Science marches on and my inteleejens is insulted

[4173]

Sure I have. Frankenstein, Journey to the Center of the Earth. I imagine parts of 20,000 Leagues. The Invisible Man.



Can't say it has ever bothered me.

 

[Riicek]

So enough about that when have you ever read something sci-fi written a LONG time ago that has already been proven scientifically false as science marches on?

You haven't quite grasped the idea of science fiction, have you?

It's canonical to THEIR universe...not ours.

That's why Day of the Triffids doesn't mean plants can walk or talk, The Force (or Midichlorians) doesn't exist, and KLAATU VERADA NECKTIE doesn't stop the world from being destroyed by Necromancy or Robot Lasers.

I think we can quite safely say that 99% of all science fiction doesn't work with physics as we know it.

And I don't think most romance novels work under rational laws of probability or relationship dynamics either.

This... if you are going to read science fiction, (or play sci fi games, or watch sci fi movies, so on so forth) you have to realize that usually, it takes place in a universe all it's own. At times it may be extremely similar to the one our reality inhabits, but it's still an alternate universe, designed by the creator to house the story they are trying to tell. My advice would be to try and suspend your disbelief enough, because some of the "old" science fiction is truly amazing stuff, and while the greats certainly got some things wrong, there are also things they got right, and wrote about before it happened. It's pretty cool when you find a really great older scifi story, allow yourself to enjoy it, and find that there's a lot in there that does now take place in our reality, in one way or the other.

 

[Batou667]

1. An inhabited alien planet is discovered smack dab between Mars and Jupiter.
2. It is 1/50th the size of Earth (about 254.84 Kilometers) but has an atmosphere of the same consistency and density.
3. And even though the story takes place in the year 2000 or so it was only discovered in the last couple of years despite constant radio emissions.
4. The aliens are intelligent and have a humanoid appearance.

Joke's on you, it really does exist!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

(Although the humanoid life has yet to be verified...)

Ok, some other classic sci-fi fallacies:

- In deep space, why would there be a floor in a space station in zero gravity?
- Why do spaceships always approach eachother in the same plane? (I assume this is the "space = the sea" cliche)
- When spaceships accelerate from rest to thousands of kilometres per hour in a split-second, why don't the crew get splattered against the back wall?
- Why would aliens be humanoid? Or speak English? Or have the slightest interest in the Earth custom of "kissing"? Eh, Captain Kirk?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I remember a 'Bones' episode where the villan used an airburst grenade round, which can penetrate a thin wall (plywood, drywall) and then explode creating something akin to a shotgun blast (shrapnel doing all the damage) considering that a grenade launcher of this type is, while uncommon, issued by the US military, I refuse to believe that Booth, an Army Ranger wouldn't have at least thought of it before the geek squad looked it up.

Boothe lets people think they are smarter and better than him. Its known as the Yoda Maneuver; People see you as this quiet little unassuming person who isn't much good at anything, only to be later revealed as a bad-ass ninja, who still acts quiet and unassuming around people. As a note, how does Angela, an art major, design and build a freakin holo-suite?

Hollywood makes things bigger and louder for the same reason they started making movies in the first place; Real life is boring.

It doesn't stop my head from hurting.

 

[AlloAllo]

But being aliens, wouldn't they be completely different from us? Sure, of course I can't live on Venus, it's either too hot or too cold and- well, let's just cut this down and say that as a human I can't live there.

But why couldn't an alien live there? I mean, maybe his species drinks sulfuric acid, maybe he survives breathing carbon dioxide. Maybe he needs a terribly high temperature to survive. And yes, it is improbable for aliens to have a humanoid appearance, but not impossible.

There are too many variables to just say "it isn't possible". Also, if I'm correct, we don't know that much about our little galaxy- if something is too near the Sun we wouldn't be able to see it because the Sun would fuck up our instruments, if it's too far from us we just can't see it and so on.

So, uh, to sum it up- I don't think about it. Willing Suspension of Disbelief, a general 'who cares about the technical aspects, just go on with the story' (yes, I'm talking to you, Lovecraft è_é) , and the underlying thought that things are way too complicated for me to waste my time rationalizing them make me go on with my life without giving it a second thought.

