very first reference to tractor beams in fiction was 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:46.399 from something called The Skylark of Space. WHOA, that sounds wonderful. 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.800 It was a space drama by A. E. Smith, originally 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:55.160 serialized in and later published as a novel in nine Wow. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.680 So back in the twenties we had this concept. So, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.840 as far as you know, was the tractor beams some 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.760 thing that was designed to immobilize or bring forth something 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.120 or was it just the first mention of a tractor beam? 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.640 I cannot personally speak to that, as I have not 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:10.959 read the story, but nor have you watched the serial? 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.639 What the watched the serial? Yes? Never heard the serial 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.200 was it radio or was it movie? It was it 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.200 was magazine, magazine, cereale. I'm thinking serialized because I'm akin 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:27.000 of the old serialized, as in like Charles Dickens serialized. Yeah, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.800 so even more so, not like The Shadow. I was 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.000 getting a little too science fiction before you were that. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.360 There were no Theramans that I know of involved in 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.519 this particular writing. That would be another great podcast as Theremans. 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.639 But okay, so wait a minute, what was that year? 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:43.639 How early did we have tractor beams in fiction? That's 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:45.880 earlier than I would have thought, But without having read 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.600 the serial, obviously, we can't be sure that the tractor 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.160 beam and that is the same thing we think of 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.359 in science fiction today. Probably was just seems like it's 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.720 the kind of concept that would carry over into future 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.880 incarnations in science fiction. Uh so, yeah, this this whole 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:07.000 notion of I'm in space. I've got this big old 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.000 spacecraft that I'm in. Uh, there's something coming at me 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:11.360 that I want to move out of the way and 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.560 not necessarily blow up, or I want to bring it 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:15.799 into my spacecraft. How do I do that? I capture 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.239 it with energy and then I pull it in using 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.600 my tractor beam, which is really just shorthand for magical 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.080 thing that makes stuff behave the way I wanted to. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.720 Did you realize while you were talking there, you almost 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.720 for a second had a Scotti accent? Did I? Yeah, 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:35.000 almost for a second, capture, I didn't. That was horrible. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.240 I can't do a Scotty accents. I'm not even gonna try. Okay, well, 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.640 who was it that operated the Star Trek. Let's not 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.560 get into Star Trek Star Trek. We can talk about 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.680 Star Wars, Star Wars. Yeah, you've got some info on 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.400 Star Wars and tractor beams, right, Well, Star Wars was 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.280 the first place I ever heard about a tractor beaming. 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.480 So you're talking about Star Wars episode for a New Hope, right, 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:02.240 and that was originally called Star Wars. I love how yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:07.760 the actual first one. Um. I loved how that they 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.160 don't really explain what it is, right, you just you 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.200 know it's something that the Millennium Falcon gets trapped caught 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.200 an attractor beam. They're pulling us in. Yeah, I know. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.240 It's it's the Death Star that has the Millennium Falcon 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.120 in attractor beam. So, yeah, they arrived, that's no moon 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.120 and then they get sucked into the docking bay. Right, Um, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.360 turns out that the size of the death Star that 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.719 you see uh sucking in the Millennium Falcon and actually 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.920 before that, I think a star destroyer sucks in Princess 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.320 Leia's ship too, doesn't it. Well, you certainly see the 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:45.000 star destroyer. Take the the Karelian freighter that is, actually 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:46.680 it's not a fraighter. It's a correl. It's a CORRELLI 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.040 blockade runner. Yeah, actually I think I think they call 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.560 it a corvette in that it's a corvette. It is 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.120 a blockade runner. They take that into the docking bay, 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.400 but they don't actually say that it was caught in 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.280 a tractor beam. I don't think. Maybe maybe see three 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.320 p O does remember. Well, in any case, you're you'd 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.200 later be led to assume that, right, right, because obviously 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.280 I doubt that the ship just well, I'm going to 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.000 go park up in this other ship here or that 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.000 or the other ship is. We have exactly matched the 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.400 trajectory and and they had a really bad pilot. You know, 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:19.760 we were able to we were able to just scoop 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:21.840 it up like it was a net for a fish 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:27.720 accidentally parallel parking in space getting away from Okay, tractor beams. Um, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.960 well I have I was like, I wonder how, uh 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.840 Star Wars fan because obviously the movie's never explained. I 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.080 wonder how Star Wars fans have explained how the tractor 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.600 beams