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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Jan 26, 12:09*pm, calvin wrote:
On Jan 26, 11:07*am, moviePig wrote: On Jan 26, 10:43*am, calvin wrote: On Jan 26, 10:18*am, "Steven L." wrote: Arthur C. Clarke had written a sci-fi story about a technician working in some nuclear power plant gets put through a space warp and gets reversed. One thing Clarke wrote about (which the "Journey" movie ignored) was that the technician developed malnutrition despite eating a regular diet. *That's because many nutrients have a chirality (right handedness/left-handedness) about them: *An amino acid or a vitamin molecule have a reversed mirror image too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_%28chemistry%29 And the technician's metabolism, having reversed molecules, couldn't bind to the nutrients he was eating. *So they had to procure specially designed reversed amino acids and reversed vitamin molecules to keep the technician alive--at great expense. ... The movie ignored that possibility, but it did not ignore electrical polarity. *It just smoothed it over by saying that the two planets were not reversed in that respect. To me, though, the movie's interest was in the situation. It also seemed to me that there was no need for the astronauts to swap places again. *The movie should have just ended with them enjoying reconciliation with their wives. The title seems puzzling. *"The far side of the Sun"? *I go there annually... Aside from your joke, the sci-fi premise that there could be a hidden planet opposite the earth in its orbit does not stand up to celestial mechanics. *Even if the earth's orbit was perfectly circular, there could not be a planet in stable orbit 180 degrees away from it. *Another planet would have to be at what are known as Lagrange Points, 60 degrees in front of or behind the earth. I believe that a few very small objects have been found at these positions in the earth's orbit, and much larger objects in Jupiter and Saturn's satellite orbits, as well as in Jupiter's orbit of the sun, the so-called Trojan asteroids. I dream of the day when a good scifi is produced (in this century, that is) that does not stray from science fact or possibility and is still entertaining. |
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:11:49 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote: I dream of the day when a good scifi is produced (in this century, that is) that does not stray from science fact or possibility and is still entertaining. In any kind of fiction, including science fiction, you ARE allowed to stray from fact. That's the very purpose of fiction.... |
#3
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:11:49 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote: I dream of the day when a good scifi is produced (in this century, that is) that does not stray from science fact or possibility and is still entertaining. Is that possible? -- "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department." - James Madison |
#4
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
"Paul Schlyter" wrote in message
.. . On Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:11:49 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote: I dream of the day when a good scifi is produced (in this century, that is) that does not stray from science fact or possibility and is still entertaining. In any kind of fiction, including science fiction, you ARE allowed to stray from fact. That's the very purpose of fiction.... ========================================== Asimov's "positronic brain" for his robots was an unnecessary fantasy for an artificially intelligent computer, his real fiction was about the sociological changes that a new technology can bring about. "Beam me up, Scotty" is about a cell phone before there were cell phones, aliens like Klingons are merely human beings with funny heads. Michael Crighton's Jurassic dinosaurs have to be a danger to human beings or there is no story, the sci part is the extraction of DNA from the gut of flies in amber that has ingested the animal's blood. In all fiction human beings and sociological change are the subject, only thinly disguised by anthropomorphic animals in "Watership Down" or "Animal Farm". Heinlein's rolling roads are feasible and his "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is about rebellion, throwing rocks at the Earth is merely the weapon. Bad fiction is the physically impossible, such as the hero outrunning the fireball from the explosion or a geostationary satellite positioned over the North Pole, or people firing beams of light at each other at subsonic speeds and then, for heavens sake, missing the target. I agree with RichA's assessment, sci-fi has to be plausible without violating known laws or else it is fantasy. On the other hand a well written fantasy can be entertaining and/or instructive if it demonstrates a paradox, such as time travel. -- This message is brought to you from the keyboard of Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway. When I get my O.B.E. I'll be an earlobe. |
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Feb 1, 10:35*pm, "Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway"
wrote: "Paul Schlyter" *wrote in message .. . On Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:11:49 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote: I dream of the day when a good scifi is produced (in this century, that is) that does not stray from science fact or possibility and is still entertaining. In any kind of fiction, including science fiction, you ARE allowed to stray from fact. That's the very purpose of fiction.... ========================================== Asimov's "positronic brain" for his robots was an unnecessary fantasy for an artificially intelligent computer, his real fiction was about the sociological changes that a new technology can bring about. "Beam me up, Scotty" is about a cell phone before there were cell phones, aliens like Klingons are merely human beings with funny heads. Michael Crighton's *Jurassic dinosaurs have to be a danger to human beings or there is no story, the sci part is the extraction of DNA from the gut of flies in amber that has ingested the animal's blood. In all fiction human beings and sociological