Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[Just Jim]

1 minute ago, K^2 said:

A real tesseract is an ordinary-looking cube that appears one morning on your desk seemingly out of nowhere, and disappears just as suddenly shortly thereafter.

Is that was that thing was???

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

That's not a tesseract. That's just a projection into 3-space. A real tesseract is an ordinary-looking cube that appears one morning on your desk seemingly out of nowhere, and disappears just as suddenly shortly thereafter.

That's not entirely correct. Both examples are perfectly good tesseracts. The line drawing is as good as a cube drawn on paper, and the cross-section appearing on your desk could just as easily be a triangular prism, or an octahedron, or a truncated tetrahedron, or a number of other shapes depending on the orientation of the full object. Your claim is like saying a cube drawn on paper is not a real cube, because the drawing is actually two-dimensional. While it is technically correct, it misses the point of the projection being a completely functional and useful representation of a higher-dimensional object.

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

On another hand, this is a rare movie where helmets aren't highlighted from inside (sic!).

Those lights aren't there for the characters. They're there for the audience. You don't pay Sandra Bullock or Matt Damon money for an opaque face mask.

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Though, not clear why the spacesuits are soft and thin, but not inflated.

Inflated bags are hard to act in and uncomfortable, especially when you don't have the benefit of 0-g.

[adsii1970]

Watch if you dare (the complete movies are linked in the spoilers)

Any list chronicling bad science fiction MUST include these two movies...

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sbHcm0xED0

For some reason, YouTube won't do the preview with Eegah!

 

[K^2]

47 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Your claim is like saying a cube drawn on paper is not a real cube, because the drawing is actually two-dimensional.

Correct. It's not a real cube, it is a drawing of a real cube. If I borrowed $20 from you, and returned a drawing, you'd complain. A real cube exists in 3 dimensions. A real tesseract exists in four.

[mikegarrison]

4 minutes ago, K^2 said:

If I borrowed $20 from you, and returned a drawing, you'd complain.

I would like to see this. It would be amusing.

And yes, a drawing of a cube is not a cube, just like the Mona Lisa is a painting rather than a woman. Some woman modeled for the painting, but it's still a painting.

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Those lights aren't there for the characters. They're there for the audience. You don't pay Sandra Bullock or Matt Damon money for an opaque face mask.

Inflated bags are hard to act in and uncomfortable, especially when you don't have the benefit of 0-g.

This, you are unlikely to see the person inside the suit except in shadow. I say this is acceptable even in hard scifi. 
Spandex suits is an other scifi idea who also have serious interest for real space suits. The suit is very thigh so it compress your body without being pressurized. 
Yes its pretty easy for some parts, g-suits for fighter jets is one. However below the arms is an headache,  the hips is another especially for males. 
My guess is that it will come for gloves first. Note that this will probably kill the astronaut helmet. You would wear something more like an gas mask. 
 

[K^2]

19 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Spandex suits is an other scifi idea who also have serious interest for real space suits. The suit is very thigh so it compress your body without being pressurized.

I've been pondering about this idea. You can wear a latex suit and be, well, moderately comfortable, despite the fact that your internal pressure is fighting external pressure, with latex contributing just a touch one way or another.

In theory, one could have an electronic feedback system that adjusts elastic coefficient of a much tougher fiber, to act exactly like external pressure + light elastic of latex or similar. If you adjust fast enough, you can have freedom of movement without losing confinement. Unfortunately, the only I know how to adjust elastic coefficient quickly in this kind of range is with changes in temperature. And that... would not be comfortable. Especially, in the aforementioned areas. Still, I wonder if something piezoelectric would be viable. It definitely has the strength, and helical coils of piezoelectric fiber might even have the range.

You might complain that I'm basically trying to imagine artificial muscle, but this is different in that it needs to adjust elastic coefficient only, and it needs not be terribly efficient at it, so long as it keeps behaving roughly in accordance with Hooke's law. So it is, technically, a simpler problem.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Those lights aren't there for the characters. They're there for the audience. You don't pay Sandra Bullock or Matt Damon money for an opaque face mask.

 

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

This, you are unlikely to see the person inside the suit except in shadow. I say this is acceptable even in hard scifi. 

