Started "The Physics of Star Trek" - Lawrence M. Krauss (E-Reader)

"The Physics of Star Trek" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physics_of_Star_Trek) by Lawrence M. Krauss

After reading heavier physics ("The Grand Design" and "The Universe in a Nutshell" by Hawking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_hawking)) a more practical view of physics was a nice change.  I was a late bloomer for the original Star Trek and for Next Gen, both of which I started watching in re-runs.  Never was a fan of Voyager, though, so the Janeway references leave me cold.

I caught a few of the main physics blunders on Star Trek, but never really thought about "Inertial Dampeners" or even the massive difficulty in communication due to relativistic time effects on a bunch of players roaming around in space a light or greater-than-light speeds.  I don't know if Star Trek ever had "my daughter has been dead for 1000 years" storylines.

"The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War) is a great book for this topic.  Each foray through the warp to fight the enemy resulted in leaving family behind by time as well as space - you could go home to earth, but each visit was wildly different than the last.  The split of the two soldiers into different missions was a final goodbye, as each left earth a few hours or days apart, but any return would not likely be in the same century, so even if both survived, no more nookie.