Pseudo-Science In Some Sci-Fi Shows

[Garovorkin]

As technically difficult as it would be to terraform Mars Venus would be next to imposible to terraform. First and foremost the its disatnace fron the sun is only 67 million miles, even if we could elimiante the carbon layer and cool it down and somehow create a breathable atmosphere it would be to arrid to live on anywhere including the poles north and south also it takes almost a year for the planet to rotate on its axis, that a huge problem, another is the fact that there is not plate tectonics taking place on venus, according to one theory what happens is every 5oo million years or so the planet heats up and turn inside out, in other words the surface breakup and sinks and is reform . It may be because of the fact that Venus has not moon to loosen and break up the crust, the problem is is that nobody can be sure when that might happen again ,you would hate to have any kind of large population having to deal with that kid of situation. One possibility and this one would probably not practical, would be to move Venus further from the sun Put it in twin orbit with and maybe see about moving one of Saturn's or Jupiters moon in orbit around Venus to give it tectonics and tide for any oceans.the problem with this is that it such an operation could disrupt the orbits of all planets in the system and Twin orbiting plants have their own share of possible problems. This is only fanciful speculation on my part it probably will never be either possible to do this or safe try doing it. plus on top of all that you have to actually terraform the planet

 

[Jade Jaguar]

As technically difficult as it would be to terraform Mars Venus would be next to imposible to terraform. First and foremost the its disatnace fron the sun is only 67 million miles, even if we could elimiante the carbon layer and cool it down and somehow create a breathable atmosphere it would be to arrid to live on anywhere including the poles north and south

Not a problem. We'll just orbit a big aluminized mylar umbrella between Venus and the Sun.

 

[Garovorkin]

Our civilization may not survive to reach the required level of technology to undertake any kind of Terraforming. Right now our survival is very uncertain, we have created all kinds environmental problems with industry and our technology and in the end these problems may finish us off. Plus the emergence of new and terrible diseases some increasingly resistant to our medicines You see Im a bit of a pessimist on the human condition We take our world and it resources and its environment for granted and that is dangerous as hell. Aliens in outer space? If they even exist how can we even hope to get along with beings from another planet when we cannot even get along with each other here on earth?

 

[hypatia]

Not a problem. We'll just orbit a big aluminized mylar umbrella between Venus and the Sun.

:guffaw:

Yea, no problemo. :bolian:

 

[Truth_Seeker]

As technically difficult as it would be to terraform Mars Venus would be next to imposible to terraform. First and foremost the its disatnace fron the sun is only 67 million miles...

This reminds me of a short sci fi story I've read years ago.It was about a human colony on............Mercury.The writer suggested that if people live in underground cities and only come out at night it would be OK.Yes but there are two things that he forgot about:

1.Deadly level of solar radiation and no atmosphere to protect you.

2.The fact that the side of the planet facing the sun is partly in a liquid metal state and it would be hard to have any underground cities.It's just a big iron ball.

Some of those books are amusing to read.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

:guffaw:

Yea, no problemo. :bolian:

Well, I was being a bit humorous, but it isn't as wacky as it sounds. Difficult, but not impossible. A similar 'solution' has been proposed to stop the Earth's global warming.

 

[hypatia]

Actually, I have heard this. I may even have read a sci-fi story a long time ago where that was done around Venus.

But... well the phrasing and use of aluminized mylar was very good.

 

[Garovorkin]

Hey what about Quantum Leap, now there is a show that stretched time travel theory credibility. The whole time travel theory being able to leap within his life time that was the established rule of course they viloated that one when he leapt into is great great great grandfather who fought in the civil war and then at the end of the series he meets God in the guise of a bartender, this show was more fantasy then anything else it was entertaining Then there is Back to the future okay is that movie series pseudoscience, 88 miles an hour and the flux capacitor and that how time travel was achieved achieved? silly but i like these movies anyway i just have a hard time calling them science fiction movies. They are fun to watch.

 

[hypatia]

Back to the Future I've always classified as a comedy, myself. Maybe an 'adventure comedy'?

I don't think they worried too much about hard science, no. Heck, they probably just wanted an excuse to race around in a neat furturistic car. :rommie:

 

[Jonny_Fever]

Back to the Future I've always classified as a comedy, myself. Maybe an 'adventure comedy'?

I don't think they worried too much about hard science, no. Heck, they probably just wanted an excuse to race around in a neat furturistic car. :rommie:

I've always classified that one as a comedy as well. In the original version of the script I think the time machine was a refrigerator but they decided not to do that because they didn't want kids climbing into those things after seen the film.

 

[hypatia]

Goodness, yes. It's good to hear that moviemakers sometimes do seriously consider their "family audience" and their wellbeing. Easy enough detail to change, and a lot of harm might be avoided. Very wise.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

"Back To The Future"was a great fun to watch.:thumbsup:Not very scientific but still one of my favourite movies about time travel(especially when the Old Biff stole the Sport Statistics book and gave it to himself in the past).

I personally don't think that time travel is scientifically possible but no one knows what could be discovered in a thousand years for example.

