Sasha Soren

"Arte Six"
May 2004
Volume Two
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BOOKS/WRITERS
The Agent series

Agents, who needs them? You do! In our monthly series, "The Agent", top lit agents answer your burning questions about life, the publishing industry, and everything.

“Build your buzz”
Featured columnist: Jenny Bent

Q. Now that I know I need an agent, how do I convince an agent that he or she needs me? In other words, how do I get an agent?
A. Treat the publication of your book just like you would your career and really devote a great deal of time and effort to implementing a publication plan. The most important thing to know is that it is virtually impossible for an agent to sell a book by someone with no experience or credentials.

If you are writing literary fiction, for example, you will have a far easier time catching an agent's eye if you graduated from a prestigious MFA program, know a few important writers who will blurb your book, have publication credits in major literary magazines, and have won some prizes and awards.

I KNOW that as a serious literary writer, the idea of doing all this yucky pandering stuff is probably disgusting to you, but you're just going to have to get over that, I'm afraid, if you want to see your book published by a major New York house.

If you are writing non-fiction, credentials are even more important.

For self-help or pop-psychology, it is, again, just about impossible to get a good publisher to buy your book unless you have some sort of national platform already in place.
A local column or local radio show is a great start, but publishers (and hence agents) won't be interested unless you have a nationally syndicated radio show, or a nationally syndicated column, or a regular column in the “New York Times”, or you lecture regularly across the country to large groups, or you appear regularly on “The Today Show” or “Dateline”.

This may seem discouraging, but unfortunately it's the truth. To get the kind of credentials you need, simply start small (with the local radio show or column or by lecturing at your local community center) and keep building from there.

If you want to write history or biography or other narrative non-fiction, you again need impressive credentials-affiliation with a major publication or prestigious learning institution-and published credits on your topic.

Once you have your credentials in place, and your book or proposal written, start researching agents.
The best way to get to an agent is to be referred to him or her by another client. If you know anyone who is successfully published, ask for an introduction.

The next best way is by meeting the agent at a conference or event-so network, network, network.

The final way is to research the agents that are out there and send out a targeted mailing to a select list of the agents you've identified as the best matches for you.
If you've built up your credentials as I've suggested above, and you list them clearly and concisely in your letter, I can almost guarantee you that you will hear from an interested agent.

Beyond that, your letter should be well-written and impeccably neat (most agents have zero tolerance for typos), include biographical information (always), and a short, concise description of your project.

Presentation can actually make a difference, so if you have very nice designed letterhead or a glossy folder, by all means use it.

Keep in mind that agents get hundreds of submissions every month or even week, so if you can make yours stand out in a positive way, you're already a step ahead.

Having said that, I do recommend avoiding cutesy stuff like little kittens or teddy bears (unless you're doing a book about little kittens or teddy bears)-think professional, rather than adorable.

Q. My prospective agent just sent me a ten-page author-agent agreement. I can't even understand it, but I don't want to lose the chance for representation. What do I do?

A. This one is easy. Never, ever, sign a legal document you don't understand without consulting a lawyer first. Again, this should only be a lawyer who is has knowledge of and experience with publishing.

I tell people that they should be careful about signing contracts which give the agent rights to their book for an unlimited amount of time, or which don't have a termination clause, or which sign up multiple projects all at once. If, for whatever reason, it doesn't work out with your agent, you want to be able to part ways without engaging in a massive lawsuit.

Also, don't be shy (but do be polite!) about asking for modifications or additions to your agent's contract-most agents are willing to be flexible about this. A reputable agent should not get defensive or touchy if you have a lawyer look over the contract, or if you ask for (reasonable) changes.

If your agent does react badly, it may be a sign that he or she is not the best agent for you.

NB: Lit agent Jenny Bent is providing this information as a courtesy to readers. She is not accepting new work. Unsolicited materials will not be read or returned.
##
Bio: Jenny Bent has ten years of experience working in the publishing industry. She is currently a literary agent with the firm of Trident Media Group, LLC in New York City. Prior to becoming an agent, she worked at "Rolling Stone". She was also an editor at Cader Books, where she was responsible for books on pop culture.

