THE CLAIM:

Mr. Spock is always right, so anything he says can always counted on to be absolutely correct.

THE TRUTH:

"One damned moment, Captain..."

In "That Which Survives" a defense program named Losira throws the Enterprise 990.7 light years (if we believe Spock) from her planet, then sabotages the engines. This sends the ship hurtling through space at high warp, and out of control. Spock estimates that the crew has only "14.87 minutes" left before the ship explodes. Scotty works madly trying to remedy the problem by working on the magnetic containment field holding the antimatter. As Scott begins repairs, Spock tells him he has "8 minutes, 41 seconds" left. Soon the countdown to the imminent destruction of the Enterprise comes and goes-- and nothing happens. If Spock is so precise with his calculations, why was Scott able to work for at least ten seconds after Spock said the ship would explode? Spock spends the entire episode chiding the other officers on their inability to be precise.

UGLY CHICK AT THE HELM: "We are holding at warp eight point four, sir. If we can maintain it, our estimated time of arrival is eleven and one half solar hours."

SPOCK: "Eleven point three, three seven hours, lieutenant. I wish you would be more precise."

In "Turnabout Intruder", Spock claims that complete entity transfer has never been accomplished with complete success anywhere in the galaxy. However, Spock seems to be mistaken. He was not only present during the complete energy transfer of Sargon, Thalassa, and Henoch in "Return To Tomorrow", he actively participated, being the host body to Henoch!

In "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", Spock turns to Kirk and says, "I suspect there's an object at the heart of that cloud." Well, no shit, Sherlock. The guy at the Epsilon 9 station told this to to Kirk near the beginning of the movie! Didn't Spock study all the relevant data on V'ger after he came aboard?

In "Space Seed", Kirk strands Khan and his army of supermen on Ceti Alpha 5. In "Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Khan" we find out that Ceti Alpha 6 exploded six months later, destroying the ecosystem of Ceti Alpha 5, laying waste to everything. So why didn't science officer Spock detect that Ceti Alpha 6 was unstable? Did he FAIL to do a proper scan of the system? Or did he MISS it?

In "Operation Annihilate!" McCoy whispers to Kirk not to mention that he said that Spock was the best first officer in the fleet. At this point, Spock turns at his station and thanks the doctor for the compliment. But in "The Naked Time", Sulu has a conversation about leaving the bridge, does so, and Spock just keeps looking in his scanner. Didn't he think this was important enough to prevent?

Also in "The Naked Time", Spock says,

SPOCK: "I have a human half you see, as well as an alien half, submerged, constantly at war with each other."

Did he just call his Vulcan half "alien"? Wouldn't he be more likely to identify his human half as alien?

In "Miri", Spock comments that the cure McCoy is cooking up for the landing party could be a "beaker full of death." However, McCoy is using a FLASK, not a beaker. What happened to the precise Vulcan? Being a scientist, Spock should know the difference between a beaker and a flask.

In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", Spock checks on the relevant contributions by Captain Christopher, but forgets to check those of his descendants. This is completely inconsistent with the famed precision of Spock's work.

In "The Devil In The Dark", Spock examines a silicon ball on a desk, which we find out later are Horta eggs. Spock quotes the director of the mining camp as saying there were "thousands of them." However, Vandenberg actually said there were "a million of them." Did Spock just screw up again, or is his "legendary" hearing ability really just a myth?

In "Errand Of Mercy", Spock comments to Kirk that he finds the Organians' behavior most peculiar- referring to their refusal to do anything to resist the Klingons. But isn't pacifism one of the highest virtues of Vulcan society? In "The Savage Curtain", Surak, the father of all that Vulcans hold dear, demonstrates this belief most eloquently.

In "Obsession", Spock seems to forget the basic properties of gas. As the vampire cloud creature invades the Enterprise through a ventilation grille, Spock puts his hands over the opening! Of course, the creature simply flows around his fingers.

In "The Immunity Syndrome", Spock reaches up to open the doors to the shuttlebay so he can depart the ship. But before he can do this, McCoy stops him. Good thing he did, or Spock would have depressurized the whole deck. As the atmosphere level indicator on the control panel shows, the shuttlebay isn't pressurized!

In "Return To Tomorrow", Spock declares that Sargon is "matter without form, pure energy". Kirk replies, "impossible". Spock seems to forget that the Companion in "Metamorphosis" was composed of energy. So was the vampire cloud in "Obsession", and even Redjac in "Wolf In The Fold" could inhabit either a human body or the main computer. Also, since "pure energy" doesn't have any matter in it, Spock's statement in nonsensical. Perhaps this is why Kirk replied "impossible". He's not referring to Sargon. He's questioning Spock's physics.

