Brazilian physicist Níckolas de Aguiar Alves demonstrated that Star Trek's "Picard Maneuver"—where a ship accelerates to warp speed then abruptly stops to create multiple visible images and confuse an enemy—would actually work according to real physics. His calculations show the maneuver would produce three visible images rather than two, improving its tactical effectiveness beyond what the show depicted.
A physicist analyzed Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Picard maneuver" and discovered the fictional warp-speed trick has a basis in relativistic physics. The maneuver exploits how faster-than-light objects create two images, a phenomenon found in real physics when objects move faster than light in a medium.