Isn’t it interesting that in the old Star Trek series (the original, back in the late 60s, for you youngsters out there) that the main power of the Enterprise came from the use of “dilithium crystals” and today… what do we mostly use for batteries and power? Lithium.
Lithium is the main element of the majority of small appliance batteries: phones, tablets, laptop computers… toys and many, many things use this rare and extremely toxic mineral.(1)
Dilithium, in the Star Trek world, was a crystaline substance that could be used to alternately produce matter and anti-matter depending on how it was treated, thusly offering incomprehensible amounts of raw energy for a power-hungry beast such as Federation Star Ship.
In truth, the physics of Star Trek is total bull. Star Trek is technically science fantasy, not science fiction, enjoyable as it is. However, it is amazing how many things they either hit spot on about the near future, or even caused to happen simply by offering them as ideas / concepts to the next generation (or two or three) of design engineers.
Lithium. Dilithium. Hooray for Sci-Fi!
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(1) Fortunately there are other, even better battery technologies in development right now, using far less dangerous materials, and yet producing far better power storage. Hooray for ingenuity! Lithium is so dangerous, it really is amazing how easily the World accepted it as a material for batteries. Presumably dilithium is safer to handle… 🙂