# Science fiction that get RL science right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 28, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052 "2009-08-28T17:36:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052/21 "2009-08-29T02:53:22Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Yup. In the series, every shot from outside the ship is perfectly silent. No engine roar, no explosion sounds, no background music. It’s quite stunning, really. Of course, Hollywood being the soulless, artless machine it is, the pinheads put the sounds back in for the theatrical movie 😕 In the film they are in an ion cloud surrounding Mr. Universe’s planet and the sound starts tinny and gets louder the lower they get. What’s an ion cloud? Who cares, it’s awesome. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052/22 "2009-08-29T06:40:21Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Yup. In the series, every shot from outside the ship is perfectly silent. No engine roar, no explosion sounds, no background music. It’s quite stunning, really. Actually, _Firefly_ did have background music in many if not most of the “outside the ship” scenes. Since this music was never supposed to be [diegetic](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SourceMusic), it didn’t cause any problems with the laws of physics. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052/23 "2009-08-29T15:36:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t understand the reasoning. When I get up and walk across the room, my soul doesn’t stay sitting in the chair; it moves with me. Why can’t a soul stay associated with a bunch of subatomic particles beaming across space just as easily as it can stay with a body moving through more conventional means? > > For the OP, _Contact_ (both book and movie) does a great job, though that’s only to be expected, coming from Carl Sagan. It depends upon the method used, I would think. If I disassemble your material body into component particles (whatever that means), and send those particles through space to somewhere else where they are re-assembled, then there wouldn’t be any reason that the “soul” couldn’t come along for the ride. But if I disassemble your component parts, and then send a data file of how to re-build you from different component parts lying around handy, then that’s a different story. Both concepts were used in Star Trek and its iterations to handle the concept of transportation of people. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052/24 "2009-08-29T18:18:56Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Actually, _Firefly_ did have background music in many if not most of the “outside the ship” scenes. Since this music was never supposed to be [diegetic](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SourceMusic), it didn’t cause any problems with the laws of physics. On re-watching a few eps, you’re right. I could have sworn… oh, well. That’ll be item #8421.1 on the “talking out of my ass” list. Of the day. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052/25 "2009-08-29T22:54:06Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > From an atheist point of view, on the other hand, every time Captain Kirk dematerializes on the transporter pad, Scotty is guilty of murder. The fact that an exact duplicate of Kirk has suddenly been whisked into existence is no defence at all – in fact that in itself is surely deeply questionable, both moth morally and ethically. Larry Niven’s “The Theory and Practice of Teleportation” has some interesting discussions of this topic, for anyone who’s mildly interested. It’s quite an entertaining read (one quote regarding ‘beaming’, from memory: “Suppose there’s an advance in the technology that makes it unnecessary to destroy the original in order to create the copy. Shouldn’t you destroy it anyway? Otherwise, you haven’t _gone_ anywhere!”)–I believe you can find it in his **All The Myriad Ways** collection. Philosophers have been using this sort of example as part of thought experiments regarding personal identity for many, many years. It’s actually a very complicated thing to think coherently about … Our intuitions tend to be very strong, and unfortunately to also lead to conflicting conclusions. Sorting all of this out is why they get paid the big bucks! Or would be, if they did. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052/26 "2009-08-30T00:04:01Z")
_Babylon 5_ had a whole lot of fantasy elements. But, on occasion, they tried to be realistic. The Babylon stations had no artificial gravity, and used spinning to simulate it. The Earthforce fighter craft only accellerated when their engines were running, and only decellerated when their engines were running. When they needed to turn around, they would use engines on opposite sides of the craft, to impart spin. Which would then have to be counteracted by equal-and-opposite thrusts, to stop the spin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-that-get-rl-science-right/508052.md?page=1)