Beyond Star Trek by Laurence M. Krauss

This book is the follow-up to "The Physics of Star Trek" and deals with other movies and TV series, specifically The X-Files, Star Wars and Independence Day, as well as some Star Trek.

In this book, he discovers flying saucers, and why they are completely improbable, such as that the spinning motion of the saucers does make them very stable. But if they are spinning, the crew inside, alien or human, will be forced against the walls of the craft by centrifugal force, making them completely impractical for travel anywhere in an atmosphere.

As for the aliens in Independence Day, they didn't even have to come down to the planet to wreak destruction on it. Just the size of the Mother Ship alone would have more pull on our planet than the moon when in Geosynchronous Orbit around the Earth. All they had to do was reverse the direction of their orbit to be opposite our moon and they could have stopped the earth from rotating on its axis, wreaking havoc. Or, since their cruisers needed to be supported by the air, just hovering over the city would be enough to destroy every building from the massive increase in air pressure. It would kill anyone unlucky enough to be under one as well.

And when they were destroyed? Well, having them fall to earth would be a problem. Because the size of their ships would have set off massive destruction that made Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like waves in a bathtub compared to the alien ships crashing on Earth.

From there, he goes on to talk about Doomsday for Earth, and what the most likely possibilities are. Not that we'll really have to worry for billions of years yet, so don't panic. He also discusses telepathy, telekinesis, and the possibilities of both in our existence (Snowball, meet Hell.)

What I like about this book is how Krauss makes things that make most people's eyes cross when they hear about them easy to understand. By couching Physics in terms of popular movies and television series, he makes them much more comprehensible and gives us a point of reference that we already understand, even if that point of reference is improbable or completely impossible by the standards of physics. But he makes you understand *why* such a thing is impossible in clear, easily understandable language.

The best thing about science is it opens our mind to the universe. But we have to understand what is possible and what isn't, and this book fulfills that task more than adequately. Best of all, it's fun to read, and won't bore you to death like a recitation of statistics or endless charts. I recommend this book for a fun science pop to your day.