 

[Garovorkin]

Lets talk about the 6 Million Dollar Man. He has a bionic arm and Bionic legs and bionic eye. We see Steve Austin picking up massively heavy objects like steel Girders and lifting the backs of heavy vehicles, now maybe his Arm might be capable of lifting that kind of weight. But what about his spinal column, you lift the back of a two ton truck or a massively heavy steel girder your back bone is not going to be able to hold up under that condition. Now his bionic legs enabled him to run 60 miles an hour , again I seriously doubt his body would be able to endure that kind of stress as well. He jumps off a two story building, even with shock absorbing mechanism, he;s going crumble when he hits the ground. And he's running 60 miles an hour,he's the question what happens if he suddenly stops, ILL tell you a very messy stop, and could he stop anyways? Then there is the whole issue of his nuclear power source, a nuclear power source powerful enough to drive those bionics is going to giving off a lot of radiation which could not only be hazardous to Steve Austin but to the general public as well. The bionic eye thought that might be a viable technology I can't see him having a nuclear power pack in his head as well to power it . This also applies to the old Bionic Woman show as well.

 

[Garovorkin]

Stargate sg1. This one here kind of begs a question, could you really open up a wormhole on a planet surface? Wouldn't opening up such a gateway on the surface of the earth cause all kinds of problems, like Earth's atmosphere being sucked down the gateway, along with everything else thats not nailed down? Also, how could you realistically generate the amount of power necessary to open such a phenomena and have go directly to an exiting gate on the other side of the Galaxy, . Even if you achieved all that was necessary to build a working Stargate with entry and exit points.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

Garovorkin I've found some other things in SG-1 that are not very realistic.I've just finished the second season and I watched a great episode called the "Fifth Race" where all the knowledge of the Ancients was downloaded into O'Neil's mind and he wrote a program for the SGC computers so they could be able to dial not 7 but 8 symbols which opens a wormhole to other galaxies.It was mentioned that in our galaxy every destination is dialled using 7 symbols-6 points(the point between them is the destination and it can be found when we connect the points) and a point of origin which is the planet where the traveller departs from.It was also shown in the 1994 movie and that's why the team could't return to Earth because they didn't know the symbol for Abydos.So far so good.

But how are the SG-1 team dialling Earth from every location they've been so easily without knowing the exact symbol for every particular planet.Maybe it was mentioned somewhere later in the show and I still haven't watched it.It has no explanation unless the symbol of each planet is carved somewhere on its Stargate or dialling device but as far as I remember this was not mentioned anywhere in the series.

If there are some hardcore SG-1 fans here they could probably explain this because I have no idea.

Here's a Wikipedia link about Stargate dialling, adresses and a diagram of the seven points:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_(device)#Addresses

And one other thing-what charges Teal'c Jaffa weapon.It's never out of ammo and it is always in condition to fire.But we know that in nature there's no energy coming out of nowhere-we need some kind of a power source to recharge the weapon if it has a device similar to a battery.

 

[KoshFan]

Not the first pseudo-science issues with SG-1 that I would have jumped on, but valid questions nevertheless.

 

[Garovorkin]

Truthseeker and Koshfan here is question for you both. In the pilot episode Of Sg1 when apofhis invaded the gate room with his jaffa warriors, .How did he dial out? if the dial computer had been de comissioned? he used some type of remote dialing technology, that for some reason we never see again. there is no way they could have remote dialed out of the gate room that is a mistake.

 

[KoshFan]

No idea, didn't watch that one -- or if I did I don't remember. Never much cared for Stargate.

 

[maneth]

There are lots of issues in sci-fi shows, the biggest IMO being FTL comms and travel, and artificial gravity. Although I admit that the way that beings in the ST universe communicate without problems on a first meeting is unconvincing to say the least. B5 at least shows how the computer learns the language and translates on the fly (not very convincing either, but more so than ST).

One thing that's really annoyed me with B5 from the start is the spinning entry gate. It's reasonable enough to assume that any alliance members would use the same computer interfacing protocols, but I'm less sanguine about others. Shuttles have to land under computer control to match the spin. It's just a shame that they haven't been able to show the differences in gravity on various levels on B5, but doing so (with helium balloons as in the moonwalks in Apollo 13) would have been too expensive.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

You're right Maneth.I really hate finding such things in my favourite show but your post made me think about the scene in "The Fall Of Night" when Kosh saved Sheridan.We see that in the core Sheridan is weightless because the gravity is 0g there.But in the previous scene where he was inside the transport device with the Centauri who planted the bomb they were both sitting normally, not floating in 0g.This was also shown in other episodes like "Chrysalis" where G'Kar, Na'Toth and Ivanova were together in the transport device in the core of the station but again they were not weightless.I agree that maybe it's too expensive for a TV show to do all the details right especially when you have a limited budget for each episode, unlike the big Hollywood productions where they usually extend their budget.

For example if you compare the special effects in the Stargate movie with those in SG-1 the difference is visible.When Ra revealed his true face beneath the mask it looked awesome.When Apophis did the same thing it looked lame and really cheap even for a TV show.Here's a YouTube video called Apophis Vs. Ra when you can see the difference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWC3-VzDGMY&feature=related