Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[Guest]

Hmmm, there was one recently that kinda stuck out to me in Orville... but I gave it a pass for potentially being easily retcond and Orville has a heart of gold. Keep the home fires of Star Trek burning! 

But anywhozles, the bad science is when they go and hide inside the event horizon of a black hole and then just pop out and return on their way when the people chasing them went away. 

I could have accepted that their FTL drive let them get out but they didn’t seem to use their FTL, they just drove out. Which should be impossible @_@! That’s why it’s an event horizon... but at the same time I duno how their sub light engines are supposed to work so maybe it makes sense somehow.

Edited July 1, 2019 by Guest

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, KG3 said:

In the prequel Caprica you find that the Cylons programming is based on the consciousness of a surly teenage girl. 

They only explains why they hid for so long between fights.

[DDE]

6 hours ago, KG3 said:

In the prequel Caprica you find that the Cylons programming is based on the consciousness of a surly teenage girl. 

And then you throw in a religious angle and it all goes to heck...

[Gargamel]

On 6/30/2019 at 8:46 PM, Nightside said:

So, I have to ask - What is the biggest river on an island? (Google will only tell me about the biggest island in a river...)

Guess you'd have to define your limit to how big an island can be.   Australia's an Island, North/South America could be an island.....

But now I'm curious, what did you find as the biggest island in a river?

[kerbiloid]

On 7/6/2019 at 4:19 PM, Gargamel said:

Guess you'd have to define your limit to how big an island can be. 

(updated)

Asteroid Island is what's not a planet continent.

(1) A "planet" "continent" 1 is a celestial body landmass that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun Core, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

(2) A "dwarf planet continent" is a celestial body landmass that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun Core, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

(3) All other objects3, except satellites, orbiting the Sun Core shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Terrestrial Bodies" or "islands" (after "is land").

So, Australia is a dwarf continent. Probably, Tasmania is its moon.
Other landmasses of Oceania form a Kuiper belt. Though, maybe they are also Eurasian Trojans.

Americas are a double planet with interacting atmospheres (in Panama).
A funny fact: America Australis and America Borealis are tidally locked and always have the same side to each other.

The American tidal bulges even touch each other.
The bridge has its own name: Central America. That's because it is located exactly on Panamerican barycenter.
So, the scientifically proper full name is Barycentral America, but who cares about such long words.

The (Bary)Central America is hot, because of tidal forces.
While the outer sides (Canada and Tierra del Fuego) stay cold.

Another such sample of interacting planets continents are Eurasia and Africa.
Africa is located very close to the much bigger Eurasia, so it's entirely hot due to the tidal forces.
Its ice deposits are melted and flow down to the Eurasia as the greatest African river,  Nile.
(That's why it doesn't have influxes but is still so great. The enormous Eurasian gravity attracts it.)

Eurasia is much bigger, so while its edge next to Africa is same hot, the opposite side stays very cold (Siberia, Scandinavia).

Antarctica is a typical cold planet. It's cold because it's far. Bad to be her.

As the Arctic Ocean is very cold, too, we can assume that the tidal heating is what warms the continents.
The farther from close tidal regions, the cooler.

We can also calculate corresponding planet diameters from the given surface area of continents.
Say, Australia = 7.7 mln km² = pi * D². So, planetary diameter of Australia= sqrt(7.7 mln / pi) = 1565 km, 1.25 times as big as Kerbin.

 

And we should again return to Africa.
As we can compute, its total area is more or less equal to the Moon surface area.

And now let's have a look at the typical Middle East Moon:

Spoiler

It's much wider than the real Moon angular diameter.
That's because that's no Moon. That's Africa.
This is how the neighbouring continent looks like from the opposite side of the Red Sea in a desert mirage under the moonlight.
And the figures on its surface are the African rivers and mountains.
That's the real answer to the puzzle of the Middle East mysterious moon.

 

Also we have such standalone asteroids islands like Iceland, Easter, and others.
That's easy. They are attracted to the Langrange points of corresponding continents.
That's why they stand still far from anything. They just mark the gravitationally stable regions.

Edited July 8, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Gargamel]

On 7/6/2019 at 11:32 AM, kerbiloid said:

Asteroid Island is what's not a planet continent.