5th Passenger is a sample of nicely visible faces without a vulgar highlighting.
Of course somewhat shadowed, but is that a beach comedy or a space sci-fi? Emotions are visible, faces are recognizable.
So, looks like straight arms of a lighting director, growing from right place, can do things without dirty tricks.

4 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Inflated bags are hard to act in and uncomfortable, especially when you don't have the benefit of 0-g.

Sure, but they should inflate just because they have some pressure inside.
If they were hard or tight - they shouldn't. But there are visible wrinkles.

4 hours ago, K^2 said:

Correct. It's not a real cube, it is a drawing of a real cube.

 

4 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

a drawing of a cube is not a cube, just like the Mona Lisa is a painting rather than a woman

So, any description of a tesseract is not a tesseract but just a description.
Ergo, nobody can describe what is tesseract, that would be just a description.

But triangles...
Can we call three connected lines on a paper a triangle?
No! It's just a drawing of triangle.
So, we can see no triangles, too. Just puny attempts to connect three lines.

As if the drawn line itself is not just a representation. And points.
No lines. No points.

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Spandex suits is an other scifi idea who also have serious interest for real space suits. The suit is very thigh so it compress your body without being pressurized. 
Yes its pretty easy for some parts, g-suits for fighter jets is one. However below the arms is an headache,  the hips is another especially for males. 

These are not spandex. These are wrinkled.
Afaik, problem with tight spacesuits are more in neck and joints than in gender differences (females have their own vulnerable places).
Hard to compress a neck, and either joints are too tight to move, or they should use bearings.

[cubinator]

5 hours ago, K^2 said:

Correct. It's not a real cube, it is a drawing of a real cube. If I borrowed $20 from you, and returned a drawing, you'd complain. A real cube exists in 3 dimensions. A real tesseract exists in four.

That doesn't matter in this context, because nothing about the tesseract is based in reality for this scenario. A drawing of a tesseract shows perfectly well what it is and isn't, and shouldn't require a disclaimer that it is a drawing. 

[mikegarrison]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

But triangles...
Can we call three connected lines on a paper a triangle?
No! It's just a drawing of triangle.
So, we can see no triangles, too. Just puny attempts to connect three lines.

Exactly true. A triangle is a mathematical concept. No physical item (or drawing) can be a perfect triangle with infinitely thin pure 1-D lines that meet at infinitely small points.

[kerbiloid]

Meanwhile, tesseract:

• is nerdish
• easy to depict
• looks like an eye candy (a gem, a prism, etc)
• sounds good

So, artifacts are doomed to be tesseracts.

Though, once there was a Klein bottle, and at least twice - a Moebius band.

P.S.
Btw, tesseract origins... It was a semi-philosophical artifact before it became mainstream?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Era_of_Thought

Edited July 13, 2018 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

6 hours ago, K^2 said:

I've been pondering about this idea. You can wear a latex suit and be, well, moderately comfortable, despite the fact that your internal pressure is fighting external pressure, with latex contributing just a touch one way or another.

In theory, one could have an electronic feedback system that adjusts elastic coefficient of a much tougher fiber, to act exactly like external pressure + light elastic of latex or similar. If you adjust fast enough, you can have freedom of movement without losing confinement. Unfortunately, the only I know how to adjust elastic coefficient quickly in this kind of range is with changes in temperature. And that... would not be comfortable. Especially, in the aforementioned areas. Still, I wonder if something piezoelectric would be viable. It definitely has the strength, and helical coils of piezoelectric fiber might even have the range.

You might complain that I'm basically trying to imagine artificial muscle, but this is different in that it needs to adjust elastic coefficient only, and it needs not be terribly efficient at it, so long as it keeps behaving roughly in accordance with Hooke's law. So it is, technically, a simpler problem.

My father heads a university department combining material science with other principles such as medicine or fashion.

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/static/5007/despdf/events/p3agenda.pdf?view=Standard

They have been approached by some parties for some ideas on spacesuits before and apparently one of the newer challenges is tailoring! Fancy new materials dont "wear" the same way as conventional ones so they have to have dressmakers and tailors figure out the patterns.

The ideas just over the horizon include biologically derived materials, sensors (biosensors or other, such as to detect suit damage) embedded within the material layers (in some cases the fabric is literally the sensor) and 3d-printing methods of manufacture. Moving away from a pressurised envelope to an elastic design is almost a certainty.