About this series: The Agent is an ongoing series of columns or Q/A sessions with literary agents, providing practical advice for writers.

Next month: How to drive an agent bonkers, without even trying.

Subscribe: artesix@sashasoren.com
Read online: http://www.sashasoren.com/newsletter.htm

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TRAVEL (events worldwide, features, scenes)
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TRAVEL/France
"Champagne à Go-Go"
by Paula Gardner
http://www.doyourownpr.com

Fancy a weekend of decadence without going to the Caribbean?

If you’ve a special occasion, or just fancy treating yourself, a short break in the Champagne region of
Northern France is a fabulous way to cut loose in style.

Champagne is a strange and stunning place. Strange, because most of what there is to see is actually underground, and stunning, because what you do see takes your breath away.

Both the towns of Reims and Epernay perch upon a network of crayeres – caves dug out of the chalk that lies beneath the town. These crayeres were created when the Romans used the subsoil for building material. Much later they were used as air raid shelters during the war. They are now the magnificent storage halls that store the millions of bottles of vintage and non vintage champagne that are aging silently as life goes on above.

GETTING THERE

The most enjoyable way to travel is by Eurostar; it’s extremely straightforward and only 90 minutes from Paris. Lean back in your seat, sip a gin and tonic or a glass of excellent claret and watch the scenery through your window.

WHERE TO STAY

Both Reims and Epernay are the main Champagne towns. Reims is a bit more on the lively side with a large boulevard full of restaurants and bars in the centre of town.

Epernay is prettier but more sedate. The choice is up to you. If you want unashamed luxury you can try the Royal Champagne hotel near Champillon, or the Chateaux les Crayeres in Reims itself.

My favorite place is the Hotel de la Cathedrale (03 26 47 28 46) which is a stone’s throw away from the magnificent Cathedrale Notre Dame and just around the corner from some excellent bars and restaurants.

To understand why Champagne earned its special reputation, we should take a look at the exhaustive process behind a single bottle of the bubbly.

Champagne is made from two red grapes and one white grape. These are Pinot Noir (which provides the body of the wine, Pinot Meunier (provides the fruitiness) and the white Chardonnay (which gives Champagne its elegance).

Musts (grape juice) from the grapes are fermented and then blended together with sugar and yeast and sealed in bottles closed with a top like a beer bottle top. The wine then undergoes a second fermentation that provides the bubbles.

The bottles are tilted in racks and shaken very gently over a long period of time to encourage the sediment to fall to the neck of the bottle (this is called remuage) which is then placed in a frozen brine solution.

The neck is frozen, the sediment explodes out of the bottle neck in a process called Degorgement, and then the bottle is topped up with reserve champagne and sometimes sugar and then corked with the traditional mushroom shaped cork.

WHAT TO SEE

You come to Champagne to visit the Champagne Houses. You could spend all weekend going from one to the other if you wished, strolling through their magnificent cellars and tasting the wine.

The best bet is to choose two or three Houses and make an afternoon of it. If you’ve got a favorite House, then put them first on your list, together with perhaps a large producer and a smaller one, just for fun.

Many houses run tours where you pay your money and join. However, with a bit of planning you can book an appointment at one of the main houses not generally open to the public. Mention nicely that you’d like to be shown around and they will either tell you when they are running a private tour or try to accommodate your travel plans.

DINING

So, what’s on the menu? Champagne! Most bars sell champagne by the glass and many restaurants serve delicious concoctions such as salmon in champagne sauce, or champagne sorbet.


HOUSES TO VISIT – GARDNER PICKS

Moet and Chandon
20 Avenue de Champagne, Epernay
03 26 51 20 00

Mercier
70 Avenue de Champagne, Epernay
03 26 51 22 22

Veuve Clicquot
1 Place des Droits-de-l'Homme, Riems
03 26 85 40 29
##
Bio: Paula Gardner http://www.doyourownpr.com is a wine writer and educator. She is a member of the Circle of Wine Writers. She has been published in “New Woman”, “French”, and “Ms. London”. She has also written for wine merchants Adnams and Berry Bros. and Rudd. Her "day job" is teaching small businesses and entrepreneurs how to do their own PR.

