Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[DDE]

6 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

They are being automated to the extent that they can be to reduce the crew size.

And, interestingly, the phenomenon has stagnated. From Skate to Seawolf the crew has gone up from 80 to 140.

I’m sure a hands-per-tonnage breakdown will show the process has largely stopped.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

From Skate to Seawolf the crew has gone up from 80 to 140.

Seawolf is quiter.
60 oarsmen added. And a felt drum.

Spoiler

 

[KerikBalm]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

And, interestingly, the phenomenon has stagnated. From Skate to Seawolf the crew has gone up from 80 to 140.

I’m sure a hands-per-tonnage breakdown will show the process has largely stopped.

Skate: 

Displacement:    2,550 long tons (2,590 t) surface

Complement:    8 officers and 76 men

Tons per person: 30.357

Seawolf:

Displacement:    Surfaced: 8,600 tons

Complement:    140

Tons per person: 61.429 tons

 

Anyway, I was thinking about aircraft carriers. Nixon vs Ford classes:

Both about 100,000 tons, no solid info on the Ford's exact mass

Complement:    Ship's company: 3,200 vs 2,600

Edited March 27, 2018 by KerikBalm

[p1t1o]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

And, interestingly, the phenomenon has stagnated. From Skate to Seawolf the crew has gone up from 80 to 140.

I’m sure a hands-per-tonnage breakdown will show the process has largely stopped.

Its an exception, but the Alfa-class soviet sub (in service 1977-1996) had crews as small as 30.

Large crews on modern boats I presume also has something to do with complexity of equipment and expansion of mission capability (reconnaissance, special ops, SIGINT etc.)

 

For interest:

Alfa-Class boat - 2300tons surfaced

Complement - 31

Tons per crewman - 74.19

[kerbiloid]

13 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Skate: 

Displacement:    2,550 long tons (2,590 t) surface

Complement:    8 officers and 76 men

Tons per person: 30.357

Seawolf:

Displacement:    Surfaced: 8,600 tons

Complement:    140

Tons per person: 61.429 tons

So, twice greater the mass — twice greater the crew.

The hypothesis about oars for silent mode is looking more and more convincing...

.

13 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Anyway, I was thinking about aircraft carriers. Nixon vs Ford classes:

Both about 100,000 tons, no solid info on the Ford's exact mass

Complement:    Ship's company: 3,200 vs 2,600

Minus ~1k of air personnel and a crowd of marines to protect it against hooligans and thieves.

13 hours ago, p1t1o said:

For interest:

Alfa-Class boat - 2300tons surfaced

Complement - 31

Tons per crewman - 74.19

Also we can compare the energy,
1 submarine : 16..24 SLBM x (10x100..8x500)  = 16..96 Mt  per 120..170 crew = 130..560 kt/crewman = (0.6..2.3)*10¹⁵ J / 75 kg = (0.8..3) * 10¹³ J/kg.

(0.8..3) * 10¹³ J/kg. = 4000..8000 km/s.

[KerikBalm]

11 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

So, twice greater the mass — twice greater the crew.

Ummm.... did you look at the numbers?

One has 1 crew member per 30 tons, one has 1 crew member pr 60 tons. It was ~4x greater mass for ~2x greater crew numbers

[kerbiloid]

58 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Ummm.... did you look at the numbers?

?
140:80 vs 61429:30357 = 1.75 vs 2.02355305 = twice vs twice
Got it. I was treating "." in 30.000 and 60.000 as a thousand separator.

So, oars are twice bigger.

Edited March 28, 2018 by kerbiloid

[KerikBalm]

Umm, you're comparing the wrong numbers.

The ship mass is 8,600 vs 2,550

So 3.373x

the for the crrew its 140 vs 84 , so 1.66

3.373x the mass and 1.66x greater crew, not 2 and 2

The result is that there is twice as much mass per crew member. Your statement "twice greater the mass — twice greater the crew" is just wrong

Maybe you meant "twice greater the mass — twice greater mass per crew."? or "twice greater the mass — half the crew per mass"?

