Is it a failing in me...

[ffutures]

...that my big issue with last night's Dr. Who episode wasn't about the metaphors of the story, the dynamics of the characters, or even the big science plot-holes that abounded.

No, my big issue was that you can't use a hand-pumped aerosol in a vacuum. It works by taking air in from the outside and using it to push out the liquid. No air outside equals no pressure to push out the liquid, so no spray.

It might be argued that air trapped in the container would be at a higher pressure than vacuum, so push the liquid out anyway, but if it's that airtight it's probably going to swell up and pop like a balloon anyway.

It's ludicrously tiny compared to the rest of the dodgy science, but somehow it really bugged me. So my overall memory of that story will probably remain as "the one with the dodgy aerosol" which I'm sure is not what was intended.

later - numerous readers have pointed out that I've got it wrong and they did say that it didn't work in a vacuum - my attention must have wandered for a sec. Many apologies. I shall now brood about all the other dodgy science instead.

Comments

[ggreig]

It didn't work when they were outside. There was even a line of dialogue; when Clara tries to use it on the surface, Lundvik says "No, it's a vacuum, it won't work".

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

WHS

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Oops - sorry, I missed that. Thanks!

[autopope.livejournal.com]

What's the liquid?

If it has a high vapour pressure then in a low pressure environment it's going to be boiling and out-gassing; perhaps enough to produce enough of a pressure head for a spray ...? (Trouble is, it would then vapourize once it left the nozzle. Not to mention freezing the container.)

Caveat: Not seen the episode in question.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Bleach, and I got it wrong.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Reading a book today where coppers investigate a strange cold silvery ectoplasm. They are worried about the china plate it's on and maybe hear a faint sizzle. They worry about getting the thermometer too close to it as they don't know what the gel would do to it and they might need specialist instruments.

But they scraped it out of its phial with a pencil, and put it back in with a teaspoon.

It's only dangerous if you're thinking about the science.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Especially if you lose the plot for a second and get what they're saying wrong.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Just posted this on Cix:

It brought back memories for me that probably colour my views on it.

One of the first SF books I bought was the collection Far Boundaries
edited by August Derleth. It dates from 1951 but it was re-printed as a
UK paperback in 1967 which was about when I bought it.

One of the stories which I remembered well was And Lo! The Bird by
Nelson Bond. There is no copyright information in the book but the ISFDb
tells me it appeared in the September 1950 issue of The Blue Book
Magazine. (The collection puts it in its contemporary scene section.)

I still have the book and I refreshed my memory of the plot. An
astronomer tells a reporter (who is the narrator) that he has spotted
something odd on the outskirts of the solar system. It looks like a
giant bird. Other astronomers confirm the details. The astronomer comes
up with the theory the planets are its eggs that it left orbiting the sun
to incubate. And sure enough, it goes to Mercury which hatches. A
crash programme is instigated to send atomic bombs into the Earth to kill
the foetus there. Meanwhile, Venus hatches. The last line of the story
is, "Because early this morning, Earth began to knock..."

Interesting that strange gravity phenomena are mentioned here. The bird
flies past the Earth on the way in but no gravity change is detected. It
also seems to have been searching for something inside the orbit of
Mercury, which the astronomer conjectures is the lost planet Vulcan.
This planet was postulated in the nineteenth century to explain
discrepancies in the orbit of Mercury. Although there were purported
observations, Mercury's orbit can be explained by Einstein's General
Theory of Relativity.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Also used in one of Jack Chalker's series where several inhabited planets hatch.

[michael cule (from livejournal.com)]

Though I'd read 'Lo the Bird' the source of the idea of planets as eggs is probably a Professor Challenger story.

And the image that came to my mind first was the hatching of the baby Discworlds in THE COLOUR OF MAGIC (or is it THE LIGHT FANTASTIC?).

As a geek (we're notorious for wanting to tie things together) I was a bit disappointed that they said the creature was unknown to the Doctor. Because OBVIOUSLY it should have been the same space-whale that takes the remnant of the United Kingdom to the stars when Earth dies. Coming home to the nest like.

And the point that got my goat was the 'oooh, look another moon: fresh laid....'

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I was more bothered by how they could not only hear things in space, but could even hear the moon hatching and the moonthing flap away from Earth.

That said, at least this time they did acknowledge actual science. I loved the yoyo.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The yoyo goes back to Doctor2, I think.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

I have to say I found the fact the nobody mentioned the conservation of mass-energy issues that plot had absolutely astounding.

It annoying be I had to exercise it by writing a Monster Bestiary entry for a creature in question and post it to a different social network.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The science really was immensely dodgy, but never mind...