work, because there's a lot of filling out of 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.920 the technical especially through through the non canon media of 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:48.960 all of the video games. Yeah, so everything in Star 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.320 Wars essentially gets explained away in the extended universe, not 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:57.479 just tractor beams, everything from hyperspace to lightsabers to even 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.840 how the force works, which we got some more in 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.560 formation on an episode one with the whole medic Gloreans thing, 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.680 but uh uh yeah, we don't need to go into that, Okay, right, Um, 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.960 I have here a selection of crowdsourced wisdom from ye 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:18.080 old Wikipedia, Wikipedia, the Star Wars themed wiki. Okay, and 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.720 this is the from their article on tractor beams. I'm 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.080 going to read. So in the Star Wars universe, a 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.920 tractor beam was a projected force field us by spaceports, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.920 planetary bases, space stations, and starships to effectively grasp and 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.440 guide vessels to a safe designated landing. They could also 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.479 be used to forcibly capture enemy ships. The first death 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.280 Star was equipped with seven hundred and sixty eight tractor 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.360 beam generators, enabling it to constrain ships such as the 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.160 Millennium Falcon with ease. That's from the overview, and I'm 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:50.520 going to read the uh technical description section. Please do okay. 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:57.200 Technical description A human being wrote this, h A tractor 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.120 beam relied on the inertia of the craft it is 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.560 based upon, as compared to the craft being affected. Now, 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.160 I think that's interesting. I'm gonna come back to that um. 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.960 Ships with high inner ship typically meaning high mass, could 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.360 affect smaller vessels with little strain on their own propulsion. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.640 Capital ships could tract or small freighters, for example, But 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.040 if a freighter attempted to tract or a capital ship, 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:26.600 it would actually affect the smaller freighter's trajectory. For two 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.720 ships of roughly equal size, the attraction was equal, but 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.679 could be affected by the relative speeds of the two vessels. 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.720 So you're talking about mass and speed, You're really talking 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.560 about momentum here. Yeah, And so if the momentum of 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:40.880 one body is greater than the other, than the tractor 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:45.480 beam would be would affect the smaller the less massive, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.560 less fast of the two objects more than the other one. 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.240 So it's kind of it's kind of talking almost about 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.640 like about like a controlled orbit effect almost. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:57.680 because I mean, like now it makes sense because you've 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:59.600 got the Death Star. You've got the which has in 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.040 an mismass to the point where it could be mistaken 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:06.280 for a moon. Uh, and then you have the Millennium Falcon, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.360 which was a freighter ship and obviously much smaller. So 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:11.720 even though the Millennium Falcon might be able to move 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.880 through space far faster than the Death Star could, I 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.600 don't know, never saw the Death Stars specs on how 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:19.720 fast it can make the kessel run. Well, we know 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.240 the Death Star moved around pretty fast because it traveled 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.280 between systems, right, It's like, well we got to go 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.840 to this other system to blow up the hyper drive 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.360 hyperspace hyperspace. Yeah probably. Yeah, But even so you're you're 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.319 still you know, you still don't know how fast it 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.959 can go compared to the Millenium Falcon, which as the 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.400 junka junk in the galaxy. I mean that's what they've 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.680 established that this cannon. I somewhat appreciate this technical description 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:50.360 from Wooki pedia, because honestly, I had never thought before 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.480 about how the tractor beam as depicted in fiction would 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:58.200 affect the ship that was putting out the beam, right, right, 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.440 But that actually it makes sense to me now, especially 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.000 if we imagine it as something like gravity, right, because 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:07.720 gravity is a force that we believe to be exerted 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.800 by anything that has mass um And so you know, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.800 when you're at uh, you know, five thousand feet and 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.679 you're falling towards the Earth, you're getting attracted to the 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.240 earth gravity, but the Earth is also getting attracted to 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.440 your gravity. Right, You're both exerting a force on each other. 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.520 It's just that you're so much smaller it doesn't really 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.040 matter to the Earth. And the same thing is going 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.480 on here with the millennium falcon in the Death Star. Yeah, 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:37.120 the gravity is the relationship with gravity is between two bodies, uh, 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.760 their masses and the distance between them, right. So that's 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.400 basically what you have to be concerned with with gravity. 