General > General Technical Chat
SciFi movies and pathetic misconceptions of tech failing for the story line.
David Hess:
--- Quote from: coppercone2 on April 01, 2023, 02:06:54 am ---I really want to see inertial dampers made in my life time. Hopefully connected to a ceramic resistor bank. And the bootleg space ships will use a salt water load in a tupperware when the manager does not want to buy a new load. How many watts do I need to dissipate to prevent my coffee from floating away?
Is that a shady practice done on large ships? Like discharging a battery bank into the hull ?
--- End quote ---
Niven's Known Space had "gravity drags" which returned the speed difference between the ship and a local mass as energy to be dissipated in a big radiator, with hilarity ensuing if circumstances required the energy transfer requirements to be too large. Known Space also had artificial gravity so cabin gravity could be maintained at zero or high acceleration.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/humanfactor.php
Rick Law:
--- Quote from: snarkysparky on April 01, 2023, 12:58:50 am ---Intersteller had mistakes in it that it just didn't need to have. No plot impact, no cost to do it right. It just made me pissed.
First thing is building a starship at the end of a gravel road.
Second thing is the relativistic aging of the guy still orbiting the planet while the explorers were investigating the surface. If the difference was that much then they would not be able to leave that gravity well.
And the Daughter whining about how her dad left her there on Earth to die. Really? I'd rather take my chances on a slowly dying planet that marooned on a one way trip to nowhere.
There are a few more but i forget.
There would be no cost to have fixed these.
For a good Sci Fi of the same type check out Arrival.
--- End quote ---
I'll give you one more Interstellar "mistakes in it that it just didn't need to have." Newton's 3rd Law of Motion is "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" but they had it in the movie as "To move forward, we have to leave something behind".
Normal rocket-propelled forward motion is done by rockets thrust gas out backward at speed resulting in an opposite force pushing the rocket ship forward. That is Newton's 3rd Law of Motion.
To gain forward motion by removing "Ranger 2" from "Endurance", detaching is not enough. If Endurance push Ranger 2 away in the backward direction, that would work. The push backward of Ranger 2 by Endurance will results in an opposite force pushing Endurance in the forward direction. Pushing requires energy (fuel) and fuel is what they want to conserve. However, detaching Ranger 2 is indeed helpful. Helpful not due to the 3rd law, but helpful due to the 2nd law "F=ma". Detaching Ranger 2 means less mass to move. Less mass requires less force to accelerate or decelerate, less force = less fuel needed.
The gavel road has a reason. They want to hide the facility. A well paved road to nowhere will draw attention. The 1971 movie "The Andromeda Strain" first "going to the lab" scene was the two scientist driving to a secret high-tech lab on a dirt road. The scientist driving was explaining to the new comer how much money they spend building this dirt road and removing tracks from construction so as to hide the existence of the huge underground facility.
re: Arrival
It is a good movie and I do enjoy it. I have a couple of issue with it but not enough to not like the movie. Mostly, I have trouble with their treatment of Time and the assumption that changing our perception of Time can give us the ability to experience events in the future.
There was a time when I spend a lot of time thinking about Time. While that time has passed, my thoughts on Time still consumes my free time; from time to time.
coppice:
--- Quote from: BrianHG on April 01, 2023, 02:27:46 am ---I'm about to watch 'Deus The Dark Sphere (2022)', will it be interesting, or a dud?
--- End quote ---
Seen it. Slow and pretty dull. It was obviously made on a low budget, but they wanted it to look good. Spreading a small budget over some high quality visuals obviously meant they couldn't afford too many visuals, so they appear to have just spread a half hour of fairly polished material over 90 minutes. You still only get a 30 minute story.
coppice:
--- Quote from: Rick Law on April 02, 2023, 12:59:49 am ---re: Arrival
It is a good movie and I do enjoy it. I have a couple of issue with it but not enough to not like the movie. Mostly, I have trouble with their treatment of Time and the assumption that changing our perception of Time can give us the ability to experience events in the future.
There was a time when I spend a lot of time thinking about Time. While that time has passed, my thoughts on Time still consumes my free time; from time to time.
--- End quote ---
Our way of thinking affecting our perception of time is the whole plot of Arrival (The Story Of Your Life). If you don't like that then the movie has nothing for you.
Brumby:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on March 27, 2023, 02:27:16 pm ---Ah, what it is like to be young, and not to remember 1950/60s movies[1], nor TV programmes like Space 1999.
[1] exceptions: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001
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I might also add War Of The Worlds (the 1953 version)
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