Imagine a spacesuit that can heal itself or turn bright red if the internal oxygen concentration drops to a certain point or on that can administer drugs if it senses medical distress in the wearer.

[kerbiloid]

56 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Imagine a spacesuit that can heal itself or turn bright red if the internal oxygen concentration drops to a certain point or on that can administer drugs if it senses medical distress in the wearer.

and scratch between the scapula(s).

1950s sci-fi has a lot of such tight suits. Also they could tourniquet a wound, fixate a broken limb, and so on.

Though, they look a little thin to be a rad-protection.
And a temperature gradient doesn't disappear, -100°C of your shadow side, +100°C your side under sun.
Looks not very good for EVA.

Probably you should have a layer of hygroscopic and hydrophobic fibers which are pumping water around the whole body, removing sweat and heat.
If you have to jump from a wrecked ship to a rescue ship, you can just put on your head.
But if you want to EVA, you put on a cuirasse with backpack, containing energy source and additional water, pump water into your arm and leg suit parts, making them to swell (rad-protection and additional heat exchange), and then do EVA.

But in this case that thin thing turns from a spacesuit into a second skin for daily wearing. An additional body layer.
So, next step of humanity is an exoskeleton-augmented biomechanoid. (Giger bless you!)

Spoiler

... with a stylish removable helmet

Spoiler

 

Edited July 13, 2018 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

and scratch between the scapula(s).

1950s sci-fi has a lot of such tight suits. Also they could tourniquet a wound, fixate a broken limb, and so on.

Though, they look a little thin to be a rad-protection.
And a temperature gradient doesn't disappear, -100°C of your shadow side, +100°C your side under sun.
Looks not very good for EVA.

Probably you should have a layer of hygroscopic and hydrophobic fibers which are pumping water around the whole body, removing sweat and heat.
If you have to jump from a wrecked ship to a rescue ship, you can just put on your head.
But if you want to EVA, you put on a cuirasse with backpack, containing energy source and additional water, pump water into your arm and leg suit parts, making them to swell (rad-protection and additional heat exchange), and then do EVA.

But in this case that thin thing turns from a spacesuit into a second skin for daily wearing.
So, next step of humanity is an exoskeleton-augmented biomechanoid. (Giger bless you!)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

A "future suit" is unlikely to be made of a single layer of a single material, so they wont end up looking like a wetsuit, but more likely a more compact version of what they look like today.

Temperature is not as bad as it sounds. A 200 degree gradient sounds a lot but its 200deg in a vacuum, not 200deg gas or liquid. Just colouring the outside white rejects much of the incident energy and insulating materials and a temperature controlled undergarment do the rest.

Radiation wise, a current era suit doesnt provide amazing levels of protection here, they are still flexible suits only an inch or two thick, there are no layers of heavy metal cladding. 

Personally I believe the [far]future of radiation shielding (below some reasonable threshold) to be pharmaceutical or genetic in nature, because you just cant get around needing mass to stop it otherwise.

Though for a token level of suit-mounted shielding,  I think that a flexible layer of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene would be a better alternative to a layer of water. It also doubles as micrometeoroid protection.

[kerbiloid]

5 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

the [far]future of radiation shielding (below some reasonable threshold) to be pharmaceutical or genetic in nature

Sounds good, too.

Spoiler

 

Edited July 13, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Gargamel]

18 hours ago, cubinator said:

That doesn't matter in this context, because nothing about the tesseract is based in reality for this scenario. A drawing of a tesseract shows perfectly well what it is and isn't, and shouldn't require a disclaimer that it is a drawing. 

But when you are trying to describe something, it is either given or explicitly stated that something is a drawing, and the comprehension of the explanation is requisite that it is understood something is a drawing.  

If your 4 year old asks "What is a bear?", you can show them a picture of a bear.   They understand it is a photograph of a bear, and won't be confused by a real bear when they do get to see one.    "But daddy, that's not a bear, this one is 3 dimensional!".