(1) A "planet" "continent" 1 is a celestial body landmass that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun Core, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

(2) A "dwarf planet continent" is a celestial body landmass that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun Core, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

(3) All other objects3, except satellites, orbiting the Sun Core shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Terrestrial Bodies".

So, Australia is a dwarf continent. Probably, Tasmania is its moon.
Other landmasses of Oceania form a Kuiper belt. Though, maybe they are also Eurasian Trojans.

Americas are a double planet with interacting atmospheres (in Panama).
A funny fact: America Australis and America Borealis are tidally locked and always have the same side to each other.

Antarctica is a typical cold planet. It's cold because it's far. Bad to be her.

We can also calculate corresponding planet diameters from the given surface area of continents.
Say, Australia = 7.7 mln km² = pi * D². So, planetary diameter of Australia= sqrt(7.7 mln / pi) = 1565 km, 1.25 times as big as Kerbin.

There are many reasons I want to include a Post of The Month award within the TOTM thread.    This is one of them.   :golf clap:

[kerbiloid]

(Extended the previous post a little)

[ARS]

1. 2012 attempts to justify its scientifically predictable doomsday with an obscure geological theory of crustal displacement formulated in the 50s. The film even throws in an appeal to authority by claiming that Einstein agreed with the theory. The latter is true, and the film depicts at least vaguely accurately what crustal displacement in action might look like. What it fails to address though, is the fact that the theory was formulated before plate tectonics theory was developed, something that didn't happen until the 60s. What does this mean? Oh, only the fact that the two theories are mutually exclusive, and since plate tectonics is now proven true, the other can't be. Furthermore, Einstein, while brilliant, was NOT an expert on geology. You wouldn't trust his opinion on plate tectonics any more than you would trust him with heart surgery

2. It's not like The Asylum Studio is known for being on the deep end of the hard sci-fi, but their 2014 film Asteroid vs Earth hinges on stupidity that may not even be quantifiable. Faced with an Earth destroying asteroid 1/4th the size and weight of the moon, one of the characters correctly informs the military that firing nukes at it won't work. He soon loses these "did his homework" points by raising another plan, that requires that nukes be set off in and around the Ring of Fire in the Pacific. By doing so, he hopes to create a magnitude 18 earthquake that will move the planet out of the way of the asteroid. That would be 18 on the Richter Scale. Pothole included for reference: every step up on the scale releases 31 times more energy. An earthquake of magnitude 18 would release a force equivalent to 12 zettatons (zettaton = 10 ^ 21 tons) of TNT. The crater from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs only released 100 teratons (teraton = 10 ^ 12 tons). At this point, the plot is a non issue: no matter what is done, everybody on Earth is going to die.

3. Any film that shows a damaged or collapsed suspension bridge tends to demonstrate a lack of understanding from the visual effects department of how such bridges would actually fail. In many cases big-budget films depicting mass destruction of a city will feature a scene showing destruction of a famous bridge (The most common victim being the Golden Gate Bridge, looking at you, The Core). Generally, the central span is shown as collapsing and the towers are pulled inward as if pulled down by it. However, a suspension bridge uses cables under constant tension to transfer the weight of the span to anchors or counterweights located at either end of the bridge, so the towers are normally kept in balance between the weight of the span pulling inward and the anchors pulling outward. If the span collapses, the towers would bend outward since the anchors would no longer be balanced by the span.

4. In UP, where Carl ties hundreds of balloons to his house to fly away. The problem is Carl's house's apparent loss of momentum. Realistically, it would be almost impossible to get going like this, and the ballons would drag him a hundred feet when he try to stop. Also, the wind would move it better than him, so he'd just be dragged the way the wind blows. And air pressure is far enough from constant that the house wouldn't stay even like that. They also manage to steer the house with control surfaces that are incredibly tiny in comparison to the wind resistance of the house and the balloons, and there's no apparent effect the direction the house is facing would have anyway, especially seeing as it should have no airspeed as it is unpowered (not to mention horrifically draggy, as it's not aerodynamic). 

Edited July 9, 2019 by ARS

[Superfluous J]

6 hours ago, ARS said:

In UP

You will not touch Up. Any movie that can tell one of the best yet most heartbreaking romances of all time in almost still shots as a prologue to the actual movie can make a flub or two on... well... anything else.

