When mathematics meets the Enterprise
Rethinking campus life: creating space for encounters
"Live long and prosper". Prof. Dr. Volker Michel bid farewell to his audience with this volcanic greeting at the end of this year's Rose Monday Lecture at the University of Siegen. And there were plenty of them: The lecture hall center at the Unteres Schloss campus was very well filled. Apparently it is not only carnival fans who are drawn to the parades on Shrove Monday, but also Starfleet enthusiasts to science.
Under the title "Of tribbles, Klingons, warp drive and other galactic mysteries", the geomathematician took his audience on an educational and entertaining journey through the "Star Trek" universe. Older fans who grew up with the "Starship Enterprise" of the 1960s sat next to students familiar with Captain Picard and modern streaming series: Generations united in the name of the Federation.
Things got fluffy with the Tribbles: using one of the most famous episodes, Michel explained with simple power calculations how a single animal can grow exponentially to more than 1.7 million in just three days. However, the result of the lecture did not match Spock's result from the episode. Had the Vulcan miscalculated? "Spock is always right," Michel grinned. As it turned out, Spock's legendary number was mathematically correct. The German dubbing studio, on the other hand, had made a mistake; in the English original, Spock came up with the same result as Michel.
The myth of the "red uniforms" was also scientifically verified by Michel. This is because personnel with gold uniforms are actually more dangerous than their colleagues with red tops, at least statistically speaking. Proof that probability theory can be more exciting than any away mission.
When it came to impulse and warp drive, it finally got down to the nitty-gritty: the theory of relativity, rocket physics and exotic matter showed that interstellar travel currently fails less because of courage than because of energy issues. Nevertheless, Michel made it clear that science fiction is not just a pastime, but a space for thinking about real science and social visions.
The Rosenmontagsvorlesung has thus long since established itself as a fixture in Siegen's calendar of events: intelligent, humorous and with a clear view beyond the edge of the plate or, in this case, beyond the edge of the galaxy.