 

[cookyy2k]

1. Jupiter releases a metric fucktonne of radiation.

For Jupiter, don't count on getting to close to it. It's moons take a constant beating. Jupiter is a brown dwarf after all (reclassification pending). While it didn't have the oomph to go stellar, it still pumps out enough rads to ruin your weekend, if you only had one weekend left to live and decided to spend it on one of Jupiter's moons. Why would you, the view is crap. Except for that big ass storm.

Jupiter does not actually create or "pump out" any radiation, it is in fact solar particles trapped in it's huge magnetic field that get accelerated to high speed as in a particle accelerator. Don't get me wrong, it would easily cook you but it's not really Jupiter's. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt for a good analogy using the Earth's field instead.

Jupiter's field is about 14 times stronger than Earth's giving a higher accelerating potential. Which since you wouldn't do well in the Van Allen belt for long, your survival in Jupiter's is very unlikely.

 

[cookyy2k]

Teleportation was never feasible.

Is and has been done: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3811785.stm

The reason we can't teleport anything more complex is bandwidth restrictions. It would take longer than the Universe's life to teleport all the data for a human at current limitations.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Anything Lovecraft tends to have this happen when modern viewers read it. Much of lovecraft's works were basically xenophobia (and in some cases latent racism) packaged in the form of cosmic horror stories. That was part of what made them so good, but it also means that for more.... eh, let's go with the term "enlightened"..... readers that constitute the modern day, the effects tend to be lost a little. It also helped that in his time, our understanding of space was very different.

Ah yes, I remember kinda going "huh?" when I got to the part of about how the Fungi from Yuggoth have wings to fly through the ether of space. I almost had a hard time suspending disbelief, but then I remembered that the entities in question belong to an empire of sentient fungus[/i].

 

[khiliani]

The whole "blood transfusion" method in Dracula is also now dated, considering that within the book three different people (with undoubtedly different blood types) successfully gave blood to one person without any rejection or illness. At the time the technology was very new, and blood types hadn't been discovered, and so it goes off without a hitch; in reality there would have been a potentially dangerous outcome.

This is actually not as impossible as it seems. You can actually infuse someone with the 'wrong' blood type once or twice and it'll be okay, but they develop antibodies after that which make it increasingly dangerous. It also depends on the antibody count in each person's blood.

Anaphylactic shock might have something to say about this.

where does anaphylactic shock come into it? blood transfusions dont work cause the blood clots, not because of an immune responce to the foreign blood, cause the immune system cant tell the blood cells are foreign.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

where does anaphylactic shock come into it? blood transfusions dont work cause the blood clots, not because of an immune responce to the foreign blood, cause the immune system cant tell the blood cells are foreign.

Your body is designed to only work with one specific blood type, you give it one that isn't in its range and your body will most definitely treat it as a foreign invader. Think of the reaction like suddenly breathing hydrogen instead of the helium/oxygen you are right now. The only exception being O Neg, the Universal donor.

 

[000Ronald]

Oh don't give me that look. There is no way in hell you have gone through life without something trivial insulting your intelligence. Hell thirty years from now Mass Effect and Deus Ex:HR are going to be laughing-stocks of the next generation for their scientific errors.

My little brother was watching a cartoon where the villian sucks the intelligence ot of one of the character's brains, making him a genius and the other guy an idiot. I shouted "science doesn't work that way!" and stormed out of the room angrily.

You're a killjoy. That's right, I said it[footnote]Although Root Of All Evil beat me to it. My nefarious plan once again foiled by someone called Root of All Evil. Truly this is a dark day.[/footnote], you're a killjoy.

If you're watching this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiFZM4huHi0] and thinking to yourself, "Not only is there not a finite amount of parallel universes, but if there were, it would not be so low a number as 125. And why would killing one version make everyone else stronger? It's like they're making it up as they go along!" you're missing the point.

If you're watching this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEVY_lonKf4] and thinking, "Not only is that method of reproduction completely unfeesable, but there's no way such a creature could exist in deep space! It's like they're making it up as they go along!" you're missing the point.

