intelligent question

Hello,

Is it not contradictory for cosmologists to state that
Star Trek is rubbish because you cannot hear expolsions
in a vaccum and then say that space is full of gasses?

"nostradamus" wrote in message
...
Hello,

Is it not contradictory for cosmologists to state that
Star Trek is rubbish because you cannot hear expolsions
in a vaccum and then say that space is full of gasses?


Correct, it is not.

"nostradamus" wrote in message ...
Is it not contradictory for cosmologists to state that
Star Trek is rubbish because you cannot hear expolsions
in a vaccum and then say that space is full of gasses?

No, they're just making the point that space has gas in it, not
necessarily enough gas to carry sound.

In interstellar space around Sol, there's an average of about 1000
hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. That's not enough gas to carry the
sound of an explosion. However, it is enough gas for scientists to
consider in their models of the universe.

Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

In message , "nostradamus"
wrote:

Is it not contradictory for cosmologists to state that
Star Trek is rubbish because you cannot hear expolsions
in a vaccum and then say that space is full of gasses?

Yes and no. Space is "full" of gases at a very low density. As such,
it's not a pure vacuum, but it's pretty damn close. At that density
there is no sound, just a few particles getting pushed about by the
concussions and vibrations that make sound in an atmosphere.

For there to be sound, there have to be enough particles that they
bounce back and forth off each other. In space, when the side of your
space station gets dinged, the vibrations might knock a few particles,
but they just fly off into the dark and may not hit another particle
for metres, or kilometres, or AUs, or light years.

Even the "gas clouds" that are dotted about the place are too thin to
carry sound. Nebulae aren't visible because they are dense, but
because they are huge. It only takes a single 1nm particle every
cubic centimetre to be completely opaque at a thickness of ten light
years.

--
R.G. "Stumpy" Marsh.

In article , "nostradamus"
writes:

Is it not contradictory for cosmologists to state that
Star Trek is rubbish because you cannot hear expolsions
in a vaccum and then say that space is full of gasses?


No, it is not contradictory to say that, but it _is_ silly! It is true that
"camera
shots" from outside the spacecraft are usually accompanied by a sound
track. It is also true that an observer with that perspective would hear no
sound which was not generated aboard his craft (or spacesuit). But don't these

folks pay attention when watching other movies? The sound track is _often_
uncoupled from the visual perspective in non-SF movies. Specifically, the
sound
perspective "cuts" less often than the visual perspective. Two people are
talking
in a park. The camera cuts from closeup to a distant shot. Yet the volume and

sound quality of the voices on the sound track does not change. Nobody
complains about the realism or consistency of such cuts in non-SF movies.
That is what is happening, as it should, in SF movies. The sound of mechanical

transients, or impacts, & the like would be heard by the occupants of the
vessels on which they occur, and there is no valid cinematic reason why they
cannot be heard by the audience. Whether or not they should be is properly an
artistic question, not a question in physics.
In fact, a truly sophisticated information interface on a "bridge" or
command
center of a spacecraft, should make stereophonically correct "sound effects" to

provide an intuitive feedback and to draw attention to critical data.
Parts of Star Trek are rubbish because the technical details are
internally
inconsistent, or because some aspects of the fictional Federation or Earth
society are inconsistent with exaustively confirmed facts of human nature.
I bought most of the TNG series & several of the original episodes on DVD.
Having the series as a whole, I was stunned to realize how few of the plots
and story ideas were really good. The series, especially TNG, had rather
consistently well done characters. The original series had Spock. Some of
the stories and some of the action is good, but by no means all.
And yet....
I have come to realize, what I guess I really knew all along that I wasn't

watching ST for the same reasons I might watch other programs. How to
describe it? Here are these men & women whizzing along in this shiny,
sophisticated, high-tech, powerful vessel; "boldly going",. expanding the
horizons of humanity (broadly speaking) and knowledge. Do they really
have to _do_ anything. Well, yes I suppose they must. But that is not what
the appeal is _about_. You get the sense, especially in TNG or the Star Trek
movies (both casts) that the actors are hip to this.
I once saw an interview with Patrick Stewart on TV. He describes this
encounter with J Frakes and Levar Burton (Picard, Riker, and LaForge,
respectively, and respectfully) on the bridge set when the series was just
getting started. The Americans looked around the set, drank it all in, looked
at one another and grinned irrepressibly. Stewart asked "What?", not
understanding. They replied something about how as children they would
watch the original series with fascination and dream of being on the
Enterprise.
"And here we are, on the bridge of the Enterprise!"
Stewart, "I don't understand."
Smile & shrug, "You're not an American."
Not that the appeal of ST is purely to US, Stewart's children loved the
original series, Stewart had basically ignored it before he became part of it,
basically he had barely heard of it.

nostradamus wrote:

Hello,

Is it not contradictory for cosmologists to state that
Star Trek is rubbish because you cannot hear expolsions
in a vaccum and then say that space is full of gasses?




Hmmm, how about the 'sound' represented on screen is the
impact/concussion/explosion energy making itself 'felt' by frequency
shift* into what people hear as sound?



TBerk
*This is done by the same people who are holding the cameras & are
filming the space battles.

There are roughly 10 million billion atoms of air in 1 cc at sea level
on earth. There is 1 atom of gas per cc in the void between stars, and
1 atom per cubic inch in the void between galaxies. A big difference.
So no... In space nobody can hear you scream.

In space nobody can hear you scream.

The acoustic waves really does not spread in space, because of their nature.
These waves are the case of trasmitting of impulses from one layer of
molecules of air (or atoms in atomic grid ) to the next one in direction of
spreading of the wave.
But when you perform the scream into electromagnetic waves, amplify and
transmit them it will be possible to "hear" the scream in very huge
distances in space...