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.800 So yeah, I think that this kind of makes sense 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.400 in a in a roundabout way. I mean, obviously they 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:51.880 still don't explain how the force field is actually generating 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:53.599 right right there. Yeah, they're talking about some kind of 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.400 mechanism that's creating a focus for this. Yeah, and so, 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.599 uh that's kind of the magical placeholder, right. It's and 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.280 to be fair, Star Wars is more magic. It's more 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.640 fantasy than science fiction. It's it's it's fantasy that's set 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.439 in outer space, but it's really more I know a 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.520 lot of science fiction fans who would argue that that 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.600 Star Wars is really a fantasy film and it doesn't 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:18.640 you know, they're they're helped by the fact that George 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:23.360 Lucas himself has referred to it in very uh, fantasy 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.480 oriented ways, like calling a lightsaber magic sword, um, you know, 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.400 kind of all that's that's that's pretty much a fantasy trope. 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.199 So I agree with that interpretation. I mean, the technology 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.240 and Star Wars is more like magic than science, right. 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.760 But I I also I appreciate this filling out because 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.920 I think this is actually a pretty clever qualification to 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:48.440 add to the technical view of how attractive being would work. Yeah, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.200 I think Lucas apologists are some of the most intelligent 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.559 people when it comes to justifying very weird decisions that 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.120 Lucas made when it comes to the Star Wars franchise. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.360 That was that was harsh but probably true. Um, it's 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.439 it's it's also I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.559 do this mainly because I like to I like to 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:12.080 ruffle feathers. He kids because he cares. Um uh well. Also, 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.880 also it's interesting because in in the Star Wars universe, 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:19.439 you don't see a physical like a physical a. You 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:21.439 don't see a beam of light reaching out of the 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.400 ship the way that he didn't say star trek right, right, 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.599 And so this might be a good time to just 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.599 do a quick reminder on what we talked about in 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.319 our last podcast, which is that so we actually have 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.920 made some tractor beam like uh set ups in a 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.000 few lab conditions, but they all involve light, don't They 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.079 involve light, and they involve objects that are on the 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.280 nano or micro scale, so far far smaller than what 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:47.400 you would see in one of these movies. Yeah. And also, 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.440 as we discussed in the last podcast, if you were 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.000 to scale up one of these laser tractor beams, it 0:11:54.040 --> 0:12:01.280 would almost certainly destroy the target. Right you blow me right? Um, 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.520 maybe that's it. Maybe the Death Star was just malfunctioning, 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:06.959 like it was trying to give that's what That's what 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.160 Lauren said in the last podcast, and I did point 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.400 out that Grandmoth Tarkan was very clear as to what 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.240 the Death Star was meant to do. I didn't think 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.360 that he was a man to be taken lightly. He 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.880 was not someone who would just like j K. He 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.640 was just Josh and us. Yeah, sure, well, all right, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.400 looked so sweet and talked. We talked about Star Wars 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:27.439 and the fact that that is more or less a fantasy. 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:31.280 Let's talk about something that's at least usually lumped more 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.640 into the category of science fiction one above in geek 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.880 here than Star Wars. Well, that's that's it's a tough 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:43.160 argument to make. But we're talking Star Trek now. So, Lauren, 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:44.920 I know you had some info on Star Trek in 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.120 its first use of the term tractor beam. Yeah. The 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:50.719 first time that Star Trek used it was in the 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.559 original series and in episode twenty four space Seed. Okay, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:59.240 so space Seed, and this is in nineteen sixty seven. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.000 So space Seed is the episode where they introduced the 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:09.520 character of Khan, who is one of several former warriors 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:14.679 turned convicts who had been put into cryogenic stasis and 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.160 then shot into space. Wouldn't he like some evil eugenics 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.000 experiment or something. The idea was that there it was 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.240 in the Eugenics Wars, and they created this this sort 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.800 of genetically modified race of superior human beings to act 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.120 as warriors, and then the warriors did their jobs so 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.280 well as to go on to attempt to conquer large 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.719 portions of Earth. So the the everyone else said, you know, 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:41.760 this was a great idea for its time, but that 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.000 time has passed, So let's zap them into sleep and 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.560 then push them off into space, which is what they did, 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:49.199 and so they put them in a ship called the 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.960 Botany Bay. That's the kind of thing that could only 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:56.960 happen in the setup for a later episode. Also why 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.280 it was also never hear from them again. It was 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.480 also supposed to take place in the nineties, and I 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.920 think you could easily imagine in the nineties we'd say, 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:09.640 let's just shoot him into space. Um so, uh spoiler 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.079 alert that did not actually happen in the nineties for 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.280 those of you who aren't paying attention anyway, So they 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.240 the Botany Bay gets shot off into space. The Enterprise 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.400 comes across the Botany Bay spacecraft and then decides to 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.840 check it out. I mean, they're They're all about exploration 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.040 and finding out what is this mysterious spacecraft that's out here. 