Memory Alpha
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Memory Alpha
Series:TNG
Season:2
Original Airdate:1989-03-27
Production Number:138
Year:2365
Stardate:42625.4
Story by:Keith Mills
Directed by:Cliff Bole

The Enterprise investigates the wreckage of a 21st century Earth spaceship orbiting a distant planet and the appearance of a casino with inhabitants based on a paperback novel.

Summary

SUMMARY

Background Information

MISC. NOTES

Fermat's Last Theorem is mentioned as being unproved for 800 years. This is now false by Wiles's proof the mid 1990s. However, the proof uses methods unknown in Fermat's time, so perhaps this statement refers to proving the theorem in a manner that Fermat might have used. Or more likely, Fermat's Last Theorem was still unproven in 1989: the time this story was written. Being as Star Trek is fiction, it is not unreasonable to think that the writers would refer to this theorem as unproven.

The idea of an advanced alien race recreating a suitable environment from a wayward astronaut's cultural artifacts to for him live out his finals days was first detailed by notable science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Lieutenant Geordi LaForge said that the planet's surface was -291 degrees Celsius, which is about twenty degrees below absolute zero, an impossibility.

Links and References

Guest Stars

References

blackjack; Cadillac; Charybdis; class K; Colonel; craps; Pierre de Fermat; Fermat's Last Theorem; "The Hotel Royale"; Jacob; Klingon; Las Vegas; Lubbock; methane; NASA; Nevada; neon; nitrogen; Rita; Room 727; Stephen G. Richey; Sol system; Texas; Theta 116 VIII; Theta 116 system; United States Air Force; United States of America; Zen.


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