Star Trek Technology
U
Ultrasonic shower
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Personal cleaning system in crew quarters
aboard Federation starships. Besides ultrasonic showers, old-fashioned
bathtubs are usually available as well.
Ultrasonic cleaning is widely employed in dental laboratories, precision
mechanics or semiconductor manufacturing, where a detergent or pure
water is employed as the transducer for the ultrasonic vibrations (>20kHz)
and also serves to solve and carry away dust or grease particles. The
showers featured in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and VOY:
"Juggernaut", however, seem to be dry. Since mere air does
not provide the desired efficiency in transducing the waves and washing
away the dirt, an additional forcefield probably takes over the role
of the detergent.
Content thanks to "www.ex-astris-scientia.org"
Universal translator
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Computer program employed for communication
among persons who speak different languages. The universal translator
performs a pattern analysis of an unknown language based on a variety
of criteria in order to generate a translation matrix.
It is obvious that the universal translator will never work the way
shown in Star Trek. First of all, an exactly simultaneous translation
is definitely impossible, considering that grammar is significantly
different for human languages, let alone alien forms of communication.
So a delay of up to several seconds until the end of the respective
sentence is required before it can be properly translated. Secondly,
the translator voice would be superimposed to the original voice and,
if both are located in the same room, result in a confusing babble.
The original voice could be filtered out, however, in this case the
translated version could not have the same spectrum, and Picard might
sound like Janeway. Thirdly, the universal translator could not decipher
a language based on the knowledge of only a few sentences. The episodes
TNG: "Darmok" and DS9: "Sanctuary", where the universal
translator fails or adapts only gradually, are remarkably realistic
in this respect, as well as several Enterprise episodes.
Content thanks to "www.ex-astris-scientia.org"
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