change are the subject, only thinly disguised by anthropomorphic animals in *"Watership Down" or "Animal Farm". Heinlein's rolling roads are feasible and his "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is about rebellion, throwing rocks at the Earth is merely the weapon. *Bad fiction is the physically impossible, such as the hero outrunning the fireball from the explosion or a geostationary satellite positioned over the North Pole, or people firing beams of light at each other at subsonic speeds and then, for heavens sake, missing the target. I agree with RichA's assessment, sci-fi has to be plausible without violating known laws or else it is fantasy. Really good scifi was sidelined by fantasy a couple decades ago. Hollywood's belief is that the average person is incapable of even listening to scientifically-plausible ideas. For every person who is fascinated by (for example) the Greene books on quantum universes, there are 100,000 who want "Star Wars." |
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Feb 1, 5:56*pm, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:11:49 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote: I dream of the day when a good scifi is produced (in this century, that is) that does not stray from science fact or possibility and is still entertaining. In any kind of fiction, including science fiction, you ARE allowed to stray from fact. That's the very purpose of fiction.... There are three key areas utilizable when doing a science fiction story: 1. Real, proven science. 2. Speculative science based on reasonable assumption. 3. Pure fantasy. Hollywood uses 1 and 3, but could still do good stories if only using 1 & 2. |
#7
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Sat, 2 Feb 2013 13:48:21 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote: Really good scifi was sidelined by fantasy a couple decades ago. Hollywood's belief is that the average person is incapable of even listening to scientifically-plausible ideas. For every person who is fascinated by (for example) the Greene books on quantum universes, there are 100,000 who want "Star Wars." We see that a lot in Hollywood movies that have nothing to do with SF. But the problem is worse with SF when the movie makers don't know science (and probably don't read). -- "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department." - James Madison |
#8
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Feb 1, 3:56*pm, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:11:49 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote: I dream of the day when a good scifi is produced (in this century, that is) that does not stray from science fact or possibility and is still entertaining. In any kind of fiction, including science fiction, you ARE allowed to stray from fact. That's the very purpose of fiction.... Yes, but his sense ought to be quite understandable: "that does not stray too far from science fact or possibility"... after all, the typical romance novel manages without having to bring in werewolves or zombies or vampires as characters (although, come to think of it, romance novels that *do* do this are having an upsurge of popularity at present)... so what's wrong with hoping that hard SF might make an appearance in Hollywood? The thing is, though, that when hard SF does make it to the silver screen, it often isn't recognized as hard SF. Some of the James Bond movies almost qualify. What about _Marooned_? Colossus: The Forbin Project, although a bit optimistic about progress in Artificial Intelligence, could be considered pretty close to hard SF as well. The thing is, though, that generally speaking, since intelligent life on Mars is now ruled out by what we know of the planet, what the general public thinks of when it thinks of science fiction involves one of two elements that belong to the soft SF category: time travel or FTL spaceflight. So the genre was defined by H. G. Wells - science fiction is basically bounded by The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. (Wells didn't use FTL, of course, but as noted, our new understanding of our solar system has made FTL an apparent necessity for encountering intelligent aliens.) Jules Verne, on the other hand, has stayed in the "period piece" area, his works being pillaged for steampunk. John Savard |
#9
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Feb 2, 2:50*pm, RichA wrote:
Hollywood uses 1 and 3, but could still do good stories if only using 1 & 2. This is true. Of course, since being a producer, director, or screenwriter takes years of study in its own right, it's hardly astonishing that such people seldom have the qualifications needed to tell the difference between 2 and 3. John Savard |
#10
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'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' (1969)
On Feb 1, 8:35*pm, "Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway"
wrote: Asimov's "positronic brain" for his robots was an unnecessary fantasy for an artificially intelligent computer, Yes, that's true. And Star Trek filed the serial numbers off, and had "duotronic" computers. But, ironically, although there is no reason to think that computers would work faster using positrons to carry information, integrated circuits _did_ use _holes_ instead of electrons to carry information. This had the benefit, in PMOS circuits, that gates could be more tightly packed - although they were slower than the ones in NMOS circuits which used electrons. So pocket calculators, which could be slow, but had to be complex, were made from PMOS chips back in the 'seventies. Today, though, CMOS circuitry, which, unlike either NMOS or PMOS circuitry, doesn't require current to flow through it (except for unavoidable leakage) when in a stable state, only when switching, is used in the most advanced microelectronics as the lower power consumption allows circuits to be made at a smaller feature size, which would be far too hot if made from NMOS (even though that would allow them to run faster, if they could be made to run, in fact they would be too hot to run at all). So, if "positronics" could refer to holes as positive charge carriers, then in real life "duotronics" of a sort _has_ won out. John Savard |
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