She has worked as a past content manager for Madaboutwine.com and spent seven years running Paula Gardner Public Relations, a PR company devoted to publicizing restaurants and bars in London.

Paula founded and runs “Never Mind The Chardonnay” http://www.nevermindthechardonnay.com wine tasting events, based in London. mailto:paula@nevermindthechardonnay.com In London for the weekend? Contact Gardner to receive Never Mind the Chardonnay events mailings.

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LIFE (stranger than fiction/life, the universe
and everything…)
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LIFE/Adventures at the supermarché
“Peas Off!”
by Laurie Notaro

Standing there, with a bag of frozen peas in my hand and several different people yelling at me, I understood that I had bitten off far too much. At the self-serve check out lanes at the grocery store, everything had blossomed into a complete disaster.

Okay, maybe I had gotten too cocky, maybe I was simply just too full of myself due to my outstanding skill with ATMs and credit card terminals. It took practice and dedication, but I can work an ATM faster than a corporate executive hooked on cocaine and can swipe through any terminal, get authorized, cash back and start loading my groceries into my car before most people have selected debit or credit.

I guess it was that kind of bravado that drew me toward the self-service lanes; that, and the fact that every other open check-out lane had lines longer than the box office selling Madonna tickets for the extra-naked version of her show.

Personally, I can’t really deal with that much jockeying for place in line with the possibility I might have to touch strangers, and honestly, I had ice cream to think about.

Because you can’t refreeze those, you know. Once ice cream melts, that’s it. As it turns into a puddle, its fluffiness slips away and the life force goes with it. I believe when that happens, ice cream’s soul is moving on. It’s already run into the light, and there’s no bringing it back. You can put in the freezer, but good luck trying to eat it in an hour. You might as well try to spoon your way through pint of Chubby Hubby cement. If there’s something sadder than dead ice cream, I’d sure like to know what it is.

And that’s what I was thinking when I felt myself drawn to the self-service lane like a magnet.

My local store had set up two self-serve stations on either side of a special cashier stand, which was positioned at the head like the host of a game show.

I stepped up to the only unoccupied station and pressed the button that said “START.”

The machine greeted me, so far, so good, and a computerized voice instructed me to “SCAN FIRST ITEM.”

I picked up the eggs in my basket, found the UPC code and held it above the scanning screen.

BLEEP! I heard as the code was scanned.

“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine suggested.

I put the eggs in the bag and turned and smiled at the man now in line behind me, as if to say, “WATCH ME. I WILL AMAZE YOU.”

I positioned the next item, a frozen bag of peas, right over the scanner, but I couldn’t get it to BLEEP, so I did it again and again.

BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP! the machine suddenly belched, charging me for three bags of peas.

“HEY!” I said as jerked the bag of peas away from the scanner, which produced another BLEEP!

The man waiting in line behind me showed his amazement by putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head.

“I can’t believe you did that!” I yelled at the machine like it was my husband. “I’m not paying for four bags of peas!”

“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine answered.

“No wonder this doesn’t work,” I heard the man mutter to his much younger girlfriend. “Idiots like her can’t handle technology! She scanned one bag of peas FOUR TIMES. I saw her!”

Somehow, I resisted the massive urge to rear up my leg and pitch a fastball bag of peas at his head and decided instead to try to attack him on a personal level later when I had the opportunity for a clean get away.

“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine insisted again.

I guess it was then that my anxiety regulator shorted out in my brain. ZZZZ! I froze up. I panicked. So I did the only thing any normal, freaked-out person would just bought nine dollars of frozen peas would do.

Apparently pushing the CANCEL button in the area of 40 times is enough to alert the cashier, who abandoned his game show host post and came to my station.

“What are you doing?” he asked me angrily. “You can’t cancel now!”

“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine continued.

“Please help me!” I said. “I have lost control of the peas!”

“Then you shouldn’t have scanned them FOUR TIMES!” the cashier snapped. “No one else is having problems! I saw you, you know!”

