Levitation and induction heating: what a fluctuating magnetic field can do to a non-ferrous (but electrically conductive) metal:
Go ahead and use it anyway. Murders in novels aren’t written under oath. It’ll sound plausible enough to the average person, especially in a dark comedy. Get gruesome with the details.
I hate this. This attitude is why potentially fabulous movies like Prometheus turn out so crap. Phenomenal special effects, huge budget, why couldn’t they hire a few impoverished scientists for a few tens of thousands to fact check their storyline? It was utterly incoherent and nonsensical for anyone with even a modicum of scientific knowledge. It takes so little effort to make storylines scientifically plausible and reasonable with no impact on the drama. Shouldn’t it be a matter of pride for authors that we don’t just throw incoherent nonsense in there simply because most of the audience won’t know the difference?
For what it’s worth, my daughter got the elementary-school homework assignment of trying out a magnet on various objects and writing down her findings; the next day at school, hands went up – or didn’t – as the teacher asked about each item they’d tested; my kid was the only one who raised her hand for “coin”.
The teacher good-naturedly accused her of not having done her homework.
My daughter pulled out a Brazilian centavo and demonstrated.
I’m raising a vindicated smart-ass.
(Sorry; a future Doper.)
You know, you probably can’t bring down a hot air balloon with a bow and arrow either.
He want’s to write a modern take on Kind hearts and Coronets.
Let it go.
It’s the “vindicated” part that in GQ permits the smart-assery. We’ve got our standards.
If they’re going in the next day, won’t they have already excreted any iron that wasn’t absorbed, anyway?
I guess it’s possible somebody would go straight from a birthday party to an MRI, but that seems a bit unusual, too.
It usually takes several days for ingested items to work their way through the digestive tract.