Posted on 04/13/2017 8:32:13 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The original "Star Trek" series isn't just a milestone of science fiction, it's also a treasure trove of mathematical ideas as Space.com discovered when we attended "Star Trek: The Math of Khan" at the Museum of Mathematics on Thursday (April 6).
...
Captain Kirk talks computers to death no fewer than four separate occasions in the original series. The captain often achieves this feat using sentences similar to the "Liar's Paradox": "This sentence is false." It's a paradox because if the sentence is false, then the sentence is stating the truth, even though it is supposed to be false; if the sentence is true, then it must be true that the sentence is false.
A similar statement powers mathematician Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which in effect proves there's a similarly paradoxical statement like "This statement is not provable" in any given mathematical system, Grime said. If the statement is true, it means there are true mathematical statements that can never be proved, like "holes" in mathematics. If the statement is false, its a contradiction, and that means there are contradictions within a mathematical system so any system without any contradictions will also have statements that are impossible to prove. So something very much like Kirk's computer-busting paradox is something that appears in real mathematics.
...Alan Turing set out to find out whether it's possible to determine whether any given computer program will be able to solve a problem and halt or get stuck working on the problem forever. Ultimately, he proved that you cannot write another program to predict whether a program will finish or not a result that suggests that you can't definitively determine whether a statement will ever be possible to prove, Grime said.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
What will be the fate of these red-shirted Enterprise crew?
Well the girl will sleep with the good captain and it's a tossup between the guys as to who dies....
Not Star Trek related, but ... If Sean Bean is in a movie, he will die. It’s a virtual certainty.
What is love?
Knowing that 30 minutes after I put my boots on I’ll warp 9 my arse to the other side of the galaxy.
Ah yes, Landru. You are not of the body!!
The green one was David Bowie's wife the model Imam, in that episode. She was and is smoking hot!
My favorite Sean Bean role was as Sharpe in Sharpe's Rifles. He makes it through 15 movies without dying. E.g. Sharpe's Rifles - Sharpe's Gold
Incorrect. Every control system in the world, and every electronic or digital filter in the world depends on the limit of 1/0 creating what are called "poles" in the system transfer function. Without it having a real-world meaning, communication systems and control systems would be impossible.
P4L
Yvonne Craig (:55) as Marta was eye candy.
Nice Bettie Page haircut too. :-)
>>Not Star Trek related, but ... If Sean Bean is in a movie, he will die. Its a virtual certainty.<<
Wasn’t he the villain in National Treasure? Arrested in the end, but not killed, as I recall...
“Actually, that appears to be a frame from “A Taste Of Armageddon” in which all three of the redshirts returned safe and sound from their mission.”
A fair trade to get the clueless Ambassador Foxx off the ship. :)
My assessment still stands.
Mr. Douglas?
Guys that can't hit the broad side of a space barn against guys that can't avoid being hit by a random shot fired into their postcode.
"Ceterum censeo Islam esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.