(But I totally agree and thought the same thing while watching)

(Core is worse though, because it pretended to be realistic, and that asteroid movie sounds ghastly)

[kerbiloid]

13 hours ago, ARS said:

before plate tectonics theory was developed, something that didn't happen until the 60s.

It was formulated in early XX, but first fifty years every serious scientist was laughing "This doesn't work this way!", lol.

13 hours ago, ARS said:

Einstein, while brilliant, was NOT an expert on geology.

He was an expert on patents, lol. Literally. He was working as a patent expert.

13 hours ago, ARS said:

The Asylum Studio

which is by definition beyond the truth and the lie.
It's like DC or Marvel, but Asylum.
Troma Entertainment as well.

[kerbiloid]

Once again it flies around,
Silver junk above the ground.
Very often silver wastes
Fly unrecognized these days.

Spoiler

Над землёй фигня летала,
Серебристого металла,
Очень много в наши дни
Неопознанной фигни.

Another Life series (2019)

Yet have watched 2 episodes of 10.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Spoiler

A music as a form of contact with the alien artifact.
A starship crew starting a six months long flight from double mutiny, knifing, and sudden murder of the only pilot. Happily, they had another one frozen. NB: always take a pack of frozen backup pilots in flight.
A cloud of dark matter shading the way.
Manual Oberth maneuver in the Sirius field of gravity. Unexpectedly not so successful, but mostly.
Two crewmen crewhuman (f&m) gathering by hands (sic!) ringwoodite (sic!!) for hydrogen and oxygen contained in it (sic!!!) to refuel the starship (ta-dam!!)
A centrifuge just hanged around the ship with no trusses or so.
A starship colliding with iceteroids.

So on. Just too perfect to list everything.
Am keeping watching.

P.S.
Also the place where all this started looks for me like the town where Stephanie (2017) lived, the very ending, when she gets out of home.
So I was not surprised at all that this place is a danger magnet.

Edited July 25, 2019 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

Moscow-Cassiopea (1974)

The starship with a crew of 13 years old teens is heading from the Earth to Alpha Cassiopeiae, with a 26-years long rescue mission, to reach it in their 40.

When it's passing by Proxima Centauri, the navigator tells pensively to the commander: "(Just) our closest neighbor... How long it will take to fly..."

Very long, I would say. Cassiopeia is in opposite direction.

(Silly students, never listen a teacher.)

[kerbiloid]

Guest from the Future.

The Institute of Time knows how to properly conspire their secret transtemporal agents in XX century.

Spoiler

 

[DDE]

Non-fiction, but

Quote

20+ km

near space

Thank you, media arm of the Russian Ministry of Defence. Very cool.

https://www.tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201981949-xsHSX.html

And it's not the first time they do it; somebody launched the MiG-31 hype train a few years back.

[Vanamonde]

So. Jurassic Latest Title. 

1. A volcano on the island is going to drive the dinos extinct. Except they were reconstituted genetically in the first place, so maybe just cook up a new batch? 

2. Everybody's anxious to get their hands on combat dinosaurs. Because raising and training large wild animals would be so much easier than just drafting some guy and handing him a gun? 

3. They have a gunlike-like weapon which target paints somebody with a laser, and then a pressing a button on the device sonically signals the dino to attack the painted person. Nevermind that if you just aimed an actual gun at someone and pulled the trigger, you could kill the objective and skip the entire raising-and-training-and-transporting dinosaurs side of the weapon system. 

4. The rich guy has rooms big enough to hold multiple full-sized dinosaurs excavated out beneath his huge mansion, and this is apparently secret and doesn't cause the house to collapse. Seriously, these rooms and tunnels are big enough to stuff several Bond villain lairs into. 

This was the dumbest movie I've seen in a long time. 

[kerbiloid]

35 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

The rich guy has rooms big enough to hold multiple full-sized dinosaurs excavated out beneath his huge mansion, and this is apparently secret

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/05/french-court-rules-maurice-noisy-cockerel-keep-crowing

(And this is just one bird...)

[DDE]

17 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

This was the dumbest movie I've seen in a long time. 

At least everyone is consistently idiotic.