“Fine!” I said as I stepped up and scanned the rest of my groceries -— Chubby Hubby, Cherry Garcia and Phish Food -- tossed it all into the bag and swiped my debit card through the terminal. “I am the weakest link on this game show, OK? It’s me! It can’t be the machine! It can’t be a machine that’s so stupid it can’t even use articles! It’s ‘Put THE Item in THE Bag’! Your machine can’t even form a complete sentence! PUT ITEM IN BAG! Your machine is a baby talker! And my ice cream is dying!”

“Maybe you’d do better next time in a conventional check-out lane,” the cashier suggested.

“Oh yeah? Peas off!” I replied angrily as I ran out of the store with my car keys in hand.

When the man who was behind me in line came out of the store, he and his concubine were both shocked and disgusted when they experienced the first drive-by pea-ing.

But they should have known it was coming. Especially when they heard the driver scream, “One down and three to go!”
##
Bio: Laurie Notaro is the author of "I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies)"(Villard, June 2004) and "The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club"(Villard).

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SCI/TECH (news and views)
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SCIENCE/Archaeology
“Troy”: Reel Life
Well, here it comes – yet another epic about men with swords. The women do a lot of…not too much. Wear spiffy-looking sandals. Get kidnapped.

On the plus side, the big build-up of the film has brought out some interesting people whose work might otherwise be left to moulder in some dusty museum corner...

[The following text courtesy Mary Reilly and Brian Rose]

Diane Kruger (Helen), Orlando Bloom (Paris), Eric Bana (Hector) and Brad Pitt (Achilles) head the cast for the May 14 release of “Troy,” Hollywood’s answer to the classical Homeric epic, “The Iliad”.

The ancient tale tells of a queen’s kidnapping, a bloody siege of the Troy citadel and acrid rivalries amongst wartime allies – all climaxing in a long-awaited victory by means of duplicitous craft. So what’s the real story -- did any of this really happen?

To dig up the real dirt on Troy, archaeologist Brian Rose of the University of Cincinnati easily serves as the national authority. He headed UC’s Greek and Roman expeditions at Troy for 15 years, making finds of ancient gold jewelry, buried sculptures of imperial figures and many other works with historical significance.

Rose’s archaeological odyssey – and that of international colleagues like Manfred Korfmann of the University of Tuebingen in Germany (director of the Troy excavation) and Donna Strahan (chief conservator, Troy excavation) has helped to reveal the real nature of the wars that raged at Troy throughout antiquity.

Their quest is to uncover the truth about the Trojan War and the face so beautiful it launched a thousand ships. With the help of Homer's epic poetry, these are stories that still captivate us, even after more than 3,000 years.

"Although we've excavated a great deal on the mound of Troy itself," Rose says, "I think the Troy project will be remembered most for our work in the Lower City, which extends for about 1,200 feet south of the mound, and especially for what we've learned about the defensive system of the citadel during the phases around 2500 B.C., the second millennium B.C. and the third century B.C."

The team uncovered evidence of a wooden palisade for the second settlement, which existed in 2500 B.C. They also found a ditch cut out of the bedrock for the settlement that is most frequently associated with the Trojan War stories told in the Homeric epics (1800-1250 B.C.). The trench may have been a defense against chariots.

Another defensive structure -- a sizeable limestone fortification wall - protected the city in the classical period and has now been dated to the third century B.C.

Their work also suggests that that Troy, called Ilion by the Greeks and Ilium by the Romans, flourished from about 3200 B.C. until 1350 A.D. - much longer than previously thought.

"What I'm especially proud of is that we have been able to reconstruct, for the first time, what life in the city was like during a period of roughly two thousand years, circa 1,000 B.C. to 1300 A.D.," Rose says.

Most of Rose's work at Troy has focused on the Greek and Roman periods. Romans believed that the stories of the Trojan War were true and reconstructed the city of Ilium where they believed the original Troy once sat.

The new excavations have shown that the Roman city was laid out on a grid of streets, with houses, water systems, a temple dedicated to Athena for religious feasts and sacrifices, a theater that provided a setting for Trojan tales and other plays to be performed, plus a council house for civic meetings.

