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A question that drives me nuts!

Started by positronic, 15 April, 2017, 03:51:28 PM

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positronic

#30
It's not as though I'm inventing something new here though, is it? The Marvel Universe Handbook is filled with those kind of outrageous attempts at creating a theory of pseudo-physics to justify the existence of their characters.

Like godlike alien Asgardians with supermassively dense atomic structures who somehow are able to walk on normal floors made for human beings without leaving a trail of deep footprint impressions.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: positronic on 16 April, 2017, 09:18:59 AMthen you have to admit that Johnny Alpha does not really exist

I think we can all admit that and irradiated children don't grow-up to be funny Picasso paintings with mad skills.

Magnetica

If I am remembering my O Level Physics correctly, Alpha particles can only travel a few centimetres before they are absorbed by the air. So they wouldn't be a very effective probe.

Not sure what the feedback mechanism back to Johnny's eyes would be either.

Basically it doesn't pay to start looking into these things too much. So long as the story is consistent with its own established rules, then I can go with that.

WRT cameras in the helmet, well they have never featured in the comic, so they don't exist in that. If a TV or film adaptation wants to go with that, then fine.

Steve Green

The nose camera features in the comic.

Steve Green


positronic

Well, what I'm saying here is what kind of subtextual logic do you need as a reader to justify your willing suspension of disbelief? For the time you spend engaging with the fictional world as presented to you, that is. If your mind tells you there's only one set of physical laws that apply to the universe, and that needs to be true for both the real world and any fictional universe you're reading about, then you're probably the sort of person that doesn't enjoy science fiction and fantasy stories, or a the very least, you're one of the subsets of SF fans that insist on only the most plausible speculative fiction of the "hard sf" type. That would probably severely limit the sort of entertainment reading material available to you in graphic story form.

Every reader has his or her own limits regarding the boundaries of the kind of fictional premises he or she is willing to accept in their entertainment reading. For me, it's just easier to use the broadest theory that accounts for the greatest variety of sf/f-type comic book story premises that I like, i.e.: it's a parallel universe different to our own, in which the observed phenomena doesn't match with the physics of the world WE live in. Therefore, it's probably a universe bound by its own set of physical laws, different from the laws we know in the real world, that allow what we see in the story to happen (it just saves having to chuck a lot of what you see down on the page out the window). And if it's Slaine, or Conan, or Dr. Strange, then the laws of physics in effect in the story might be something so alien to our own that we just call it "magic". Either that, or as Arthur C. Clarke said, it's a kind of science so advanced that it's indistinguishable from magic.

And if it's conflicting story data from 2 or more stories supposedly set in the same universe, then you have to synthesize your own personal headcanon, by deciding to embrace some bits and chucking out the ones that you don't like or which seem less consistent with the bulk of story data you have.

positronic

Quote from: Steve Green on 16 April, 2017, 11:03:38 AM


See now, that's exactly what I was speculating on what the importance of recording video with the helmet cam meant to Johnny Alpha. Nice to see there are actually examples of that to be found in the stories. You come up with the best stuff, Steve.

Steve Green

You're welcome, it pops up a few times - even throwaway lines where the GCC were getting a bit sceptical of video evidence for terminations.

TordelBack

#38
Quote from: Magnetica on 16 April, 2017, 10:53:01 AM
If I am remembering my O Level Physics correctly, Alpha particles can only travel a few centimetres before they are absorbed by the air. So they wouldn't be a very effective probe.

Well this is true with alpha particles naturally emitted by nuclear decay (a source of enormous disappointment to 12 year old me in Science class), but equally they are effectively Helium nuclei (two protons, two neutrons) with all the mass and potential for momentum that entails, so if you accelerate them fast enough they can make a right mess - essentially this is what cosmic rays are, super-energetic alpha particles.

