The Science of Battlestar Galactica

by Di Justo, Patrick

  So what does this say for our place in the cosmos? Large-scale TV broadcasting really started on Earth in the 1950s. There’s now a bubble around Earth, nearly sixty light-years in radius, containing the carrier signals of all our TV shows from Kukla, Fran and Ollie to the Battlestar Galactica finale. With European television in the process of going all-digital, and with Asia still working out the details to go all-digital sometime in the 2020s, it’s possible that by, say, 2050 Earth will cease to spew any analog broadcast TV into the cosmos.

  So maybe Bostrom’s filter is a cognitive one, based on the switch from analog to digital. Maybe there are advanced civilizations hiding on the other side of the digital filter, waiting for us to stop our 100 years of analog yammering. They could be looking for that special lack of a signal that tells them we’re worth talking to.

  AFTERWORD

  By now you’ve probably already concluded that science did play an important role for Ron Moore and the writers of Battlestar Galactica. Unlike so many other science fiction movies and programs, BSG used science not as a veneer, but as a key thematic component for driving many of the character stories—whether it was Chief Tyrol surviving the death-defying journey out the airlock, or the way craft were shown maneuvering through space, the writers artfully used physics to anchor and accentuate the dramatic possibilities and create a realistic context for the show. BSG didn’t shy away from science and take the lazy man’s way out, but, rather, used it to build context and to heighten and emphasize the dramatic themes, which is the art of science fiction in my opinion.

  Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek.

  We now live in a world of fusion where the past, present, and future can all blend together, creating even more exciting and powerfully moving dramatic options, and BSG certainly is at the forefront of building a bridge between contemporary drama and the unpredictable world of future possibilities in science fiction. Although the science and physics of the future can be fascinating to many of us and a vitally important aspect to any well-written science fiction program, those of us who have loved the genre for decades will tell you that the best has always been about exploring both theoretical technical and scientific possibilities and the mysteries of the human heart—as any good character-driven drama does.

  With courage, healthy audacity and, thank gods, the support of the Syfy Channel, BSG was successfully able to blend and integrate the very best of science fiction with more conventional themes; moving from the black-and-white dramatic scenarios of the past to the more honest, ambiguous, and morally conflicted themes to which we, in this more illuminated world of today, can relate. Battlestar reminded us not only of our deepest flaws and fallibilities, but of our humanity as well. It is rare when a science fiction series not only can entertain, but inspire, expand our viewpoint of the world, and be socially and politically relevant to the times in which we live. The series not only mirrored much of what has been going on in the world over the past several years, but amplified and focused penetrating insight into how we human beings deal with catastrophic life-and-death events.

  The show portrayed complex and yet simple human beings dealing with the sociological, political, and physiological challenges of surviving catastrophic change, which we in this world of today are also facing. When familiar dramatic themes are seen in the light of future possibilities, new windows of perception are opened up. Given that the historical topography of the series was only one step removed from our present-day reality, the writers were able to delve into the show’s much darker apocalyptic scenarios with a great deal more honesty and integrity and with less fear of alienating their audience than they would were the show in a modern-day setting. The show found a populist appeal and fans who had never watched, or been interested in, such a “geeky” genre were converted and assimilated in droves as Battlestar moved at an ever-accelerating pace to its final chapter and closure.

  As for me, I will never see BSG as having ended or in its final resting place, only suspended for a short while until the Powers That Be recognize how many fans across genres love and support this amazing story. Battlestar has not only managed to redefine science fiction in the eyes of viewers and critics alike, but pushed the limit of dramatic possibilities. May Battlestar Galactica live forever in our hearts and in our imagination!

  So Say We All!!

  Richard Hatch

  NOTES

  Introduction: Moore’s Law

  1 From the lyrics of “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Love Theme” by Joel Hodgson and J. Elvis Weinstein, used by permission.

  1. Are You Alive?

  1 One interesting side note: As we examine more and more primitive life forms and the more primitive areas of current genomes, we find that older organisms and older genes rely on those amino acids that can be most easily created in Miller-Urey-type experiments. This hints, but does not prove, that the genetic code for early organisms was biased toward a smaller number of amino acids—the amino acids that can be found in a world like Stanley Miller’s ocean flask.

  5. How Can Cylons Download Their Memories?

  1 Issue 16.07: Infoporn: Tap into the 12-Million-Teraflop Handheld Megacomputer: http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/st_infoporn_1607.