If you're watching this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4rBDUJTnNU] and thinking, "No government of that sort could ever, ever come into power under any circumstances, and if they were to, by some miracle, do so, they would be very quickly crushed by various resistance fighters. It's like they're making it up as they go along!" you're missing the point.[footnote]And, what's more, you've never heared of Joseph Stalin.[/footnote]

I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion, and I don't mean to say that. What I am saying is, I wouldn't watch a movie with you if I could at all help it.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Jupiter does not actually create or "pump out" any radiation, it is in fact solar particles trapped in it's huge magnetic field that get accelerated to high speed as in a particle accelerator. Don't get me wrong, it would easily cook you but it's not really Jupiter's. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt for a good analogy using the Earth's field instead.

Jupiter's field is about 14 times stronger than Earth's giving a higher accelerating potential. Which since you wouldn't do well in the Van Allen belt for long, your survival in Jupiter's is very unlikely.

I read that article about the probe that was out there about 10 years back and just thought that Jupiter generated the radiation, being a brown dwarf. I did read, somewhere, that Jupiter fires off x-ray flares, wish I could remember the source of that one.

 

[Eomega123]

Oh don't give me that look. There is no way in hell you have gone through life without something trivial insulting your intelligence. Hell thirty years from now Mass Effect and Deus Ex:HR are going to be laughing-stocks of the next generation for their scientific errors.

My little brother was watching a cartoon where the villian sucks the intelligence ot of one of the character's brains, making him a genius and the other guy an idiot. I shouted "science doesn't work that way!" and stormed out of the room angrily.

You're a killjoy. That's right, I said it[footnote]Although Root Of All Evil beat me to it. My nefarious plan once again foiled by someone called Root of All Evil. Truly this is a dark day.[/footnote], you're a killjoy.

If you're watching this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiFZM4huHi0] and thinking to yourself, "Not only is there not a finite amount of parallel universes, but if there were, it would not be so low a number as 125. And why would killing one version make everyone else stronger? It's like they're making it up as they go along!" you're missing the point.

If you're watching this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEVY_lonKf4] and thinking, "Not only is that method of reproduction completely unfeesable, but there's no way such a creature could exist in deep space! It's like they're making it up as they go along!" you're missing the point.

If you're watching this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4rBDUJTnNU] and thinking, "No government of that sort could ever, ever come into power under any circumstances, and if they were to, by some miracle, do so, they would be very quickly crushed by various resistance fighters. It's like they're making it up as they go along!" you're missing the point.[footnote]And, what's more, you've never heared of Joseph Stalin.[/footnote]

I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion, and I don't mean to say that. What I am saying is, I wouldn't watch a movie with you if I could at all help it.

Oh no, I've been figured out! My insidious plot to drain all joy from the world has been discovered! How will I bring about by reign of gloom now?

Curse you 000Ronald! CUUUUURSE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

and KLAATU VERADA NECKTIE doesn't stop the world from being destroyed by Necromancy or Robot Lasers.

Well of course it doesn't, you have the last word wrong; it's Nikto, not Necktie. Same mistake Ash made, and it didn't exactly end well for him (at least not in the director's cut.)

BTW/FYI: Captcha is a system that uses humans to read scanned text that a computer is unable to
read.

Not all Captchas. But ours here is. I like to think I've transcribed vital parts of Newton's texts thousands of scientists rely on now but it is probably more like ancient circus pamphlets or whatever.

OT: I like my sci-fi absurd, nothing wrong with that. But I can present you with what some people in the 60s imagined people from the year 2000 would dance like.
It's from a short-lived East-Germany television series from the 60s called Raumpatroullie Orion if you're interested in the details.

<youtube=NJe-CdWsICY>

Actually... I'd love to see that dance. Beats the macarena.

Honestly, I've seen dancing in real life that really isn't all that different from what's going on in the video clip. Usually a bit more hand movement involved, but the body movements aren't too far off from when a large group of people start dancing in a circle at a club. That's one of those "almost but not quite accurate predictions," really.

OT: This sort of thing really doesn't bother me, at least when it's really done with hard science. 1950's comic book logic can be pretty funny at times, but that stuff was never meant to be more than a technobabble explanation, not serious hard sci-fi. When I'm watching Science fiction, I'm watching for one of two things: pretty explosions, or philosophical musings. The actual "science" part is just a means to an end.

 

[khiliani]

where does anaphylactic shock come into it? blood transfusions dont work cause the blood clots, not because of an immune responce to the foreign blood, cause the immune system cant tell the blood cells are foreign.