It's their tendency to be easily blocked, i.e. readily absorbed, that make them potentially dangerous - X-rays/gamma rays (same thing in practice, just with different sources) have very low absorption, so they don't do any (or much) harm on their way through.  In fact, the X-ray eyes of a putative Johnny Gamma would be even more useless, since there is no reflection at all, and no real effect on the target: at least some alpha particles get reflected back (according to Rutherford's foil experiment), with the potential for detection of the target at the point of the emission.

At least this is how it was explained to me by a very patient physics teacher (and sometime 2000AD reader) back in 1983!  Things may have changed since, and indeed there are real scientists on the forum who are choking on their Easter eggs reading this drivel.

JOE SOAP

#39
Quote from: positronic on 16 April, 2017, 11:12:11 AM
Well, what I'm saying here is what kind of subtextual logic do you need as a reader to justify your willing suspension of disbelief? For the time you spend engaging with the fictional world as presented to you, that is. If your mind tells you there's only one set of physical laws that apply to the universe, and that needs to be true for both the real world and any fictional universe you're reading about, then you're probably the sort of person that doesn't enjoy science fiction and fantasy stories, or a the very least, you're one of the subsets of SF fans that insist on only the most plausible speculative fiction of the "hard sf" type. That would probably severely limit the sort of entertainment reading material available to you in graphic story form...


I think it's far simpler than that and in the case of the formative years of 2000AD, and especially Judge Dredd, it meandered through physical logic like a fabulously lyrical and ambulatory drunk attached to a lamp-post by elastic bands.

It's mostly down to its tone – if you can get that right, you can take a reader anywhere and ignore thinking too much about how it all 'works'.




Magnetica

Tordels, I stand corrected - Wikipedia reveals that cosmic rays consist of 9% alpha particles. Learn something new everyday.....

positronic

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 16 April, 2017, 02:19:26 PM
Quote from: positronic on 16 April, 2017, 11:12:11 AM
Well, what I'm saying here is what kind of subtextual logic do you need as a reader to justify your willing suspension of disbelief? For the time you spend engaging with the fictional world as presented to you, that is. If your mind tells you there's only one set of physical laws that apply to the universe, and that needs to be true for both the real world and any fictional universe you're reading about, then you're probably the sort of person that doesn't enjoy science fiction and fantasy stories, or a the very least, you're one of the subsets of SF fans that insist on only the most plausible speculative fiction of the "hard sf" type. That would probably severely limit the sort of entertainment reading material available to you in graphic story form...


I think it's far simpler than that and in the case of the formative years of 2000AD, and especially Judge Dredd, it meandered through physical logic like a fabulously lyrical and ambulatory drunk attached to a lamp-post by elastic bands.

It's mostly down to its tone – if you can get that right, you can take a reader anywhere and ignore thinking too much about how it all 'works'.

Mr. Soap, can I just say how much I enjoy seeing your well-chosen avatar?

If Joe Friday had existed in the universe of the Judge system, he'd certainly be marked as top-of-the-list for preferred clone-donor DNA for the Academy of Law.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: positronic on 17 April, 2017, 12:29:24 PM
Mr. Soap, can I just say how much I enjoy seeing your well-chosen avatar?


You're not the only one.

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

positronic

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 17 April, 2017, 04:32:11 PM
Quote from: positronic on 17 April, 2017, 12:29:24 PM
Mr. Soap, can I just say how much I enjoy seeing your well-chosen avatar?


You're not the only one.



I'm not sure if you meant to post a link to the original video or just a screen grab. I can see a billboard in the background there with a face and what looks like the word "soap" on it, but I can't make out the actual face or read the billboard.

Is it possible that this isn't the right frame, and there was one where the billboard could actually be read that you meant to grab? 

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: positronic on 17 April, 2017, 05:38:26 PM

I'm not sure if you meant to post a link to the original video or just a screen grab. I can see a billboard in the background there with a face and what looks like the word "soap" on it, but I can't make out the actual face or read the billboard.

Is it possible that this isn't the right frame, and there was one where the billboard could actually be read that you meant to grab?

It says "Joe Soap" and has the Dave Gibbons Chronocops image that Mr Soap used to use as his avatar.
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