7 Ups & 2 Downs From Star Trek: Discovery 5.9 — Lagrange Point
8. UP — A Three-Body Problem Solution
With Netflix's recent adaptation of Liu Cixin's novel, which also featured Rosalind Chao (Keiko O'Brien to us), we're probably all aware of the celestial 'problem' by now. The fault, dear Astrometrics, is not in our stars, but in our ability to accurately and forever predict their movements. There are some solutions to the three-/n-body problem, however — one of which, in restricted form, is Lagrange (or Lagrangian) points.
Just an UP for the supreme scientific beauty of it. I mean, we have had mention of Lagrange points in Star Trek before — in Survivors and Unification III, for example — but never anything nearly like this! The location of the technology of the Progenitors, the species who seeded life as we know it across the galaxy, had to be spectacular. Right at an equilibrium (Lagrange) point between two (primordial) black holes — which they themselves put there billions of years ago — is that and then some!
Even if it doesn't always get it right, science and Star Trek go hand in hand — test tube in cathode-ray tube. Over the years, Trek has inspired countless many to study, take up careers, or just an interest, in the sciences. A lot of us (me included) will have been unfamiliar with the finer points of Lagrange points before this week's episode, but it will have encouraged plenty to find out more. Star Trek tells us to ask the next question, to find the interesting in the detail — that imperative expressed ever effervescently, here, through the persistently curious Tilly.