The team worked in isolation and lack of luxury - complete with spare cabins, outdoor showers and temperatures reaching up to 120 degrees.

Rose earned a reputation as one of Troy's most dedicated workers, getting to the dig house between 5 and 5:50 a.m. and working until 7:30 or 8 at night.

The crucial find would be the Late Bronze Age cemetery in which the soldiers had been buried, Rose suggests. "Surely someday it will be found. The only question is will it be tomorrow or a hundred years from now."

The Korfmann-Rose partnership has already helped to make that search more focused by finding ditches that helped to clarify the Bronze Age settlement's limits.

On to the big screen --

The Troy legend, in brief, holds that in about 1200 B.C., a prince of Troy kidnapped the beautiful queen of a Greek kingdom.

The Greeks then laid siege to Troy, but were only able to subdue it, after ten years of warfare, via trickery.

They built a large, hollow, wooden horse as a supposed gift to Athena, goddess of war, and then hid inside the horse.

The Trojans dragged the horse into their own city so that they themselves might possess this gift to Athena and thus accrue any benefits it might bring. Later, at night, the Greeks snuck out of the horse’s belly and sacked the citadel.

The reality of Troy is a bit different, says Rose. Below is a roundup of some of the fact vs. fiction that we know about Troy, based on archeological evidence:

• Magnificent myth or historic happening?
There is no archaeological evidence that specifically buttresses Homer’s 8th-century B.C. version of a ten-year, Bronze Age conflict pitting Mycennaean Greeks against the Trojans (Troy is located in what is today northwestern Turkey) and ending in the fiery destruction of Troy.

Troy was often destroyed and rebuilt, subject as it was to raids and wars, due to its important – and accessible – coastal position controlling the straits between the Aegean and the Black seas, which probably allowed it to grow very rich from trade.

So, though we speak of one Trojan War, there were actually many.

And though we speak of Troy as a single entity, there were actually several settlements, each superimposed atop another over a span of time stretching to about 4,500 years.

Troy 1 was the smaller, simpler settlement from the early Bronze Age.

A later city built on the same site, Troy 6, is the one most frequently associated with what we refer to as The Trojan War.
Ironically enough, it’s likely that Homer did exactly what Hollywood is doing now. He took a fairly long and complex historical tradition of conflict, and he condensed it, made it simpler to understand and spiced it up with romance and rivalries.

• Man or myth: was Homer a real person?
Homer is believed to have been a blind Ionian poet, perhaps from Smyrna or the Island of Chios, who composed the story of the Iliad in about 730 B.C. and the Odyssey later, around 700 B.C., about six centuries after the events had supposedly occurred.

• Did Homer really compose the 24 books of “The Iliad” and the later work, “The Odyssey”, by himself?
He likely collected stories that had been recited by traveling bards for more than 500 years. He’s actually part of an oral tradition of many poets reciting from memory; however, Homer probably repackaged, condensed and unified the stories of others.

• Was all the hullabaloo really caused by the abduction of Helen of Troy?
There is no archaeological evidence for this. Any Trojan War of the period might just as likely have been due to a rivalry between the Greeks and the Hittite empire in central Turkey for control of this strategically important location.

• Could the Greeks really have launched more than a thousand ships in an effort to conquer Troy?
No. The settlements of Greece during the late Bronze Age could not have mustered that kind of sea power.

• Would any siege really have lasted 10 years?
Possibly. During the Bronze Age (about 3000 to 1000 B.C.), Troy would have been well fortified, with large towers, heavily protected gates and limestone walls.
Because of the sophisticated fortifications that would have been found there – including defensive ditches – it would have been an extraordinarily difficult site to conquer.

So it seems likely that any ancient war there – including that described in the Iliad – would have taken a long time.

• Did the war really end with a horse?
No. There’s no archaeological evidence for this, and its (the hollow horse) existence was doubted even by the ancient Greeks.

• Did the fall of Troy really lead to the founding of Rome?
No. Even though Virgil’s “Aeneid” states that Rome was founded by Aeneas, one of the few Trojan nobles to supposedly survive the 12th century B.C. fall of Troy, that’s impossible.

