MovieChat Forums > Virtuality (2009) Discussion > Forget VR, the physics are wrong here!

Forget VR, the physics are wrong here!

posted 15 years ago by peter4854
30 replies | jump to latest

I know that the filmmakers are just trying to tell a story but it seems like most sci-fi movies tend to bend physics to make things more convenient. Lets assume that the ship is real and not a virtual makeup by some company on earth. Having that rotating wheel to simulate gravity instead of relying on fictional force fields is a good move, but there's some more issues that don't make sense.

A few things that don't add up here:
1. They could have activated the drive near earth or even halfway to mars and not worry about gamma rays doing any damage on earth
2. Apparently the earth will be dead within a 100 years. Thanks to time dilation what seems like 10 years to the crew might end up being 50 years on earth. Doesn't seem to help the situation one bit.
3. Their traveling at 1/15th the speed of light after the first bomb explodes. that's 400 million mph. Idk how fast they were before the explosion but the engineer mentions 182 more bombs to go. Acceleration = change in velocity/change in time. Change in velocity= very big if u will get near the speed of light in 182 bombs. Change in time= very small because the explosion doesn't last long and the ship doesn't seem to have a pusher plate. Result = most likely more gees than any structure can handle, definitely more gees than any human body can absorb.
4. At close to the speed of light, any interstellar matter they hit will cause huge amounts of damage to the ship.
5. Assuming this is a mission to study a space system and to return to earth with Intel, and not a suicide run, they should have enough bombs to slow down, then speed up and return to earth. Therefore i highly doubt they could not have simply turned around and headed back to earth to fix the computer glitch or help the doctor.

The list goes on....

[–] mistersparkle 15 years ago

Repeat to yourself, "it's just a show, I should really just relax."

--
You have many question, Mr Sparkle. I send you premium -- answer question, hundred percent!

[–] DarkTheater 15 years ago

Just a show yes, but it's hard to watch when they ignore know facts about physics, space travel, and long term excursions.

Even Star Trek bases it's most fantastic ideas on real science. This got it's science from bad movies, I think.

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[–] unbreakable16 15 years ago

You bring up good points, BUT the science here is still better than in anything else I can recall watching, so I'm not complaining too much. Plus I think some of those things could have explanations.

[–] MarshallStax 11 years ago

I, too, was impressed that the science was presented better than most space-set stories. Not great, but better.

"Armageddon", anyone?

All Art is pretense.

[–] tarnower-1 15 years ago

I find it remarkable how many people troll the IMDB boards, simply to belittle other posts but to not add any content to the topic. If you find other people's remarks so unworthy, just don't read them.

[–] mrtraska 15 years ago

>> Repeat to yourself, "it's just a show, I should really just relax."

If you're *that* unselective, there's already plenty of other junk for you to watch. Don't blame the rest of us for wanting to watch something that is intriguing in great part because it's actually accurate.

[–] MarshallStax 11 years ago

Did you know that quote is from the opening theme song of "Mystery Science Theater 3000"? That may cast his comment in a new light if you do...

All Art is pretense.

[–] thisnameinuse 15 years ago

The big advantage of the Orion drive system is that you can obtain excellent mass ratios and your entire ship doesn't need to be a giant fuel tank. So technically, this would leave enough room for the fuel for decelerating and the return trip.

And the Phaeton's pusher plate was the aftward giant expanding fan that flexed with each explosion.

I loved seeing them use such a viable ship for this. It's a shame FOX got ahold of it.

If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.

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[–] Spongeyone 15 years ago

The big advantage of the Orion drive system is that you can obtain excellent mass ratios and your entire ship doesn't need to be a giant fuel tank. So technically, this would leave enough room for the fuel for decelerating and the return trip.

Except we're talking about so many g's here, it just doesn't matter. (if they said 15% of c and 186 bombs, 25,000 g's each time) It wouldn't be possible to tell what species had been flattened to death without a DNA test after that sort of acceleration. Orion is a decent plan for traveling inside the solar system. It would take many thousands of bombs for it to get to a significant percentage of c. Back of the envelope math says about a million megaton-range bombs and maybe down to a half of that if they can get really good focus on directing the energy, and that's with a 1000 ton ship (and the thing we saw probably has 20+ times that much mass).

The writers used it because it's something that you haven't seen on television before and it looks kind of cool, not because it's a reasonable.

Oh, and the sort of velocity they got up to made the slingshot around Neptune completely irrelevant. Unless it was completely in the way (trillions to one against that one), it just wouldn't make sense to aim for it

[–] estester 11 years ago

since when there are G's in space???

in order to get G's you need gravity lol

[–] DrZaat 11 years ago

Sorry. If you have acceleration, you have G's. Doesn't matter if you're in space or on the ground. LOL.

[–] [email protected] 15 years ago

"The big advantage of the Orion drive system is that you can obtain excellent mass ratios and your entire ship doesn't need to be a giant fuel tank."

This is true for interplanetary missions, but not so for interstellar if they are to take place in a single human lifetime.