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.320 Do they use a tractor beam? They do. They do 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:32.080 use the tractor beam in orders for them to be 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.680 able to get access to the ship and then find 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.120 out what it is that's aborted. And UH that's when 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.280 they find out that it's Cohn and his people. And 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.720 then Con attempts to take over the Enterprise, UH quite 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.160 effectively at first, but he's not very good at three 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:49.400 dimensional thinking, as his later uh explored in the fantastic 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.120 movie Star Trek to the wrath of Cohn, and so 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.240 ultimately Kirk and his crew end up stranding Con on 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:03.320 Set Alpha five, which was originally a lush planet filled 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:07.440 with life, but that changed dramatically between the the the 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.600 time of Space Seed and Star Trek two. Maybe con 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.360 ruined everything. Um really, really it was the six that 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.760 ruined everything. But those horrible ear monsters that those were 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.520 not really prevalent until Star Trek two. This is all 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:29.520 explained tractor beams. The way the way that Star Trek 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.000 explains tractor beams is that they are graviton force beams. 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:37.680 Interesting gravitons of course, being the hypothetical particle that um 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:43.680 that explains why gravity works mathematically? Now, So am I 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.520 right in thinking that? At least I want to say 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.800 that in Star Trek the episodes I've watched, a tractor 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.840 beam was represented by a beam of visible light like 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.360 blue blue, glowy light. Or is odd when you think 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.960 that it's gravitons, which are obviously not visible because we 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.040 haven't seen them. Maybe maybe they're maybe they reverse the 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:09.600 polarity of Yeah, they've got that. I don't know why 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.400 they don't just build a switch on the console that 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.560 just says reverse the polarity, because that was always the 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.440 number one thing they need to do, and especially the 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.800 board were involved. I wonder what happens if you rotate 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:25.600 the polarity nine degrees instead of just reversing it. Yeah, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.040 you're just getting too Maybe it would only work halfway then, 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.120 But yeah, it is odd that there was a visible 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:35.840 um effect there because gravitons are not visible. If they 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.680 were visible, we would know if they actually exist instead 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.760 of just hypothetically exist now like like you were saying, Lauren, 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.960 they hypothetically exist in the sense that when you start 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.320 working out the math for the way gravity behaves then 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.160 it's kind of again like a mathematic placeholder as opposed 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:54.880 to you know this, we need to have something here 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.480 to explain how we fix this, this problem that we 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:02.360 would face if we were actually in this situation. Mathematicians, physicists, scientists, 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:07.280 they actually do use placeholders to represent a an unknown 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.280 quantity that must behave a certain way in order for 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.800 stuff to behave the way we understand it to behave. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.879 Keeping in mind that we may are understanding maybe faulty, 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.720 so it may turn out that there isn't any sort 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.960 of such thing as a graviton, and maybe that we 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:27.120 just fundamentally misunderstand the nature of gravity. But based upon 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.560 our understanding, this sort of hypothetical particle would be the 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:35.199 the agent through which gravity is is working right, right, Well, 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:38.960 we we have detected gravitational waves, which are ripples in 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.920 space time moving moving at the speed of light that 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:46.119 are caused by objects, especially objects of great mass and 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.640 um and so yeah, so, so gravitons are the kind 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.080 of logical Yeah, it's kind of like what we would 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:54.560 think of as photons with light. Right, these are the 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:59.199 fundamental particle that would be predicted. It's predicted by by 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.320 Einstein's area relativity. So so if we are able to 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.399 ever actually detect and furthermore manipulate these, then something like 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:12.160 a graviton based tractor beam could be completely possible. Here's 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.920 something interesting that I thought of just based on what 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.439 you said. So if you did have a graviton based 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:23.200 tractor beam, there would be some limitations on what speed 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.120 it could act, right, Um, sure we don't. We never 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:27.960 get a very good sense or at least I don't. 