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Postby prophile » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:19 pm

I burn things.
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Postby Montyphy » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:26 pm

BrianBlessed wrote:N.B. Has anyone noticed that in science-fiction films alien races rarely ever have any grasp of science? Even though they have unbelievably advanced technology, I can't think of a single film where any mention of any science principle is mentioned by any sort of alien race. It's all magic to them.


There are obvious reasons for that:

1, most of the human population don't grasp the science behind even the most common day to day house devices, why should aliens be any different?
2, if a film writer were to try explain the science principles of the technology it would be crictised and dismissed unless it was a technology we had currently developed ourselves. Unless you look at Star Trek where the writers talked a lot with physicists to try determine how something would be done. Obvious there is still a bit of black box magic but if we knew exactly how to do it, we would have.
3, people don't often go around explaining sciences principles in the heat of a battle. They're usually busy doing their job. The things you should find humerous to watch are shows like CSI where they explain to each other the basic principles like looking for gun shot residue or using luminol to find blood. Clearly this is for the benefit of the watchers as these people are suppose to be trained professionals.
4, to most people it would be mundane to listen to.
5, their principles would have been discovered and developed by other people and would likely go by a differnt name making it difficult to place the fundementals into context.
Last edited by Montyphy on Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby sirvoks » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:28 pm

really?
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Postby Ace Rimmer » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:37 pm

Montyphy wrote:There are obvious reasons for that:

5, their principles would have been discovered and developed by other people and would likely go by a differnt name making it difficult to place the fundementals into context.


Exactly.
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Postby BrianBlessed » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:48 pm

See you say that, but it's just the way alien races are represented, which is as scienceless freaks.

To give an example, I still find it fairly awe-inspiring that you can determine the elemental make-up of a star just based on the light it emits and absorbs. I saw even more recently on the Sky at Night, someone had been able to work out the entire internal make up and currents of stars aswell as being able to map the exactly frequency and amplitude the entire body vibrates. Yet given all that we are still riding round in vehicles which are just repeatedly exploding.

Conversely on Star Trek, despite the fact that they fairly trivially pass the speed of light, their area in which the power and 'engines' are situated is called engineering. Now I can't be the only one thinking that if they exceed the speed of light, whatever equipment and people used to function it must be significantly advanced, I would have thought the operators would have to regularly breaking any and all current known principles known to science (including sustaining momentum, although with no explanation) and thus should be called demi-science gods rather than engineers. I mean all I imagine when I think of engineering is two bearded people trying to attach two fecking bits of meccano, which is not dissimilar to what it is like in Star Trek.

"I can increase the efficiency of the engines if I just wave this light emitting thing at some panels"
"Make it sew"
"Make the engines sew?"
"Yes!"
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Postby prophile » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:49 pm

Goat.
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Postby xander » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:50 pm

BrianBlessed wrote:The very concept and definition of infinity inherently implies that something cannot be both infinite and expanding. If we decide to draw numbers, I draw infinity and you draw infinity +2, that just means that the infinity that I picked was not infinity because if it was there would be no larger number than it. In the same vain if the infinite universe expands then that means the size that it was previously at was not infinite, if the universe goes on expanding for an infinite amount of time then it would reach an infinite size, this is mainly because infinity is an abstract concept. If you had some kind of sci-fi computer at the start of time and set it to just count numbers, (so basically just put down a one and then keeping putting on zeros as fast as possible forever) even though if the computer was allowed to run for an infinite length of time it would count to infinity the fact is that it started at 1 and continued growing from there, even though the number is growing faster than you would be able to read it.

Incorrect, at least mathematically speaking. First off, infinity isn't a number, it is a concept. That means that you can't pick infinity out of a hat. Second off, something can be, mathematically speaking, both infinite and expanding. Look at some of the infinite hotel or infinite bus analogies that you find in calculus texts. Thirdly, there are many different infinities. For instance, there are exactly as many even integers as there are integers (countably infinite), but more rational numbers than integers (non-countably infinite -- I forget the technical term) (just to name two infinities).

BrianBlessed wrote:Conversely on Star Trek, despite the fact that they fairly trivially pass the speed of light, their area in which the power and 'engines' are situated is called engineering. Now I can't be the only one thinking that if they exceed the speed of light, whatever equipment and people used to function it must be significantly advanced, I would have thought the operators would have to regularly breaking any and all current known principles known to science (including sustaining momentum, although with no explanation) and thus should be called demi-science gods rather than engineers. I mean all I imagine when I think of engineering is two bearded people trying to attach two fecking bits of meccano, which is not dissimilar to what it is like in Star Trek.