Rome was not founded until 400 years after the fall of Troy that is recounted by Homer. The Romans believed that the Trojan hero, Aeneas, and other refugees from that war settled in central Italy.
They further believed that it was two descendents of Aeneas –- Romulus and Remus –- who purportedly founded the city in 753 B.C.

Still, the connection with Troy was strong enough that the Romans turned Troy into something of an ancient world “tourist trap.”

Troy today – or rather the Turkish residents living near the site – have been taking advantage of tourist possibilities. It's typically received hundreds of thousands of visitors annually over the last decade and now includes a walking path through the site, a tourist information center and – what else? -- a 60-foot-high Trojan Horse.

UC faculty member, Liz Riorden, an assistant professor of architecture who worked at Troy throughout most of the 1990s, is building a web site devoted to visualizing the Troy that was. In the meantime, visit TroiaVR to see what Troy might have looked like; the site features VR reconstructions of Troy VI, based on archeological data.

The site provides a one-click view of the dig site, then the VR reconstruction. One caveat – the TroiaVR project only ran for two years. A lot of information about Troy is still not known, so the site content isn’t comprehensive.

TroiaVR – http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/vr/index_en.html
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SCIENCE/Physics
”The Science of ‘Star Trek’”
You know you've had days when you think "what does it take, a rocket scientist?".
Well, for once, yes, it DOES take a rocket scientist -- we tracked down a real, live astrophysicist to give us the lowdown on the science fact behind the science fiction...
“The Science of Star Trek”
by David Allen Batchelor
The creator of "Star Trek", Gene Roddenberry, actually knew some actual basic astronomy. He knew that space ships unable to go faster than light would take decades to reach the stars, and that would be too boring for a one-hour show per week.
So he put warp drives into the show -- propulsion by distorting the space-time continuum. With warp drive the ships could reach far stars in hours or days, and the stories would fit human epic adventures, not stretch out for lifetimes.
Roddenberry tried to keep the stars realistically far, yet imagine human beings with the power to reach them.
Roddenberry and other writers added magic like the transporter and medical miracles and the holodeck, but they put these in as equipment, as powerful tools built by human engineers in a future of human progress. They uplifted our vision of what might be possible, and that's one reason the shows have been so popular.
The writers of the show are not scientists, though. Sometimes they get science details wrong.
I'm a physicist, and many of my colleagues watch "Star Trek". A few of them discredit "Star Trek" because of science errors in particular episodes. That's unfair.
They watch Shakespeare without a complaint, and his plays wouldn't pass the same rigorous test.
My opinion? "Star Trek" is actually intelligently written and more faithful to science than any other science fiction series I've ever seen. Many of the star systems mentioned on the show, such as Wolf 359, really do exist. Usually, though, the writers just make them up.
So, what features of "Star Trek" can a scientist can enjoy without guilt, and what features justifiably tick off the critics?
What they got right: the ship's computer, impulse engines and matter-antimatter propulsion. And "yeah, right": the transporter, warp drive and time travel.
Here's a list of standard "Star Trek" features, roughly in order of decreasing scientific credibility:
Features List
• The Ships Computer
• Matter-Antimatter Power Generation
• Impulse Engines
• Androids
• Alien Beings
• Sensors & Tricorders
• Deflector Shields, Tractor Beams & Artificial Gravity
• Subspace Communications
• Phasers
• Healing Rays
• Replicator
• Transporter
• Holodeck
• Universal Language Translator
• Warp Interstellar Drive
• Wormhole Interstellar Travel & Time Travel

