Physicist Níckolas de Aguiar Alves of the Federal University of ABC in Brazil studied the “Picard maneuver” from the “The Battle” episode of *Star Trek: The Next Generation* using physics calculations while he was a graduate student. In the episode, Captain Picard moves the Stargazer, which is under attack, faster than the speed of light, then suddenly stops it near the enemy ship and opens fire. The maneuver, which Riker says is mentioned in Starfleet textbooks, is supposed to rely on the enemy ship seeing two images of the Stargazer and firing at the wrong target.
Years later, Alves realized that diagrams he had drawn while solving a problem involving particles in a medium where light travels more slowly reminded him of the scene. His calculations showed that two images could form if the ship moved at a constant superluminal speed; however, because the Stargazer accelerates and then stops, the enemy ship would see three images. He said that, although the details were not correct, the episode largely reflected the basic physics idea accurately.
Space travel faster than the speed of light is not expected. However, because light travels more slowly in materials such as water, calculations of this kind can be used in physics. If a particle exceeds the speed of light in water, it produces Cherenkov radiation, the blue light seen in nuclear reactors.
Alves’s main interest was the “memory effect,” defined as a wave leaving a lasting change in a particle’s motion. First proposed for gravitational waves, this effect is also expected to occur in electromagnetic waves; a physicist from the Niels Bohr Institute argued that the effect could be more pronounced in media such as water.
Why it matters
Rather than validating a maneuver from science fiction, this study presents an example of relativity showing that the number of images observed depends not only on the motion’s speed but also on its acceleration and stopping phases. Although faster-than-light space travel is not considered realistic, the slowing of light in matter links the same mathematical framework to particle motion. Cherenkov radiation provides the observable manifestation of this connection, while the memory effect at the center of the research extends to the electromagnetic realm the question of whether waves leave a permanent change in particles. Thus, beyond the physical consistency of a television scene, the subject leads to an open research question about how the electromagnetic memory effect—argued to be more pronounced in media such as water—can be investigated.