"Any science, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

What do you call a person who works with a nuclear reactor? A nuclear engineer. However, the forces that are contained in a nuclear reactor would have seemed like magic to someone living 200 years ago. Perhaps we should call all nuclear engineers "demi-science gods" (though I think you meant science demi-gods).

xander
Last edited by xander on Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby BrianBlessed » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:08 pm

I said infinity was an abstract concept, to say you can't apply it as a number is as good as saying you can't apply it to a shape or size. If you had a theoretical hotel with an infinite amount of rooms and each room had a person in, a new person comes along and wants a room, you give him the room so you now have infinity+1 rooms. The reason you can't even begin to grasp or reason with this is the sheer fact that infinity is such an abstract concept, it is man's unthinkable creation, which cannot actually be applied to anything physical of any degree. The fact that the word exists has led to it being used in various contexts to mean everything, the theoretically largest number/sphere/object/whatever, something constantly expanding.

The fact that you can seemingly get degrees of infinities, such as the example you pointed out, only proves that the definition and concept of infinity is so unapplicable to anything. Obviously infinity is word we will have to keep despite its rather spurious alternating application and definition, for that exact reason you can't just say 'The universe is infinite' because I could just as easily say 'The universe is melnghe'. I would clearly have define and explain it without using the word melnghe, defining the universe as infinite and expanding depends on using infinity in the definition.

- In fairness, nuclear engineers/technicians don't have to regularly sodomise the laws of physics
Last edited by BrianBlessed on Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Ace Rimmer » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:09 pm

BrianBlessed wrote:Conversely on Star Trek, despite the fact that they fairly trivially pass the speed of light, their area in which the power and 'engines' are situated is called engineering. Now I can't be the only one thinking that if they exceed the speed of light, whatever equipment and people used to function it must be significantly advanced, I would have thought the operators would have to regularly breaking any and all current known principles known to science (including sustaining momentum, although with no explanation) and thus should be called demi-science gods rather than engineers. I mean all I imagine when I think of engineering is two bearded people trying to attach two fecking bits of meccano, which is not dissimilar to what it is like in Star Trek.


http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/FTL.html wrote:
21. Warp Drives

A warp drive would be a mechanism for warping space-time in such a way that an object could move faster than light. Miguel Alcubierre made himself famous by working out a space-time geometry which describes such a warp drive. The warp in space-time makes it possible for an object to go FTL while remaining on a time-like curve. The main catch is the same one that may stop us making large wormholes. To make it you would need exotic matter with negative energy density. Even if such exotic matter can exist it is not clear how it could be deployed to make the warp drive work.
ref M. Alcubierre, Classical and Quantum Gravity, 11, L73-L77, (1994).


Wiki wrote:There is considerable speculation both in science and science fiction as to why the observable universe is apparently almost entirely matter, whether other places are almost entirely antimatter instead, and what might be possible if antimatter could be harnessed, but at this time the apparent asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the great unsolved problems in physics. Possible processes by which it came about are explored in more detail under baryogenesis.


...science fiction fills in the gaps...

Just adding fuel to the fire...
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Postby BrianBlessed » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:19 pm

That still doesn't explain why even if they are using their normal propulsion non-warp system and the engines cut out, they stop moving entirely. You would have thought the mighty demi-science gods, in all their wisdom would not intentionally create a machine to defy one of newton's basic principles.

Also I just though that Red Dwarf is one of the few science fiction programs which ignores this scienceless heathens rule, whereas in the majority of cases they explain some real, some bizaare fiction science without any use of magic flashly light technology as they float through space in a large crate comprised mainly of welded together skips.
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Postby Rkiver » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:23 pm

omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!omg!

Erm, hotel booked, woot.

Carry on.
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Postby Ace Rimmer » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:23 pm

BrianBlessed wrote:Also I just though that Red Dwarf is one of the few science fiction programs which ignores this scienceless heathens rule, whereas in the majority of cases they explain some real, some bizarre fiction science without any use of magic flashy light technology as they float through space in a large crate comprised mainly of welded together skips.


Red Dwarf is know to have many conflicts in its storyline, but I have never really paid attention to the science aspect of it. I am always laughing too hard to notice.
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Postby Rkiver » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:24 pm

There was science in Red Dwarf?
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Postby BrianBlessed » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:27 pm

Like Lister having his appendix removed twice, never becoming their future selves and so on. Thankfully awful continuity isn't a science. Not that the science they facilitate in Red Dwarf is great, but it seems to fairly match their ropey approach to technology.
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Postby Ace Rimmer » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:35 pm

While we're on the subject, favorite episodes... Tikka to Ride and Gunmen of the Apocalypse.

The Cat: [about Kryten] Isn't there someway we can help him? Somehow, turn ourselves into tiny electronic people and get into his dream? Isn't there some sort of gizmo lying around that can do that? And if not
[smacks table]
The Cat: WHY not?
Rimmer: Look, we all have something to bring to this discussion. But I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence.
Lister: No, no, no.
[ponders for a moment]
Lister: I think he's got something.
The Cat: [looks astonished] Twice in one lifetime?
[smiles widely]
The Cat: When you're hot, you're hot!
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