Children should not grow up in a world without dinosaurs, eh?

[Codraroll]

23 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

This was the dumbest movie I've seen in a long time.

For me, the ending was the stupidest part. Girl press buttons, dinosaurs run out of the house, everybody says "This is a world where dinosaurs roam free now". The implication is that they will totally establish themselves as major players in the ecosystem and eventually present an existential threat to humans...

...except that the whole first act of the very same movie shows these very same dinosaurs being rounded up and captured in their natural habitat by a bunch of ragtag mercenaries in around two days. Captured alive, mind you.

...except that there were maybe fifty dinosaurs in total. What do you call a species that has fifty individuals living in the wild? Critically endangered, practically extinct. And those weren't even all of the same species. There was ONE T-Rex, for instance. No species had anywhere near enough individuals to sustain a population for more than a few generations before in-breeding does them in.

...except that these dinos were moved from a tropical habitat to northern California. A completely new climate. None of the prey or edible plants they were used to from their island. Crucially, none of the dinosaurs had feathers, which means they have no way to insulate their bodies against the phenomenon called "winter". Or even "warm summer days that don't reach tropical temperatures".

The movie's script tries to scream "Be scared, dinosaurs are taking over now!", while being completely deafened by the reality shown on screen: That the dinosaurs would be easily captured, starve or freeze to death, or eventually succumb to a belly-flop into an overly shallow gene pool. The volcano aside, the dinosaurs are clearly much more endangered at the end of the movie than they were at the beginning.

[magnemoe]

23 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

So. Jurassic Latest Title. 

1. A volcano on the island is going to drive the dinos extinct. Except they were reconstituted genetically in the first place, so maybe just cook up a new batch? 

2. Everybody's anxious to get their hands on combat dinosaurs. Because raising and training large wild animals would be so much easier than just drafting some guy and handing him a gun? 

3. They have a gunlike-like weapon which target paints somebody with a laser, and then a pressing a button on the device sonically signals the dino to attack the painted person. Nevermind that if you just aimed an actual gun at someone and pulled the trigger, you could kill the objective and skip the entire raising-and-training-and-transporting dinosaurs side of the weapon system. 

4. The rich guy has rooms big enough to hold multiple full-sized dinosaurs excavated out beneath his huge mansion, and this is apparently secret and doesn't cause the house to collapse. Seriously, these rooms and tunnels are big enough to stuff several Bond villain lairs into. 

This was the dumbest movie I've seen in a long time. 

2 an raptor might be useful if domesticated and trained like dogs, yes this require an social and pretty intelligent animal, way easier to make an better dog breed. 
3  yes that was an nice one, note that laser guided bombs and missiles is an thing and can be used this way, however for destroying stuff like tanks or bunkers. 
 

[Vanamonde]

Yes, it did appear that some of the escaped dinos were single examples of their species, leaving one to wonder how they might breed and take over the world. Presumably life would... uh... uh... find a way. Or something. I gave them the benefit of the doubt on that because it's one of themes of the movies. 

[cubinator]

5 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Yes, it did appear that some of the escaped dinos were single examples of their species, leaving one to wonder how they might breed and take over the world. Presumably life would... uh... uh... find a way. 

Chickens.

[kerbiloid]

11 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Girl press buttons, dinosaurs run out of the house, everybody says "This is a world where dinosaurs roam free now". The implication is that they will totally establish themselves as major players in the ecosystem and eventually present an existential threat to humans...

Next movie will be a comedy Dinos vs Rednecks.

[Vanamonde]

13 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Next movie will be a comedy Dinos vs Rednecks.

Tucker and Dale vs. Dinos. 

Which I would totally watch. 

[mikegarrison]

Marshall, Will, and Holly, on a routine expedition....

[kerbiloid]

San Andreas Mega Quake (2019)

When San Andreas starts cracking an earthquaking, the first thing you should try is a 2000 lb BLU-117 bomb.
You should drop it from a chopper or so, to create a volcano which will safely release the quake energy.
(Unless you have a cannon to do the same.)

***

Necrotronic (2019)

(spoiler)

Spoiler

I suspected long ago that captured souls are passing along the internet cables...
Just from the screaming dial-up sounds.

 

Edited September 15, 2019 by kerbiloid