Most spectacular piece of scientific revisionism in film.

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Audley Strange
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Re: Most spectacular piece of scientific revisionism in film

Post by Audley Strange » Mon May 13, 2013 5:39 pm

Cormac wrote:
PsychoSerenity wrote:
Cormac wrote:
Audley Strange wrote: Also, Spock doesn't seem to know what logic is.
And he's not quite so much emotionless, as sulky - like a teenager flirting with gothic sensibilities.
It's not his fault, - he's half human, half Vulcan. I'm not sure if they ever gave an explanation as to how that was genetically possible though. :ask:

Best not to ask too closely...

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Re: Science Fiction films which ignore the rules of physics!

Post by Animavore » Mon May 13, 2013 9:49 pm

Xamonas Chegwé wrote:
Animavore wrote:
Xamonas Chegwé wrote:
Animavore wrote:How about in Wall-E when the spaceship banks and everyone slides down in the direction of the tilt. But if they're on a spaceship in space then there is no "down" unless the spaceship creates it artificially. If this is the case then it doesn't matter what way you bank, tilt or flip the thing. Down will always be toward the ground. They wouldn't even notice it was banking.

:sulk:
Sorry, but you're wrong here. There is no way to distinguish velocity in space - but it is certainly possible to distinguish acceleration. And, when a spaceship banks, it is simultaneously reducing its forward velocity while increasing its sideways velocity - acceleration in two dimensions. This would be noticeable to any inhabitants, in exactly the same way that you notice when a car/train goes around a bend. :prof:
Nope. The ship creates its own gravity effect so any external effect would be compensated for to maintain a seemingly static environment. They all ready thought of this :hmph:
That depends upon whether the artificial gravity in the ship nullifies all other forces upon it or is additive with them. In the latter case, acceleration effects would still be noticeable. :tea:

More interesting is exactly how the ship "creates its own gravity" - something which is glossed over in many sci-fi stories...
Well obviously it generates gravitons.
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Re: Most spectacular piece of scientific revisionism in film

Post by Calilasseia » Tue May 14, 2013 1:16 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:First off, the pressure has to drop suddenly INSIDE your body. Keep your mouth shut and hold your nose and this will happen much slower. The boiling is in proportion to the gas pressure, and that rate I don't know. Anybody? 98.6 F liquid boils at what air pressure?
Actually, the problem you face is that even if you tried keeping your mouth shut and holding your nose, there are other openings through which the gases inside your lungs could escape. Eustachian tubes. for example. The effect of suddenly being propelled out into space (ambient pressure 10-8 bar) would be rather like an explosive decompression in an airliner, only even more severe because of the pressure differential. The gases inside your lungs would exit through any available orifice, and at speed.

It would take somewhat longer for dissolved gases in body fluids to begin making their exit, though I can think of a couple of unpleasant routes by which this would be achieved, Any body tissue comprised of semi-permeable membranes on a significant scale would facilitate such escape. The kidneys being a prime example, and moreover, being organs with a connection to the outside, albeit somewhat indirect. Another issue that would be manifest fairly quickly is gas embolisms in the bloodstream, as dissolved gases began making their escape via the same mechanism you see whenever an agitated Coke bottle is opened. The water content of the bloodstream itself would take a little longer to start transitioning to the gas phase. According to Kaye & Laby's Tables of Physical & Chemical Constants, the vapour pressure of water at 38°C is around 6.6 KPa (1 bar = 101 KPa, so the vapour pressure of water at 38°C is approximately 0.06 bar). Boiling (wholesale transition to the gas phase) takes place when the vapour pressure is greater than or equal to the surrounding atmospheric pressure, so at 10-8 bar, the surroundings are well and truly below the pressure at which the water content of the bloodstream would transition easily to the gas phase, though it would take time for that pressure differential to make its presence felt in the bloodstream itself. Gas embolisms would occur first, and transition of the water content to the gas phase would follow shortly afterwards. Though this transition would also be slowed by the elastic pressure of the blood vessels.

Apparently, animal experiments have determined that 90 seconds is the critical period of elapsed time. If an explosively decompressed animal is brought back to normal atmospheric pressure before 90 seconds has elapsed, resuscitation and recovery is possible. After 90 seconds, however, full-body exposures are invariably fatal. A paper covering this is listed on PubMed here, but finding more details is a little tricky at the moment.

However, not all organisms expire after 90 seconds. Tardigrades have been demonstrated to survive exposure to Low Earth Orbit conditions for up to 10 days. The relevant paper covering this finding being:

Tardigrades Survive Exposure To Space In Low Earth Orbit by K. Ingemar Jönsson, Elke Rabbow, Ralph O. Schill, Mats Harms-Ringdahl & Petra Rettberg, Current Biology, 18(17): R729-R731 (September 2008) [Full paper readable online here, PDF download from here]

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Re: Most spectacular piece of scientific revisionism in film

Post by JimC » Tue May 14, 2013 1:21 am

One simply learns how to manipulate Higgs bosons, old chap...
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Re: Science Fiction films which ignore the rules of physics!

Post by Xamonas Chegwé » Tue May 14, 2013 1:30 am

Animavore wrote:
Xamonas Chegwé wrote:
Animavore wrote:
Xamonas Chegwé wrote:
Animavore wrote:How about in Wall-E when the spaceship banks and everyone slides down in the direction of the tilt. But if they're on a spaceship in space then there is no "down" unless the spaceship creates it artificially. If this is the case then it doesn't matter what way you bank, tilt or flip the thing. Down will always be toward the ground. They wouldn't even notice it was banking.

:sulk:
Sorry, but you're wrong here. There is no way to distinguish velocity in space - but it is certainly possible to distinguish acceleration. And, when a spaceship banks, it is simultaneously reducing its forward velocity while increasing its sideways velocity - acceleration in two dimensions. This would be noticeable to any inhabitants, in exactly the same way that you notice when a car/train goes around a bend. :prof:
Nope. The ship creates its own gravity effect so any external effect would be compensated for to maintain a seemingly static environment. They all ready thought of this :hmph:
That depends upon whether the artificial gravity in the ship nullifies all other forces upon it or is additive with them. In the latter case, acceleration effects would still be noticeable. :tea:

More interesting is exactly how the ship "creates its own gravity" - something which is glossed over in many sci-fi stories...
Well obviously it generates gravitons.
When a Daddy graviton and a Mummy graviton love each other very much...
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