Corrected entry: They have already shown that anything that comes into contact with the time bubbles is immediately affected. The engine was running non-stop for 47 days, fruit aged, and Picard's hand aged too. Geordi creates a subspace isolation field that enables them to beam off the shuttle and onto the other ships for exploration. The issue is that the transporter beam would have stopped and never materialized as soon as it hit the time bubble due to the extremely slow passage of time. The warp core breach and disruptor fire were impacted, so it is highly likely that the transport beam would have been affected. Furthermore, they have not demonstrated the ability to modify the transporters to allow beaming over under such circumstances.
Rlvlk
16th Jun 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
16th Jun 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Corrected entry: In the scene with the rotting fruit, it would be impossible for the fruit to age as shown. The problem is, in order for the fruit to rot, oxygen would have to supply the needed nutrients to microrganisms in the fruit that cause it to rot at the accelerated rate. Since the life support generator is in normal time, being away from the bowl of fruit, there is no way the fruit could have rotted like that - the generator is only supplying a normal-time-continuum's worth of oxygen. There is no evidence of any wind or vortex so the air cannot be entering the time bubble at a greater rate than it is being created.
Correction: Microorganisms have extremely low oxygen consumption (relative to the amount used by an organism the size of a human). It would not take a particularly large area within the accelerated time-space for there to be enough oxygen to supply microorganisms long enough to cause the decay observed. Additionally there are microorganisms which can contribute to the processes of decay which do not require oxygen (anaerobes).
20th Jun 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Corrected entry: Geordi, Troi, data and Picard learn that they are able to interact with "objects" within the bubble of extremely slow moving time. This is to allow them to open doors and move throughout the ships. Problem is it would be impossible. By Newtonian physics, to move an object you must overcome the force holding it in place. To lift an object, you must overcome its weight: its mass times the acceleration due to gravity (roughly 9.8 meters per second per second) The problem is that with time moving extremely slow, any object would be extremely heavy because the acceleration due to gravity just increased ( a second in the bubble would seem to equal an hour, maybe even more, outside the bubble).
Correction: Actually, if what normally takes a second to fall takes an hour, acceleration *decreases*. So assuming normal physics apply, objects would be lighter.
23rd Jun 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Corrected entry: After Troi sees the effects of the first time bubble, Data comments that his internal chronometer is in synch with the runabout's computer. That would mean the first bubble also enveloped the computer, but nothing it controls was affected: gravity, navigation, attitude control, inertial dampers, life support, etc. These systems are normally controlled by the computer, only when something significant changes do they require crew input.
Correction: The first bubble only affected Troi; in this particular bubble, time moved more quickly, giving her the appearance that everything outside the bubble was "frozen." But the others and the ship were actually unaffected, which is why Data's internal chronometer is in synch with the ship's computer.
20th Jun 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Corrected entry: Part of Absolute Zero, 0 degrees Kelvin, deals with the stoppage of time. As long as an atom is in motion, it is generating heat. Lasers are being used today not to remove heat from molecules, but to slow them down to the point of almost stopping and that is the closest to Absolute Zero scientists have been able to hit. That being said: The temperature in the Enterprise and Romulan ship would be far colder than that, and very much closer to 0 than the temperature of space, to Picard, Troi, Geordi and Data. They have an isolation field around them, but that is not a life support generator providing them with neither heat nor oxygen. They would quickly freeze to death in that time bubble and slowly suffocate since the atmosphere would nearly be solid to them.
Correction: Geordi and Data built the isolation field, they surely would have taken this into account, the field might very well provide both. Without actually being able to nearly stop time around normal people, I don't think we can say what its effects will be on them. The science on Trek constantly violates today's "known" physics, just as a 747 violates the "known" physics of the late 1800's ie. "man will never fly".
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Correction: The subspace isolation field in conjunction with the phase discriminators were used to counteract this problem. Geordi and Data specifically mention how this would work. In addition, this same solution was used in the earlier episode Time's Arrow for a similar problem.
BaconIsMyBFF