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.880 Maybe I'll will disagree from the movies and other sci 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.479 fi uh of exactly what the range of a tractor 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.960 beam is. And it's kind of whatever it needs to be. 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:40.760 If if the ship needs to get away, then it 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.720 gets away, and if it doesn't then right, so you've 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.359 got to say the Millennium falcon is as far away 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.119 from the Death Star as we are from Mars or 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.040 something like that. Right, If the action of a tractor 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.680 beam moves at the speed of light, it might take 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:59.080 what fourteen minutes for the beam to reach the falcon 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.480 and start pulling it, actually, depending upon where Earth is 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.240 and its orbit and where more hypothetical. So so, so 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.080 you're talking about the distance the same distance that would 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.480 have been between Earth and Mars when the curiosity rover land. 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.639 All right, that's where that number comes from, right, because 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:20.119 that changes. Um, yeah, yeah, exactly. A gravity beam would 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.360 only behave as fast as the I guess we would 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:25.600 probably gate at the speed of light. Wouldn't be instantaneous. Now, 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.440 and most of these cases, if the and what it 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.919 weakend as it went on. Also, that's another good question. Now, 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.639 if it didn't weaken, then would that just mean that 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.399 you had to pour increasing amounts of energy into the 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.480 beam in order for it to have a strong enough effect. 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.680 I mean, like, how do you manipulate the gravity in 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.880 the first place so that you can create more gravity 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.680 at wherever the tractor beam is coming out from without 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:54.119 crushing everything that's inside the ship? Like how do you 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.320 direct the gravity so it's actually pulling another object toward it, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.399 not just increasing the gravity everywhere within that area so 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.000 that you know, you suddenly have vulcan paste inside the enterprise. 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.280 Although the actual research that was done in a lot 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.720 of it, interestingly was done in the nineteen sixties, just 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.000 a couple of years before The Star Trek the original 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.720 series was being filmed. UM was involving the vibration of 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:21.040 piezoelectric crystals to to detect and um attempt to manipulate 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.600 these particles. Well, that's interesting, though, I mean, I'm very 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.040 I'm really curious, Like I wish this is one of 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.240 those moments where I wish I could jump into the future, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.520 like a hundred and fifty years, just to see if 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.200 we ever figured out this graviton thing and whether or 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.760 not we could actually manipulate it in any meaningful way, 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:43.440 because it's really hard for me to wrap my head 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.480 around it. But then again, we're talking about part of 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.639 physics that has confounded some of the most intelligent physicists 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.760 out there, let alone some idiot who has a podcast. 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.880 So I mean, it's obviously I'm not surprised that it's 0:20:57.920 --> 0:20:59.879 confounded me. I I just I want to see what 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.399 the end result is, very very much, because I it 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.320 would be an incredibly useful tool. It's just really hard 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.080 for me to imagine how it would work. Then again, 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.200 I don't think I would have imagined the actual tractor 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.200 beams we talked about in our last podcast. I kind 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.600 of still can't imagine them. Honestly, I've read a whole 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.960 bunch about them, and I'm like, well, sure that makes sense. 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.120 On a quantum physics kind of everything is so big 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:23.919 sort of, you know, just eventually I start going all 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.840 two thousand one and not really understanding where I live anymore. 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.920 Whenever things get really small or really big, that's when 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.320 it starts to blow my mind. You know. I can 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.639 deal with the macro scale fairly well, but once you 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.960 get beyond that, it's in either direction if you go 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.680 cosmological or or quantum. I need I need to take 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.040 a break and have some fruit juice. That's when it's 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.879 time to put on Genesis and lay down with the 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:53.840 bean bag chair and just think about the universe. Groovy. Alright, Well, 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.560 I think that wraps up our discussion about about contractor beams, 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:59.160 and now we're gonna go listen to some wait wait 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:04.280 Jennis Genesis. Yeah, but what era Genesis are like early Jennis? 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:08.040 You're talking like, you know, like the weird stuff. So okay, 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.080 all right, then we're cool. We're cool. I was just 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.879 making sure that we weren't talking like late Genesis. What 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.320