[–] dmfaust 15 years ago

The obvious failings are just another part of why they are more likely than not simply a psychological experiment of some sort. If you aren't in the real world to begin with(as indicated by the whole I got killed in an airlock that couldn't possibly malfunction now I'm alive as a civil war captain) then physics are beside the point.

[–] azarimy 15 years ago

hmmm... i thought the bigger question would be:

what are they supposed to do when they get there?

collect intel? that's it? why not send a probe?

and what would earth do while waiting? shouldnt they start building ships for mass exodus of earth, and start figuring out the visas off-planet rather than away-from-the-beach?

well, when i started asking question, all sorts of things pop up. this show seems to do well in attempting a slightly different take on space opera on TV. i love it, and i hope it stays.

[–] [email protected] 15 years ago

"collect intel? that's it? why not send a probe?"

For an interstellar mission the cost differential between a "probe" and an expedition is going to be peanuts. Besides that if it turns out that the experiments designed into the probe don't cover the territory, it's going to be years before you know and then you're going to have to send another one of these immensely expensive probes with a revised experimental package.

Right now we send probes because the cost of a manned expedition is very large compared to the cost of a probe. When you're factoring a million atom bombs into the launch cost the cost of the life support becomes negligible.

[–] t-a-walker 15 years ago

If they made a science-fiction show with 100% percent realistic physics, it would be boring as hell and just confuse the vast majority of their potential audience. The show would fail spectacularly and probably be replaced by reality tv. If you want sci-fi on television, you have to be willing to ignore some impossibilities.

[–] Spongeyone 15 years ago

If they made a science-fiction show with 100% percent realistic physics, it would be boring as hell and just confuse the vast majority of their potential audience. The show would fail spectacularly and probably be replaced by reality tv. If you want sci-fi on television, you have to be willing to ignore some impossibilities.

Certainly true to an extent. If you tried to make a Star Wars or something but made the lasers invisible in space (you can't see them in space unless they hit you in the eye) and the battles silent, sure, that wouldn't work. No show comes close to that line, though.

[–] [email protected] 15 years ago

[–] sengkak 15 years ago

I agree with jclarke, that "completely realistic physics" does not necessarily translate into movies and shows that are "boring as hell." Some of that physics will have a direct impact on characters and plot, and writers have to adjust accordingly, but human thinking and feeling remain the same--and THAT's where good storytelling resides. Other stuff can be done visually, without having any meaningful impact on characters and plot. Either way, a lot of the science doesn't need to be discussed at all--just showing it or implying it some other way will do the trick, without weighing down the story.

[–] mrtraska 15 years ago

"If they made a science-fiction show with 100% percent realistic physics, it would be boring as hell and just confuse the vast majority of their potential audience. The show would fail spectacularly and probably be replaced by reality tv. If you want sci-fi on television, you have to be willing to ignore some impossibilities."

Spoken like a true science illiterate. Duh! And 'reality TV' is about as real as pro wrestling or Michael Jackson's looks.

Any work of genuine science fiction has to fulfill a few critical requirements, and the key one is that there must be some real science to it that the work speculates upon -- meaning, the plot must hang on some element of science, scientific theory, or possible extrapolation of legitimate scientific theory. Isaac Asimov said that for a work to be truly science fiction, it must "feature authentic scientific knowledge and depend upon it for plot development and plot resolution." Rod Serling said it most concisely: "Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible." So: if you ignore impossibilities, you're writing fantasy, NOT sci-fi, and there's too much fantasy crap being mistaken for science fiction as it is. Learn the distinction, dude.

Last, there's no reason being accurate about the science and any extrapolations from it has to be boring. Star Trek: TNG certainly did well enough with a general audience, and on network TV, too. Stop expecting your viewers to be stupid, and they just might pleasantly surprise you. But that might be expecting too much of Hollywood, however ...

[–] cljohnston108 15 years ago

The CG supervisor, Doug Drexler, posted this on his blog...

Virtuality VFX and the Good Ship Phaeton – UPDATED! « Drex Files
http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/virtuality-vfx-and-the-good- ship-phaeton/

Lots of really nice detail pics of the Phaeton, as well as a schematic of an early concept that shows how the habitation ring and pusher plate work...
http://drexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/untitled-18.jpg

[–] resonator 15 years ago

where do the "gees" (actually Gs) come from - in Space?

[–] [email protected] 15 years ago

"where do the "gees" (actually Gs) come from - in Space?"

The ones to accelerate the ship come from the engine, the same as always. The ones when the ship is not under thrust come from spinning the habitat, which you could see was happening in some of the "external camera" shots.

It's actually a quite clever concept that addresses one longstanding issue with spin-simulated gravity on high thrust ships. Pity the writers didn't ask the designer to run the numbers for them on the propulsion system and acceleration rates.

[–] gklvr 15 years ago

I would recommend watching the 2008 miniseries "Impact". The physics is so bad, you'll return to "Virtuality" thinking it's based on real science.

[–] davethejackal 15 years ago

Which would back up what the end suggests ... they're not on a space ship at all.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article591141.ece