With a tesseract, you have to explicitly say it is a drawing of a tesseract, and that it is a 2 dimensional drawing of a poor  3d dimensional representation of a 4 dimensional object.    Otherwise, if they somehow see a real tesseract, it won't look anything like the drawing (see below).   A tesseract is a geometric construct in the 4th dimension that all of it's interior angles are right angles.  That drawing does not fit that description.  A square is a 2d construct where all the interior angles are right angles, a cube is a 3d object where, etc etc....

On 7/12/2018 at 4:39 PM, Just Jim said:

A real tesseract is an ordinary-looking cube that appears one morning on your desk seemingly out of nowhere, and disappears just as suddenly shortly thereafter.

Actually @K^2 said that, but that was  a page back, and I'm lazy.   It might be an oridnary looking Cube, rectangular box, or pyramid, depending on what aspect it decides to enter our dimension.  The Cube will stay the same size, but a rectangular box or pyramid would grow and then shrink in size.   I have trouble fully visualizing a 4 dimensional cube easily, so there could be more shapes. 

For example.  Let's go Flatland here.   You are a 2 dimensional being, living on a 2 dimensional plane.   You are not aware of any higher dimensions.   Since you (the reader) are fairly educated and smart, I'll grant you the rank of hexadecagon, at the least.    

A 3 dimensional sphere decides to somehow pass through your 2 dimensional world.   You'll see a point form where the sphere starts it's crossing.  It will grow into a circle, growing larger till it meets the radius of the sphere, and then shrink back down into a point.   From your point of view, all you see is a circle form, grow, shrink, and disappear. 

Now if a Cube decides to enter your 2 dimensional world, the same thing happens, but it depends on which angle the cube passes through your world.  If it passes through with one entire face entering the world at once, you'll see a square pop into existence, hang around for a bit, and then poof, its gone.    But if it enters with a pointy corner first, you'll see a triangle form on the ground, grow larger, turn into a (help me here) a hexagon (?) that grows and then shrinks, and then back into a triangle and, poof, gone.   If it enters edge first, a rectangle will appear, grow, shrink, poof.  etc etc. 

So if a tesseract enters our 3 dimensional world, it will not look like that drawing.   It will appear as a solid 3d dimensional cross section of the 4th dimensional object it is. 

So what K2 said is right, a cube might pop into existence on your desk, hang around for a bit, then vanish, as the tesseract passes through our plane. 

[mikegarrison]

You wear the mechanical pressure layer next to your skin, underneath any other layers (such as a thermal/radiation protection layer). Of course the head and neck must be in a helmet with air, but the rest of the body doesn't need air, only pressure.

Basically, with one of these suits it would ideally be like a set of long underwear that you wear under regular fabric coveralls (aka boilersuit).

Edited July 14, 2018 by mikegarrison

[cubinator]

1 minute ago, Gargamel said:

With a tesseract, you have to explicitly say it is a drawing of a tesseract,

No, you don't. This drawing of a cube is inaccurate in exactly the same way as the tesseract:

Except it looks just like a cube, and you can tell it as such. Similarly, these images of a hypercube are exactly what you'd expect a wireframe to look like if you could see in four dimensions.

[Gargamel]

1 minute ago, cubinator said:

No, you don't. This drawing of a cube is inaccurate in exactly the same way as the tesseract:

Fair nuff, I'll take that back. 

Arguing semantics is fun, ain't it? 

[cubinator]

2 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Fair nuff, I'll take that back. 

Arguing semantics is fun, ain't it? 

When both sides of the argument are true it makes it about point of view...which is somewhat difficult to grasp in more than three dimensions!  Definitely a worthwhile discussion in this case.

[StrandedonEarth]

I always envisioned dimensions as a coordinate system. The more dimensions, the more coordinates. This slots time neatly into the fourth dimension, and allows me to envision more dimensions that way, where a fifth dimension would amount to a parallel universe. 

it is hard to envision multiple dimensions in the real world otherwise, but it’s easy to see as a, for example, six coordinate array in computer memory. A six dimensional database, if you will 

[Vanamonde]

It was suggested that we moderators split the growing tesseract discussion into its own thread, but since several of you talked about both subjects in your posts, that would have made gibberish out of both discussions. So we'll just invite your folks to take that subject to its own thread and let this one remain about bad SF. 

[Xd the great]

About the rocket boosters in pacific rim, how did the engines not explode?

[cubinator]

I've made a thread where we can take the discussion of 4D objects.