Re: scifi channel movie scientifically impossible

N8N wrote in news:24886aa6-8221-45a5-8013- snipped-for-privacy@q3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

What about that old Dukes of Hazzard episode where the guest star was Cale Yarborough? At one point Bo says "throw on the turbocharger, Cale!", and Cale says "OK" and ducks under the dash to do something.

Uh, yeah...

ok nate, i'll bite... what's wrong with her testimony?

from:

Factual error: They make it a fairly large point about the tire size on the car, Michelin XGV size 75R14. This is actually not a real tire size, it's an incomplete one. The real tire size would read something like 205 75r15. Meaning the tire is 205 mm wide, 75 means it's 75% tall as it is wide (153.75mm), the final number is the width of the rim in inches. You'd need to know all three numbers to make any sort of forensic judgement, any one of them missing would leave some major measurements of the skid marks out. Surely the head of automotive forensics for the FBI, would be aware of this.

this was the one that really stood out to me... I don't know if the whole discussion about limited slip being available on some models but not others was valid or not.

nate

And if the movie had actually been set in the 60s, it would have been an "F7815" tire anyway. P-metric sizes didn't start showing up until the

70s. :-)

And this worries you compared to Transporters, Phasers, Warp Drive, Worm Holes, etc.

Most science fiction requires readers/viewers to suspend disbelief at least in a few areas to move the story along. If you can't handle this sort of thing then you probably should avoid science fiction and maybe all fiction. I am not sure I see much difference between science fiction and the sort of stuff that happens on most popular TV programs (CSI, Bones, Chuck, House, etc.....).

Ed

Actually I understand the gripe COMPLETELY. Boat engines aren't fiction. They're real, and they behave according to known prinicples. Making one behave in an outlandish fashion is more of a distraction than something like warp drive, which is a complete fabrication.

Believable sci-fi always gets the *known* science as good as possible, and then builds with the imagined parts. Bad sci-fi (or any fiction) has boat engines that spew smoke, oil, and internal parts... but then can be resurrected with a new fuel pump.

It's the same thing as when horse-folks (like myself) watch a flick that has to do with horses, and the glaring screwups leap off the screen shouting "HEY! LOOK! I'M A MASSIVE SCREWUP!" - A character saying "Wow, that horse has a nice trot", when the horse is cantering, for instance. You or some other "John Q. Public" may not know the difference between a trot and a canter, and you'll swallow it without question *BECAUSE* you don't know. Those of us who work with horses know exactly what the difference is, and frequently don't even need to *SEE* the horse to know that he's cantering rather than trotting (That's how distinct the two gaits are - You can literally hear the difference and know without question which gait is in use)

Suspending disbelief is easy when it's a subject that isn't as familiar as the back of your hand - I can swallow House and his medi-babble because I'm not in a medical profession - The errors of what he says aren't "obvious" to me. They may even be completely invisible to me.

*BECAUSE* I'm not medically trained. But I *CAN'T* swallow somebody riding a competition reining pattern in an australian stock saddle - It isn't something that's impossible, but it just isn't done. And to someone like myself, with a literal lifetime of horse experience, it stands out like a neon sign in a dark room.

Let's not even mention that if you DAGS for "Michelin XGV" you mostly end up with transcripts from the movie... might have been more believable if they'd said "Michelin X Radial" or "Michelin XZX" or a tire that I actually remember seeing on a car...

nate

Brickyard is in Indianapolis. cuhulin

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news:23385-47C7A655-361@storefull-

3257.bay.webtv.net:

that was his point. KB