Page 15 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - March 2012

10 Things Sci-Fi Got Wrong 10 Things That Science stream of light, with one end attached to the mass disappear into thin air (or reappear, as the Fiction Got Wrong barrel of the said gun and the other end attached case may be); it has to go somewhere. Unless to whatever portion of your head hadn’t melted that “rat” is running around with the highly by Mac Alexander yet (assuming you’re having your laser battle compressed mass of a human-sized object somewhere where there’s enough air around to (which represents its own problems), shape illuminate the entire beam). Most “laser beams” shifting into different sized objects is not very Most of the time we’re willing to shovel down the popcorn and watch Yoda lift X-Wings in science fiction movies travel slower than likely (one of the smart things about Terminator bullets do today. Let’s see Obi-Won whip his 2 was that the T-1000 only shapeshifted into out of the swamp using nothing but the Force and a smattering of questionably parsed lightsaber around fast enough to stop the spray things of roughly the same mass, like human from a Mac-10 (and let’s not even begin to talk beings or a floor). English, or let Jean Luc Picard get the about all the things wrong with a sword made of Enterprise out of a scrape by the convenient light). 8: Time Travel discovery of yet another type of particle beam. Got an itch to spend time in Arthurian But every once in a while we just have to vent 4: Human-looking Aliens about some of the truly egregious “fiction” in This is endemic on the various Star Trek England? Or perhaps Gettysburg during the Civil War? The same relativistic principles that science fiction. series, where creatures from entirely different keep us going faster than light also keeps us sectors of the universe look just like humans, from traveling backward in time and messing 1: Sounds In Space except for the occasional bulging ridge on their with the past. It’s possible to slow down time - The tag line from Alien got it right: “in foreheads. Yes, this is the result of having only the closer you get to the speed of light, the space, no one can hear you scream.” The reason humans at casting calls, but in a larger sense, all slower time moves for you relative to your that no one can hear you scream is that sound these “humanoid” variations ain’t gonna original frame of reference - but to get the clock needs air to travel in, and there’s none in space. Most of space is hard vacuum, with a molecule happen. Look, humans evolved on Earth and spinning in the other direction would require share a basic body format (four limbs, one head, you to go faster than the speed of light, and you or two of hydrogen floating around in every side-to-side symmetry) with just about every can’t do that. Again, there are theoretical cubic meter - not nearly enough to transmit other vertebrate on the planet. It’s a form that loopholes that could allow it - wormholes, sound. Every sound in the movies, from photon works fine for this planet, but not even every actually, which are “tunnels” in the fabric of torpedo and laser beams to exploding starships and hyperspace booms, would never happen in vertebrate sticks with it ( see: snakes, whales, space-time that could possibly allow travel back in time. But once again, keeping these seals, etc.). Given that any planet with life on it real life. For that matter, you’d never see laser will have that life evolves in its own way, the wormholes open would require exotic matter beams in space either, since in a vacuum there’s chances of the universe being stocked with with negative energy. no medium to reveal them. So a real-life laser chesty alien princesses who crave human dogfight in space would be really boring to 9: The Planetary Gravity Scam watch. starship captains is slim at best. Everywhere you go in science fiction, 5: Half-breed Aliens people are walking around like they weigh just 2: Faster-than-light Travel Warp drives and hyperspace are very Humans don’t even interbreed with what they do on Earth. Chances of that useful in science fiction, but there’s one catch. other species here on Earth. Our DNA is simply happening in the real universe? Slim. Consider your own solar system. On Mars, a 180 pound too different from other species to allow such a According to Einstein, the speed of light isn’t mating to produce offspring. Given this, what man would weigh 70 pounds; on Jupiter, 424 just a good ides, it’s the law. Nothing can go are the chances of successful mating with an (not that you can walk on Jupiter, which has no faster than the speed of light in a vacuum (that’s about 186,000 miles per second). Even inching alien species that may not even have DNA as its solid surface.) That man on the moon? Just 30 pounds. The man’s mass is the same, it’s just genetic encoding medium? Also, going back to toward the speed of light is difficult - immense the idea that aliens probably won’t look like that different planets have different energy is required to get to even a fraction of the humans, how would you do it, anyway? It’s not gravitational pulls. The idea that all the planets speed of light, and the closer that you get to the exactly the “Insert Tab A into Slot B” that humans might visit would exactly match speed of light, the more energy is required. The amount of energy you’d need to achieve the proposition it would be here at home. Earth’s own gravitational profile is a little much. As is, alternately, the idea that all alien speed of light is infinite. So just tossing in a few 6: Brain Sucking Aliens creatures would be as comfortable in our more dilithium crystals into the warp drives Ditto aliens that control your body by isn’t going to make it happen. using your brains, or gestate in your chest or gravitational field as we are. -There are loopholes in our whatnot. Let’s posit that any creature that 10: The Planetary Sameness Principles understanding of physics that make-faster-than- controls the brain of any other creature (not that The desert planet of Tatooine. The ice light travel theoretically possible. For example, any exist here on Earth) does so only after a few planet of Hoth. The jungle planet of Dagobah. it’s theoretically possible to create a “bubble” of space that breaks itself off from other space and million years of what’s called “speciation” - i.e., What do all these planets have in common? One planetary-wide ecosystem. Which isn’t too one species eventually enters into a symbiotic moves faster than light relative to that space (all relationship with another species. This likely. Our own planet has varying zones and the while everything inside both :spaces” relationship would have to be pretty specific, as ecological areas: desert, tundra, jungle, and so moves no faster than the speed of light). This is symbiotic relationships are here on Earth. on; other planets in the system also show known as an Alcubierre Warp Bubble. The catch (there had ot be one) is that these bubbles Which is to say, just because you’re in a marked zones of varying atmospheric and weather patterns. Mars has ice caps as well as symbiotic relationship with one species doesn’t require the existence of exotic matter that has mean it transfers over to another species, (relatively) temperate zones; Jupiter has negative energy, and wouldn’t you know, there’s especially an alien species, whose body, distinct weather systems based in different areas not really any lying around, and it’s not clear chemistry, DNA, brain wiring etc., isn’t even on its globe. The planets that show a sameness that any actually exists. remotely close to your own. So don’t worry are the ones we couldn’t live on. Venus is all about the “Puppet Master” scenario too much, desert, but that’s because a runaway greenhouse 3: Laser Bolts You Can Dodge or that you’ll be nothing more than a glorified effect makes it hot enough to melt lead. Pluto is Aside from the issue of Imperial Stormtroopers being unable to hit the side of an egg sac for some nasty breed of space alien. all ice, but it’s so far away from the Sun that its atmosphere freezes for most of its orbit. There AT_AT, let’s review a fundamental fact of light 7: Shape-shifting Aliens may well be purely desert or jungle planets, but (which is what lasers are): It travels at 186,000 Shape-changing aliens are all very well, most planets we’d want to live on would miles per second. So the idea of ducking before but there’s a tiny problem in having a roughly probably be able to accommodate both. [] the laser hits you is just plain silly. Not to mention, of course, the idea of a laser bolt being human-sized lump of alien protoplasm turning itself , say, to a rat, to scurry around the visible as a streak that has a beginning, a ventilation shaft: Where does the rest of the “If thay can put one man on the moon, why middle, and an end. If you were zapped by a alien go? You can’t just make 99 percent of your can’t they put them all there?” laser from a laser gun, it’d look like a single - Anonymous.