Your body is designed to only work with one specific blood type, you give it one that isn't in its range and your body will most definitely treat it as a foreign invader. Think of the reaction like suddenly breathing hydrogen instead of the helium/oxygen you are right now. The only exception being O Neg, the Universal donor.

Ahh, no. for the body to recognise something in foreign, it needs to express a certan molecule called MHC. red blood cells cant produce this molecule, so the bodies immune system wouldnt recognise foreign blood.

blood is rejected because of molecules in the blood that binds to foreign blood and causes it to clot, causing the rejection.

 

[lacktheknack]

Have something even worse: A non-fiction essay titled "Predictions for the Year 2000", from 1930.

Yep, there were flying cars. And moonbases. And alien contact. And I read it in 2004.

 

[Saulkar]

So enough about that when have you ever read something sci-fi written a LONG time ago that has already been proven scientifically false as science marches on?

The book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is pretty much entirely based around technology that Huxley saw us having in the future. The main one being cloning, back then the research obviously hadnt been done, so his biology is all completely wrong.. but you kind of have to give it to him for making up an entire science and making it believable, it wasnt just technobabble, either way it still doesnt affect how good the book is.
Also even though his cloning isnt scientifically correct, he does predict alot of other relevant scientific and social advances which is pretty cool.

I can respect that. William Gibson had little idea about how computers work and yet wrote the fantastic Neuromancer!

 

[Loonyyy]

[quote="Saulkar" post="18.316837.12886764 2. It is 1/50th the size of Earth (about 254.84 Kilometers) but has an atmosphere of the same consistency and density.
[/quote]
You're quite right, but this isn't even "Science Marches on." Newton derived the equation that relates Gravity to the radius of a massive body, unless I'm mistaken. Newton's equation being g=GM/(r^2), where G is Newton's gravitational constant. That was well known in the 50's. Especially when you consider that in the next two decades, they overcame gravity and sent men into space, and to the moon.

 

[Saulkar]

Yeah, uh that is blantantly obvious. The thing is the more you know about the topic and the more science advances the harder it is to suspend your belief.

Not really. You just dump the useless knowledge.

Teleportation was never feasible. Neither is - for example - leaping over bridges in a 1969 Dodge Charger.

Or shooting a barrel of oil to blow it up.

Or using a Mac to send a virus to an invading Mothership.

All you do is say "OK, so this works in this universe. Wow, wouldn't that be impressive if it could work in our universe? Hey, I wonder if I can bend our laws and make something similar work? Like say...accelerating neutrinos past the speed of light?"

But there's an app for that. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113552-Large-Hadron-Collider-Theres-an-App-for-That]

Gimme that app! But none the less my younger brother can watch anything scientifically inaccurate despite being grade 11 level science in grade 9 and still enjoy it. I on the other hand cannot.

Something like the way the spaceships in Star Wars fly like they're in an atmosphere shatter some peoples suspension of belief but I do not give a damn and actually enjoy it but at the same time something like the narrator from A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy saying that a person could survive in space for exactly thirty seconds with a lungful of air completely broke my suspension of belief for about thirty minutes.

I am just one of those people who cannot "dump the useless knowledge." ;-)

CAPTCHA: "ontityA Vanilla" OK, you cannot tell me that does not sound sexual!

 

[Saulkar]

I go to a school that has a very large and attractive science department. I have many friends who are brilliant at several different fields of science and are aspiring to be Doctors, Physicists etc. But Jesus, I've never known one of them being completely unable to grasp the concept of just letting it go. Not once has any of them ever become apoplectic with rage, or hell, just even slightly annoyed, because they have encountered something that bases it's ideas on old scientific theories that have since been proven false. Somehow, they manage to realise that this is not actually 'insulting their intelligence'.

Good God people. There's being a nerd, and then there's being an obsessive compulsive.

I do hope your not referring to my playful approach to taking something trivial as serious for fun as Obsessive Compulsive. And I seriously hope your not insulting my inability to suspend my disbelief when I subjectively interpret something that insults my intelligence and instead of brooding over it, have fun with it. What a person does or does not suspend their belief before is subjective and whether they are willing to "grasp the concept of just letting it go or not is there choice and has no impact on your day to day life.