Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

... that the ship sinks is an unfortunate side effect ...

Yes,it is. For all ships that take stability from weight rather than form. All hatches must be closed when in heavy weather or dynamic seas and a documented weight distribution must be maintained.

The positive thing is that they are designed to right up in a certain time even when capsized. It is a construction thing, and categorization for sailing boats depends on this ability. A stability curve of the forces (angle against righting moment) documents that, of course only when a certain weight distribution is maintained.

I'd rather be in a storm with a keel yacht than with catamaran. They can finish upside-down and right themselves up again, and that does not necessarily end the journey ;-)

Edited April 2, 2019 by Green Baron

[DAL59]

11 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Ah, I believe they were able to recreate that in Mythbusters.    The only video I can find of this is behind a pay wall sadly.

Actually, they busted it. 

https://mythresults.com/episode92

[kerbiloid]

Not actually "bad" _{(we like this series not for its scientific background, definitely)}, but rather amusing.

"The 100", s06e01.

1. They have arrived to another star system, parked the starship in a low orbit of the planet...
...and several hours later have discovered that the planet not a planet but is a moon of a gas giant.

My hat's off to their navigation skillzzz...

2.
Unknown planet, unknown air. They are getting out of lander and breathing, saying something like "Let's hope the air is good".
Unknown water. One of the main heroes runs to it and starts swimming.

But maybe, it's a local trope, as the same was in s01e01.

3.
Several electric lightnings hit into a man.
Camera shows a radiation alert sign on a tower (RTG or so).
The main heroine: "It's radiation! It doesn't harm me!" _{(Yes, she's rad-protected)} and runs to the man.

Well, yes.. It really has some relation to...

4.
Hybernation makes wonders.
After 200 years of cryosleep Raven The Nerdgirl probably gets a natural makeup compared to the season 5.

[DAL59]

https://lifeboat.com/ex/antimattershield

The lifeboat foundation isn't technically fiction, but it might as well be...

According to them, CERN's synthesis of antimatter means the world is in danger of antimatter bombs!

Don't mention the fact that you cannot get more energy out of antimatter than you put in, the impractical cost, and extreme inefficiency of production.  Also, since antimatter simply annihilates out of existence, there would be no direct fallout

 

[kerbiloid]

53 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Also, since antimatter simply annihilates out of existence, there would be no direct fallout

Irl things are not that simple.
1. It doesn't annihilate right into photons, it first becomes mesons which can interact with the surrounding matter. _{(Not mesons from Black Mesa, another ones).}
2. Even gamma may destroy cores of the surrounding matter.
3. An antihydrogen's antiproton can annihilate with a nucleon of an oxygen or nitrogen core from the air, causing its partial annihilation.

So the air will be full of various isotop debris.

And of course, as they play with antimatter in a nuclear center, there should be a lot of nuclear materials waiting to be evaporated.

Edited April 15, 2019 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

Whilst we are not in any danger of anyone building a planet-busting multi-teraton pure antimatter device, "antimatter catalysed" nuclear weapons are a technical possibility. Just not really a financially viable one.

These use a tiny amount of antimatter as the "primary", which is usually a compact fission device, meaning you can make a nuclear warhead very small and light for a given yield, and also drops the minimum yield so that 1-100ton equivalent devices can be made, all of which allows them to be used for various exotic purposes such as bunker-busting, explosively pumped lasers or cluster devices etc etc.

 

However, though these are a much more plausible threat, there still isnt enough antimatter in the world to make one (and they would be the most expensive objects on the planet, if there was), nor are the mechanisms required to manipulate it with the required finesse yet available.

 

Relevant: (warning, speculative)

https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0510071.pdf

Edited April 16, 2019 by p1t1o

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

They even make guns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-materiel_rifle

 

[kerbiloid]

Why was Skynet building terminators with Schwarzenegger's face?
Shouldn't they look like an ordinary human?

[Gargamel]

38 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Shouldn't they look like an ordinary human?

 

[kBob]

Did anyone mention V where the aliens landed on Earth to steal all our water?

[magnemoe]

On 4/16/2019 at 10:25 AM, p1t1o said:

Whilst we are not in any danger of anyone building a planet-busting multi-teraton pure antimatter device, "antimatter catalysed" nuclear weapons are a technical possibility. Just not really a financially viable one.

These use a tiny amount of antimatter as the "primary", which is usually a compact fission device, meaning you can make a nuclear warhead very small and light for a given yield, and also drops the minimum yield so that 1-100ton equivalent devices can be made, all of which allows them to be used for various exotic purposes such as bunker-busting, explosively pumped lasers or cluster devices etc etc.

However, though these are a much more plausible threat, there still isnt enough antimatter in the world to make one (and they would be the most expensive objects on the planet, if there was), nor are the mechanisms required to manipulate it with the required finesse yet available.

Relevant: (warning, speculative)

https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0510071.pdf

antimatter catalysed is an way to make an small scale nuclear reaction who would be very nice for an spaceship as an orion pulse nuclear need mass to absorb the blast. 
So orion pulsed is very nice for an 100K ton ship not so much for an probe. On the other hand you can make pulsed fusion simpler, you need to add power but you still get an decent drive. 

For weapons, its pointless, just make an 10KT nuke. 1950 technology and very safe. 

Now antimatter would make an awesome point defense weapon, downside is that you need to expend it before anything hit you. 
Japan during WW2 used liquid oxygen in their most advanced torpedoes. 
This turned out being very dangerous once the US got air supremacy as they was stored on deck and store could easy be hit by staffing fighters. 