  9. Energy Matters

  1 Called BIPM (the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) by the French.

  11. Special Relativity

  1 Einstein, Albert. “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” Annalen der Physik 17: 891-921 (1905). In the original German, if you’re feeling ambitious. English translations are readily available online, at http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/, for example. The math isn’t too difficult, if you’re up on your algebra.

  12. General Relativity and Real Gravity

  1 In SI units, the value is 6.674 × 10—11 m3/kgs2.

  14. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons

  1 Some elements of this list come from the Web page “Types of Nuclear Weapons,” http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html, by Carey Sublette.

  15. Our Galaxy

  1 There is another, larger, catalogue used by astronomers called the New General Catalogue (NGC). The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is also known as NGC 224. The Colonials obviously have something similar. In the episode “A Measure of Salvation” Lee refers to the “New Colonial Database.”

  2 Some recent estimates range as high as a trillion.

  16. A Star Is Born

  1 The actual formula is L/Ls = (M/Ms)3.5, in which L and M are the luminosity and mass of a star, and Ls and Ms are the luminosity and mass of our Sun. The great thing about this formula is that you don’t need to know the actual values of the mass of the Sun or the other star. Simply state that the mass and luminosity of the Sun are both equal to 1, and the mass or luminosity of the other star is equal to some multiple of solar values: 10 times the Sun, 1/5 the Sun, etc.

  18. Black Holes

  1 These quotes and other great observations about black holes can be found in “Monster of the Milky Way,” an episode of the PBS series NOVA.

  20. Water

  1 We would find life claustrophobically limited if all of our chemical processes only took place when the ambient temperature was between 65 and 73 degrees Fahrenheit.

  2 Most likely on the tyllium mining ships.

  CREDITS

  All photographs © NBC Universal Photo with the exception of those listed below:

  Page 47, bottom: Image courtesy of CERN

  Pages 109, 143, 240, 242: Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/Caltech

  Page 110: Figure courtesy of NASA

  Page 146: Image courtesy of NASA/StSci

  Page 295, bottom: Peggy Sue Davis

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Patrick Di Justo

  When not writing about Battlestar Galactica, Patrick Di Justo is a contributing editor for Wired magazine and has written for Popular Science, Scientific American, New York magazine, and New York Times Circuits. He has been an astrophysics lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium, a
robot programmer for the Federal Reserve Bank, the Son of Sam’s paper boy, and a standup comedian. He designed and built experiments that flew on Space Shuttle Flight STS-107.

  Pretending to represent Gemenon at the United Nations panel on Battlestar Galactica.

  Dr. Kevin R. Grazier

  Dr. Kevin Grazier served as the Science Advisor for all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica and is currently in that role on the SyFy Channel series Eureka and the NBC animated series The Zula Patrol. He has also consulted on numerous other books, movies, and television series, including several currently in various stages of production.

  Dr. Grazier is a Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, currently working on both the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan and the Constellation program. At JPL he has written mission planning and analysis software that won both JPL- and NASA-wide awards. He worked previously at the RAND Corporation, processing data from the Viking missions in support of the Mars Observer mission.

  On the CIC set in Vancouver, Canada.

  He has BS degrees in computer science and geology from Purdue University and another in physics from Oakland University. His doctoral research was in planetary physics at UCLA, where he performed long-term large-scale computer simulations of early solar system evolution dynamics, and chaos—research that he continues to this day. In what passes for his spare time, Dr. Grazier teaches at both UCLA and Santa Monica College—classes in basic astronomy, planetary science, cosmology, the science of science fiction, and the search for extraterrestrial life.

  Dr. Grazier was the recipient of Oakland University’s 2009 Odyssey Award for the alumnus whose life exemplifies Oakland University’s motto: “Seek virtue and knowledge.”

  INDEX

  Note: Page numbers in italics refer to photos and illustrations.

  accretion disk

  acetylcholine

  actuators

  Adama, Admiral William

  astronomy and

  defining life and

  genetic research and

  memory and

  pharmacopeia and

  physics and

  “silica pathways” and

  technology and

  Adama, Lee “Apollo,”

  Colonials as humans and

  genetic research and

  physics and

  technology and

  adenine (A)

  adenosine

  adenosine triphosphate (ATP)

  Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM)

  AF (After the Fall), defined

  Agathon, Hera

  Mitochondrial Eve and

  pharmacopeia and

  Agathon, Karl “Helo,”

