If you like science fiction, I can recommend a show for you— The Expanse. It takes place in the not-so-distant future all right here in our own solar system. There are no pew-pew lasers or faster-than-light space travel. When humans are on a spacecraft, they either "float" around or use magnetic boots (except when the spacecraft is accelerating). There are no "inertial dampeners" in The Expanse. Not only that, but it has interesting characters and a compelling plot. I like it.

As it turns out, The Expanse has three seasons all on the SyFy Network—but they did not renew for season 4. My plan was to write a physics piece about The Expanse to encourage another studio to pick it up. It seems my plan might have already worked—as Amazon Studios might be taking over. Hopefully.

OK, now for some physics. Let's look at this flash back scene that shows the invention of the Epstein drive. The basic idea is that the space craft use some type of nuclear fusion rockets and this dude figured out a way to make them more "efficient"—I guess that means more thrust with less fuel. But why can't the pilot move his hand during this acceleration?

Let me start with a seemingly completely unrelated experiment. Here are two cars on a low friction track. They are just sitting there. The track is level and they are not moving and not accelerating. Boring, but important.

I should point out that there are magnetic bumpers on these two cars. These magnets can push the cars apart when they get close—but right now they are far enough apart that there is no force. You can think of this magnetic bumper like a spring. In fact, I would have used a spring but I didn't find a suitable one.

These two cars represent parts of a human's body. There is no "compression" between these two body parts so the human would feel "weightless." This human is in deep outer space far away from any large gravitational objects so that the human is indeed actually weightless.

What about a human standing on Earth? Here are the same two cars with the track inclined a bit. There is a large block that prevents the red car from moving (this would be like the floor on Earth).