The Ship's Computer:
Most of the things it does are within the plausible realm of artificial intelligence that computer scientists anticipate. We have auto-pilot functions and navigational systems today, and these are the most used functions of the Enterprise computer. Our computers even approach the ability to interpret spoken orders that the Enterprise computer has.
In 400 more years -- the time when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is set -- it is reasonable to expect many of the abilities of this computer to really be achieved.
Matter-Antimatter Power Generation:
This is one of the best scientific features of "Star Trek". The mixing of matter and antimatter is almost certainly the most efficient kind of power source that a starship could use, and the way it's described is reasonably correct -- the antimatter (frozen anti-hydrogen) is handled with magnetic fields, and never allowed to touch normal matter, or KA-BOOM! This much is real physics.
The dilithium crystals part…that's just imaginary.
Impulse Engines:
These are rocket engines based on the fusion reaction. We don't have the technology for them yet, but they are within the bounds of real, possible future engineering.
Androids:
One of the most important research organization for robotics out there is the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. At a conference on cybernetics, the president of the association was asked what his ultimate goal was, in that particular field of technology. He replied, "Lieutenant Commander Data."
Creating Mr. Data would be an historic feat of cybernetics, and right now it's debatable, whether or not it could be accomplished. Maybe a self-aware computer could be put into a human-sized body and convinced to live sociably with us and our limitations. That's a long way ahead of our computer technology, but not impossible.
By the way, Mr. Data's "positronic" brain circuits are named for the circuits that Dr. Isaac Asimov imagined for his fictional robots. Our doctors can use positrons to make images of our brains or other organs, but there's no reason to expect that positrons could make especially good artificial brains. Positrons are antimatter!
Dr. Asimov just made up a sophisticated-sounding prop, he never expected people to take it literally.
Alien Beings:
Most scientists now agree that life probably exists in other solar systems, now that we understand biochemistry a little. The chemical elements for carbon-based life like the lifeforms on Earth are common in the universe, so maybe lifeforms like ourselves exist elsewhere in the galaxy. We can imagine all kinds of intelligent creatures, with any number of arms, legs, eyes, or antennae -- maybe a lot smarter than we are.
It seems doubtful that humanoid shapes would be as common as the alien races on the "Star Trek" shows, though. Well, we have to allow the show some concessions to the shapes of available actors.
Could half-human/half-alien hybrids ever exist, like Mr. Spock? It seems almost impossible, but with recombinant DNA, our scientists have already created interspecies hybrids. Mr. Spock is not totally beyond biochemical reality, but definitely at the edge.
Sensors & Tricorders:
We have vibration sensors, sonar, radar, laser ranging, various kinds of light wavelength detectors and energetic particle detectors, and gravimeters. We also do a little three-dimensional imaging of the interiors of solid objects, like the human body, with magnetic fields and radioactivity detectors.
The sensors and tricorders on "Star Trek" are quite different and more revealing as plot devices than anything we have. But with a stretch of the imagination, the tricorder scan could have today's magnetic resonance imager as its ancestor.
The Enterprise's sensors must use the more advanced (and imaginary) "subspace fields," when it detects far-away objects in space, because the crew never has to wait for signals to travel to a target and return. Not all of the sensors on the show are possible.
Deflector Shields, Tractor Beams & Artificial Gravity:
We know how to deflect electrically charged objects using electromagnetic fields, and there are concepts for protecting space travelers from cosmic radiation this way. That's the only physics trick we know that resembles the powerful special effects of the Enterprise shields.
We can also make big magnets that have some respectable attraction, and with the right electronic circuits regulating the strength of the magnets, we can imagine towing some kinds of metal objects through space.
A beam that is projected at something to attract it is purely imaginary. We don't have any way to create artificial gravity either. Generating artificial graviton particles is imaginable, but there's no way to say how it might be done. Not yet.
Subspace Communications:
Mathematicians discovered the concept of a subspace within a space continuum decades ago, and science fiction writers appropriated the term to serve their needs for a super-advanced way to reach other points in space, time or "other" universes.
The concept is alive in physics today, in theories that our space-time may have eleven or more dimensions -- three space dimensions and time, plus seven more that are "curled up" within a tiny sub-atomic size scale, where they conveniently explain mysteries of the forces of physics.
But "Star Trek" uses its own unrelated version of subspace, with signals that can travel as fast as the fastest starship. This is just a convenient notion to get messages to Star Fleet and back by the end of a TV show, with no realistic physics behind it.