[kerbiloid]

High Life (2018)

A group of prisoners told volunteers is flying to somewhere in a starship.
A thrilling psychological space drama about human relations in the dark abyss of Universe.
The vampire guy from the Twilight and his food friends are doing relations in some empty food storehouse.
All you need to make sci-fi: rent an empty storehouse, rent a spacesuite (just for the opening), a camera, and a chair/bed/i-do-not-know-a-proper-name-of-this-medical-furniture from women health clinic.

Did you think Origin and Nightflyers are not perfect?
Ha!
You just haven't seen taken a look at High Life.

Even Io is better.

Edited April 25, 2019 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

On 4/16/2019 at 11:25 AM, p1t1o said:

These use a tiny amount of antimatter as the "primary", which is usually a compact fission device, meaning you can make a nuclear warhead very small and light for a given yield, and also drops the minimum yield so that 1-100ton equivalent devices can be made, all of which allows them to be used for various exotic purposes such as bunker-busting, explosively pumped lasers or cluster devices etc etc.

 

However, though these are a much more plausible threat, there still isnt enough antimatter in the world to make one (and they would be the most expensive objects on the planet, if there was), nor are the mechanisms required to manipulate it with the required finesse yet available.

Petawatt-laser pure fusion probably makes more sense while being actually storeable.

On 4/20/2019 at 11:23 PM, kerbiloid said:

Why was Skynet building terminators with Schwarzenegger's face?
Shouldn't they look like an ordinary human?

Original pick for Terminator:

Canon answer is that it couldn’t stuff the robot chassis in a smaller human.

...in earlier models.

Spoiler

 

On 4/21/2019 at 6:46 PM, magnemoe said:

This turned out being very dangerous once the US got air supremacy as they was stored on deck and store could easy be hit by staffing fighters. 

IIRC it wasn’t deck-mounted per se, but artillery shells still had a way of finding those tanks.

[kerbiloid]

36 minutes ago, DDE said:

Original pick for Terminator:

Yes, I've read about that.
They decided that Schwarzenegger looks more brutal than Henriksen, and made him the Terminator.
Comparing their irl bios, we can see that looks can be rather deceiving...

Edited April 26, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Delay]

9 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Comparing their irl bios,

Bios or BIOS?

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, Delay said:

Bios or BIOS?

BIOS.

IRL BIOS.

[p1t1o]

Lance Henrikson would've made a weird terminator cos hes got all those weird floppy tubes filled with gallons of milk, they needed a metal framed one to pull of the "indestructible emotionless terminator" feel.

[kerbiloid]

Is this a terminator?

Spoiler

No.
This one is.

Spoiler

Spoiler

[snip]

No guns, only skills.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Gargamel
Portions Redacted By Moderator.

[Xurkitree]

I was reading this thread and saw something about Iron Man 2, and this seems like the perfect place to post my issue with the plot.

Now I know that this a universe of magic god i love dr.strange,  and i do excuse the palladium poisoning part - but there's one thing I don't get.

Palladium is a heavy metal. Can't he use something like a chelating agent - which removes heavy metals from the body by binding with them? He has all the money in the world - he could easily fast-track research into creating a new chelating agent to remove the palladium from the body. After that, he can regularly undergo chelation threapy every week or so while he continues research into a new reactor element at a more leisurely pace.

[DAL59]

In Titan by Stephen Baxter, most of the science is hard, but he has what I can "nerd fanservice"

They retrofit two museum apollo capsules to land on Titan.

1.  The museum capsules are degraded and do not have all components

2.  No one at NASA would have experience in using or repairing them.

3.  It would be cheaper to build a new capsule than to retrofit apollo museum capsules.  

4.  The capsules will be used to land on Titan, something they are not remotely built for.

5.  The capsules will have to survive 6 years of exposure to space, something they are not built for.

6.  They do not replace the apollo computer, but obviously reprogrammed it for their mission.  Remember, the computer code was written using manually sown rope.  How did they find someone who new how to do that?  Why did they keep the old apollo buttons and computer?  That makes no sense!

 

[DAL59]

"The story takes place in an alternate future, where trains are capable of interplanetary travel."

Oh no

[Bill Phil]

38 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

"The story takes place in an alternate future, where trains are capable of interplanetary travel."

Oh no

What's that from?

In a technical sense this isn't impossible, though it requires mega-engineering on a grand scale. Something like Birch's dynamic orbital rings could be used to connect planets and then run trains between them. Would be an interesting sci-fi universe... though not likely to ever happen.

[magnemoe]

On 4/16/2019 at 10:46 AM, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

They even make guns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-materiel_rifle

 

Hint an enemy soldier helmet is material same with weapon and ammo pouches. 
.50 sniper rifles are pretty common, they have the nice bonus of detonating TNT. 

[Treveli]

19 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

What's that from?

In a technical sense this isn't impossible, though it requires mega-engineering on a grand scale. Something like Birch's dynamic orbital rings could be used to connect planets and then run trains between them. Would be an interesting sci-fi universe... though not likely to ever happen.

Galaxy Express 999? Only thing I can think of.

[DAL59]

On 5/3/2019 at 2:26 PM, Bill Phil said:

In a technical sense this isn't impossible, though it requires mega-engineering on a grand scale. Something like Birch's dynamic orbital rings could be used to connect planets and then run trains between them.

The trains are coal powered though