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

Maybe you meant "twice greater the mass — twice greater mass per crew."? or "twice greater the mass — half the crew per mass"?

No, I just misread the numbers, as I said.

Spoiler

Upd.
But now I'm puzzled. As they have now twice greater mass per oarsmen, do they now row twice as quickly?

 

Edited March 28, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

On 3/27/2018 at 1:34 PM, KerikBalm said:

Skate: 

Displacement:    2,550 long tons (2,590 t) surface

Complement:    8 officers and 76 men

Tons per person: 30.357

Seawolf:

Displacement:    Surfaced: 8,600 tons

Complement:    140

Tons per person: 61.429 tons

 

Anyway, I was thinking about aircraft carriers. Nixon vs Ford classes:

Both about 100,000 tons, no solid info on the Ford's exact mass

Complement:    Ship's company: 3,200 vs 2,600

Zumwalt: 104 tons per person

(Unrelated, but someone I knew took a small boat with a sonar and confirmed that the Zumwalt really does have a tiny signature)

[DDE]

57 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

(Unrelated, but someone I knew took a small boat with a sona

Either he measured the wrong signature... or you're on even more watchlists than I am.

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Either he measured the wrong signature... or you're on even more watchlists than I am.

Would not say so, side looking sonar has been standard for commercial fishing for over an generation. Would assume it will be standard for yacht style hobby fishing boats now, even cheap rental boats has an simple sonar. 
And you would pick up ships on it an warship would like to reduce its signature and that would work best against simple equipment. 

[DAL59]

7 hours ago, DDE said:

Either he measured the wrong signature... or you're on even more watchlists than I am.

It was in the baltimore harbor for a while, and sonar is normal on many boats these days.  

[Gargamel]

3 hours ago, DAL59 said:

It was in the baltimore harbor for a while, and sonar is normal on many boats these days.  

Sonar or Radar?  Both are common on civilian boats, but I would imagine even a Nimitz class would barely register on a fishing sonar, aside from the sudden lack of fish showing up.

Seeing as the Zumwalt is a surface vessel, it would have almost no signature on an active sonar system.  Most surface vessels don't.  They show up on passive sonar, which is how subs track them, but few if any commercial systems would have a passive system to them.  There's just no need (that I can think of) aside from specific industrial troubleshooting systems (like trying to locate where a leak in a pipeline may be).    Not only that, but I don't think surface to surface sonar is really a thing.  ASW assets use it to find subs, and vice versa, but I don't think surface to surface would be that functional given how the acoustics break up along the surface.

Now if it's radar, then yeah, I can (not?) see the Zumwalt not showing up, like it's (not?) supposed to.    

[kerbiloid]

Annihilation. Just Annihilation.
Watching it now on background...
Suffering from nostalgy for Gordon Freeman, Isaac Kleiner, and those terse, focused scientific guys from District 9 testing alien weapons using a cattle prod.
They are real scientists, not this meat team. Darwin bless this anomaly.

Edited March 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

18 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Annihilation. Just Annihilation.
Watching it now on background...
Suffering from nostalgy for Gordon Freeman, Isaac Kleiner, and those terse, focused scientific guys from District 9 testing alien weapons using a cattle prod.
They are real scientists, not this meat team. Darwin bless this anomaly.

Watched Annihilation the other day, yup definitely suffers from "In this world, there are no professional scientists" syndrome, but I did like its originality and its portrayal of an alien as actually *alien* - not just a human who speaks english but has a funny face - an alien with inexplicable motives and technology indistinguishable from magic.

If you look at the characters as damaged people seeking some kind of enlightenment, rather than as terrible scientists, it makes more sense.