Phasers:
According to the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" technical manual, phasers are named for PHASed Energy Rectification. They are really just spectacular energy blasters, with no detailed physics explanation. The original concept was that they were the next technological improvement upon LASERs.
To the extent that they differ from LASERs, they are just fanciful props, descended from generations of blasters discussed in early science fiction.
Healing Rays:
"Star Trek: TNG" medic Dr. Crusher shines a healing ray on her wounded patients and the skin or bone heals immediately. That's just a magical medical miracle of the imaginary 24th century. Surgeons today do work with lasers to cauterize or seal some tissues, and repair detached retinas. Some dentists use them, too.
Also, there is actually a form of adhesive that can stick human cells together like Elmer's Glue (tm), and synthetic skin for temporarily protecting wounds. But the body's own healing is usually as fast as any other method.
On the other hand, there's some evidence that weak electric currents can accelerate the healing of bones, so something similar to Dr. Crusher's procedure could be possible in the future.
Replicator:
Today, we know how to create microchip circuits and experimental nanometer-scale objects by "drawing" them on a surface with a beam of atoms. We can also suspend single atoms or small numbers of atoms within a trap made of electromagnetic fields, and experiment on them.
That's as close as the replicator is to reality. Making solid matter from a pattern as the replicator appears to do, is pretty far beyond present physics.
Transporter:
We don't have a clue about how to really build a device like the transporter. It uses a beam that is radiated from point A to point B where it STOPS at just the right precise place -- even passing through some barriers along the way -- and reconstructs the person it carries on the spot. Or it captures a person's pattern, dematerializing him or her, and brings the person to some other point.
All of the rematerialized atoms and molecules are somehow in the precisely correct positions, with the right temperatures and adhering together just as if the transportee had not been dematerialized. Rematerializing, why doesn't everything fall to pieces if a gust of wind or just normal gravity disturb the reappearing atoms?
Nothing in the physics of today gives a hint about how that might be possible. Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
But we can't assume every magical feat could be accomplished, given sufficiently advanced technology.
Holodeck:
The same applies to this one. Holograms are apparent images with three dimensional structure. We can't imagine a way to assemble matter in the same way as the light in a hologram.
Universal Language Translator:
As this is used on the "Star Trek" shows, it's just an automagical device to enable characters to get through the stories. It would be too tedious and repetitious in a one-hour show for the characters to overcome real language barriers in a realistic manner in every show. The way the Enterprise crew can encounter an alien spacecraft, "hail them on standard frequencies," and establish instant telecommunications on their viewscreens is just a preposterous shortcut to keep the plot from faltering.
Warp Interstellar Drive:
This must be the crowning achievement of Federation technology! Despite its fundamental role in the show's plot, it violates known physics to an extent that can't be defended. The detailed explanation of the warp field effect in the "Star Trek: TNG" technical manual only raises more questions than it resolves.
It's said to involve huge discharges of energy and subspace fields that aren't understood in today's science. However, barring a very unlikely demolition of Einstein's theory by future, revolutionary discoveries in quantum physics, warp drive can't exist.
Physicists of today understand the space-time continuum rather well, and there is very good reason to think that no object can move faster than the speed of light.
Wormhole Interstellar Travel & Time Travel:
These are questionable consequences of some mathematical models for extremely bizarre, artificial arrangements of titanic super-massive objects -- untested imaginary models where Einstein's relativity theory is stretched to its ultimate limits.
We don't have any evidence that Einstein's theory is valid in these theoretical cases, and the arrangements of these giant spinning masses don't occur in nature.

Conclusion:
The bottom line: "Star Trek" science is an entertaining combination of real science, imaginary science gathered from lots of earlier stories, and stuff the writers just made up, to give each new episode a bit of novelty.
The real science is an effort to be faithful to humanity's greatest achievements, and the fanciful science is a playing field for a game that expands the mind.
The "Star Trek" series are the only science fiction series crafted with respect for real science and intelligent writing. That's why it's the only science fiction series that many scientists watch regularly . . . like me.
##
Bio: David Allen Batchelor, Ph. D. is an astrophysicist/IT project manager/aerospace technologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov
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