Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Chalk this one up to fun scientific papers we inexplicably missed last year. A group of undergraduates at the University of Leicester in the UK calculated the growth rate of the fictional Star Trek critters known as tribbles. They published their results in a short paper in the university's undergraduate-centric Journal of Physics Special Topics, estimating just how long it would take for there to be enough tribbles to fill up the USS Enterprise.
First aired on December 29, 1967, "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode was written by David Gerrold, then a 23-year-old college student in California. He originally envisioned it as a cautionary tale of ecological disaster—inspired in part by how quickly rabbits multiplied when they were first introduced to Australia in 1859, a region where they had no natural predators. However, over several rewrites, the tone evolved to incorporate more humor—much to the dismay of ST:TOS creator Gene Roddenberry, who thought the episode lacked gravitas. Roddenberry was ultimately proven wrong. The episode frequently ranks among the top ten best episodes of ST:TOS, if not the entire franchise.
...It's a relatively simple calculation involving an exponential formula, ideal for creative homework problems. In the episode, Spock estimates that each tribble (born pregnant) can give birth to ten offspring in 12 hours and pegs the number of tribbles on board after just three days at 1,777,561. The students assumed Spock's assessment was correct, and their calculation also assumed no tribbles died. They also estimated that it would take 18.4×109 tribbles to entirely fill the USS Enterprise. Under those conditions, they concluded that, given the rate of exponential growth, it would take 4.5 days for tribbles to completely fill the ship.
Physics undergrads crunched numbers for Star Trek’s tribble problem
I'm so glad this problem has been solved.
First aired on December 29, 1967, "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode was written by David Gerrold, then a 23-year-old college student in California. He originally envisioned it as a cautionary tale of ecological disaster—inspired in part by how quickly rabbits multiplied when they were first introduced to Australia in 1859, a region where they had no natural predators. However, over several rewrites, the tone evolved to incorporate more humor—much to the dismay of ST:TOS creator Gene Roddenberry, who thought the episode lacked gravitas. Roddenberry was ultimately proven wrong. The episode frequently ranks among the top ten best episodes of ST:TOS, if not the entire franchise.
...It's a relatively simple calculation involving an exponential formula, ideal for creative homework problems. In the episode, Spock estimates that each tribble (born pregnant) can give birth to ten offspring in 12 hours and pegs the number of tribbles on board after just three days at 1,777,561. The students assumed Spock's assessment was correct, and their calculation also assumed no tribbles died. They also estimated that it would take 18.4×109 tribbles to entirely fill the USS Enterprise. Under those conditions, they concluded that, given the rate of exponential growth, it would take 4.5 days for tribbles to completely fill the ship.
Physics undergrads crunched numbers for Star Trek’s tribble problem
I'm so glad this problem has been solved.