In "Day Of The Dove", Kirk risks intraship beaming in order to beam into Engineering and talk to Kang. From the bridge, Spock sets the transporter controls and tells Kirk that he will have "eight seconds" to get on the pad. Kirk flips the controls, goes to the transporter pad, walks back to the transporter console, pauses, lays down his sword, and finally gets back on the pad. Depending on when you start the countdown, the above actions take twelve to fifteen seconds.

In "The Empath", Spock examines the Vian hand-held controller, and claims that it is operated by the specific brain patterns of an individual. He then tunes it to operate on his own patterns. But near the end of the show, Kirk gives this device back to one of the Vians, and the alien uses it to heal McCoy. Wouldn't it still be tuned to Spock's brain patterns, or was Spock wrong about the device?

In "The Tholian Web", Spock states that, until the discovery of the mutinous crew of the USS Defiant- there has never been a mutiny aboard a starship. Yet in "Whom Gods Destroy", we find that Captain Garth's crew mutinied when he ordered them to destroy the inhabitants on Antos IV. Spock also forgot about about the crew of the Enterprise mutiny in "This Side Of Paradise"

In "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", Spock states that Cheron is on a course between 403 mark 7 and 403 mark 9. If Spock is so precise, why didn't he simply say Cheron is on a course 403 mark 8?

Also in this episode, Spock closely follows the progress of the chase between Bele and Lokai around the ship, yet fails to mention that Lokai has entered the transporter room. Uhura has to tell Kirk that the transporter has engaged.

In "The Cloudminders", Spock flirts with Droxine of Stratos, and even proceeds to tell her about the Vulcan mating rituals. So much for, "It is a thing no out-worlders may know", and "It is a deeply personal thing" statements made by Spock during his discussion of Pon farr with Kirk in "Amok Time".

In "The Savage Curtain", Spock gives Lincoln a readout on the altitude of the Enterprise. Referring to miles, Spock says, "Using your old-style measurement...." Old style? Then why did Spock say the amoeba in "The Immunity Syndrome" was 11,000 miles long?

Finally, in "Obsession", Spock says that an ounce of antimatter would be enough to rip half the atmosphere off Tychos IV. One ounce of antimatter would result in a 1.2 MT explosion. I asked Astrophysicist Dr. Curtis Saxton how small can a "Class M" planet be and still retain a breathable atmosphere and normal gravity?

Dr. Saxton: With (say) half Earth gravity, and a metallic composition roughly four times Earth's bulk density might give a planet with a radius one third of Earth's (very roughly).

I then asked that dependant on the above number, can a 1.2 MT explosion (M. Wong's number on a 1 ounce antimatter detonation) on the surface blow off half the atmosphere on this planet?

Dr. Saxton: An atmosphere as warm as Earth's has a characteristic depth of about10km. In other words, as you travel up through the atmosphere, the density of air drops by a factor of 1/e for every 10km altitude. It turns out that the mass of air above one square metre on the surface is 10,000m times the density of air (about 1.2 kg per cubic metre).

Bottom line: the mass of air is equal to the surface area of the planet, multiplied by 10,000m, multiplied by the density of air at ground level. I estimate about 6 x 10^18 kg for the Earth's atmosphere (radius of Earth is a bit less than 6400km).

To remove a mass from near the surface of a planet, violently enough that it never falls back, you need to give it an initial velocity equal to or greater than the escape velocity. Escape velocity for Earth is about 11km/s. The energy required to remove Earth's atmosphere is about 3.7E26 Joules.

For a different planet, if the air temperature is roughly the same, and if the air density is d times the Earth value, the gravity is g times the Earth value, and the planetary radius is R times the Earth's radius, then the energy required to lift off the atmosphere (neglecting inefficiencies due to heating etc) is (3.7E26 J * d * g * R^2).

The density of the planet's solid material, compared to Earth's, is a ratio g / R^2. Ordinary solid matter is unlikely to give a density less than half the Earth's; nor a density more than a few times Earth's (if the planet is mostly made of dense metals).

Bottom line: I don't think we can change the binding energy of a habitable planet's atmosphere by very much. Not by many orders of magnitude anyhow.

The amount of energy I quoted above is equivalent to the annihilation of 4 billion kg of matter and antimatter. I think that somebody made an arithmetic error!