Like many quasi-science-fiction movies, its more fantasy than sci-fi. Filed next to "Tron". 7/10

[magnemoe]

38 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Watched Annihilation the other day, yup definitely suffers from "In this world, there are no professional scientists" syndrome, but I did like its originality and its portrayal of an alien as actually *alien* - not just a human who speaks english but has a funny face - an alien with inexplicable motives and technology indistinguishable from magic.

If you look at the characters as damaged people seeking some kind of enlightenment, rather than as terrible scientists, it makes more sense.

Like many quasi-science-fiction movies, its more fantasy than sci-fi. Filed next to "Tron". 7/10

Worse in that all the teams disappeared, would it not bee an idea to stay near the border and observe the team, from the outside and having an phone line in. 
And yes going for the lighthouse by the sea 

[p1t1o]

21 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Worse in that all the teams disappeared, would it not bee an idea to stay near the border and observe the team, from the outside and having an phone line in. 
And yes going for the lighthouse by the sea 

 

Possible spoilers!

Spoiler

 

I guessed that they tried that and failed, technological things are shown to malfunction and it is implied that they have been desperately trying to explore the region for some time, without success.

I suppose it is a little off that they were like "Well nothing has worked so far, lets send in another foot expedition." but I think that might be explained by the older "leader" scientist character basically organising it off her own back as a kind of last-ditch suicide mission. There is also a little hint of "Its expanding. Its not stopping. We cant stop it. We've tried everything." desperation.

This artistic license I think is fine, since a 100% accurate real-life representation of this kind of thing would probably make incredibly boring cinema. Science is fascinating, but not often all that dramatic.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by p1t1o

[kerbiloid]

They can avoid using a hi-tech like wired phone.

Spoiler

P.S.
Though the hamster was not bad.

Edited March 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

26 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They can avoid using a hi-tech like wired phone.

  Reveal hidden contents

P.S.
Though the hamster was not bad.

 

 

Spoiler

Its not a film about how to communicate in adverse conditions. Its a film that involve a mission into a zone from which it is not possible to communicate.

Books/films etc are not required to adequately explain the answers to 100.0% of all possible questions.

Besides, there's loads of unknowns to smooth over any wrinkles like semaphore. For example: recall that the team does not remember their entire first day in the zone and there is plenty of evidence that being in the zone affects mental stability. For all we know they are all equipped with a st of semaphore flags but have forgotten what they are for.

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by p1t1o

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

55 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

For example: recall that the team does not remember their entire first day in the zone and there is plenty of evidence that being in the zone affects mental stability. For all we know they are all equipped with a st of semaphore flags but have forgotten what they are for.

Yes, I remember that moment. I would say their mental stability was in danger even earlier, when they chose yellow tents for the green forest.

P.S.
Herbal people and crystal trees are nice too.

Edited March 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

Yes, I remember that moment. I would say their mental stability was in danger even earlier, when they chosed yellow tents for the green forest.

 

Spoiler

hahahaha I was just waiting for Poe Dameron to say something like "Have you seen my Amidala...um...medals..have you seen my medals?" or "Can you Padme the...*ahem*... pass me the salt"

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by p1t1o

[kerbiloid]

Happily there are Accursed Farms and they just made a new episode of their Freeman's Mind machinima.
As always, I've taken this as a sci-fi antidote.

Spoiler

http://www.accursedfarms.com/movies/fm/

or

 

 

[DDE]

On 3/29/2018 at 6:54 AM, DAL59 said:

It was in the baltimore harbor for a while, and sonar is normal on many boats these days.  

@magnemoe, the kind of active sonar used by civilian sonars is not militarily relevant. We’re talking about microphones so gigantic, they’ve pushed torpedo tubes out of the bow.

[K^2]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

We’re talking about microphones so gigantic, they’ve pushed torpedo tubes out of the bow.

Yeah, but they're mostly necessary for passive sensing. A civilian active sonar will give you the same sense for the acoustic cross-section of a target as a military passive sonar would. Sure, you're not going to detect the target from as far away, and you are certainly not going to do it without completely giving yourself away. But the cross-section is the same regardless of sensing equipment.