  Cylons as men vs. machines

  physics and

  “silica pathways” and

  technology and

  Agathon, Sharon “Athena,”

  physics and

  technology and

  agents

  air, radiation and

  airborne transmission, of disease

  Alcubierre, Miguel

  algae

  Algae Planet

  alleles

  Alpha Centauri A

  Alpha Centauri B

  alpha rays

  Altair (Forbidden Planet)

  aluminosilicate minera

  amino acids

  ammonia (NH3)

  ammonium cyanide

  ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP)

  amnesia

  amphetamines

  analog transmission

  Anders, Ensign Samuel

  astronomy and

  Cylons as men vs. machines

  physics and

  “silica pathways” and

  technology and

  Andromeda (M31)

  Angel Baltar

  Angel Six

  antennae

  antibodies

  antidepressants

  antigen patterns

  anti-radiation medication

  ants, intelligence and

  apes, intelligence and

  Arabs, rocket history and

  arcjet rocket engines

  Aries

  artificial gravity

  artificial intelligence

  Astral Queen

  Astronomical Units (AU)

  astronomy

  black holes

  colored gas of nebulae

  Milky Way Galaxy

  planets

  stars

  water and

  atmosphere

  moons and

  “one atmosphere” rule

  atoms

  Baah Pakal

  back door schemes

  Baltar, Dr. Gaius

  Cylon detector of

  Cylons as men vs. machines

  humanity and

  intelligence and

  memory and

  pharmacopeia and

  technology and

  barrage jamming

  barriers

  Battlestar Galactica

  humanity and

  as science fiction show with/without science

  technology and

  See also Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica (1978 television series); Caprica (television series); individual names of battlestars; individual names of characters; individual names of civilizations; individual names of episodes

  Battlestar Galactica (miniseries)

  Cylon infiltration of Colonial computer infrastructure

  electronic warfare and

  memory and

  physics and

  rocket technology and

  Battlestar Galactica (1978 television series)

  on “galaxy,” “star systems,” and “universe,”

  Special Theory of Relativity and

  technology and

  battlestars

  directed energy weapons and

  launching vipers from(See also vipers)

  raptors and(See also raptors)

  See also individual names of battlestars

  bees, intelligence and

  Being

  Belarus

  “bends,”

  beryllium

  beta rays

  BF (Before the Fall), defined

  Biers, D’Anna

  Cylons as men vs. machines

  nuclear weapons and

  binary star systems

  BioBricks

  bittamucin

  Blackbird

  black dwarfs

  Blade Runner (film)

  blast damage, from nuclear weapons

  bloodstopper

  blood types

  blue stars

  Bohr, Neils

  Bohr Model of atom

  Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC)

  Bostrom, Nick

  brain

  memory and data transfer

  mind and

  morphine and

  sentience and

  brane cosmology

  Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (NASA)

  breeding, Cylons and

  bubble chambers

  Bulk

  caffeine

  Cain, Admiral Helena

  Cylons as men vs. machines

  physics and

  California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

  Calley, Specialist

  Callisto, water and

  Cameron, A. G. W.

  Canis Major

  “capitalistic growth,”

  Caprica City

  Caprica (planet)

  nuclear weapons and

  pharmacopeia and

  planets and

  technology and

  Caprica Six

  Caprica (television series)

  “Captain’s Hand, The” (Battlestar Galactica)

  carbon dioxide (CO2)

  carbon monoxide (CO)

  Cartesian coordinate system

  Cassini

  Catalogue des Nébuleus
es et de Amas d’étoiles (Messier)

  cats, intelligence and

  CAT scans

  Cavil, Brother John

  Cylons as men vs. machines

  memory and

  physics and

  celeritas (c), defined

  Celestial Sphere

  Centaurus

  Centers for Disease Control

  centrifugal force

  centripetal force

  Centurions

  Ceres, water and

  chaff

  charge-to-mass ratio

  Chernobyl nuclear reactor

  chimpanzees, intelligence and

  China, rocket history and

  CIA

  Cinescape

  circumstellar disk

  Cloud Nine

  clouds

  cobalt-60

  cocaine

  cognition. See also brain

  Cohen, Sam

  Cold War

  collective intelligence

  Colonial One

  Colonials

  brains of

  Cylons as men vs. machines

  defined

  defining life and

  genetic research and

  as humans

  memory and

  physical makeup of Cylons vs.

  physics and water

  sacred scrolls of

  technology and

  color, of nebulae

  comets

  Comet Halley

  of Kobol

  water and

  Command Navigation Program (CNP)

  Command of the Air, The (Douhet)

  communications intelligence (COMINT)

  compiling

  computer viruses

  back door schemes and

  compiling and