sharp@noao.UUCP (Nigel Sharp) (12/16/84)
1) Dust on Discovery not a mistake - anyone heard of static electricity ? 2) Airbraking a perfectly respectable technique: time error - would you really want to watch it for two hours ? BUT - surely they were far too high in the atmosphere ? Jupiter's atmosphere is dense, but with a small scale height. (I haven't done the sums, I admit.) 3) Engine noise in space: sigh. Of course, inside they'd certainly hear something, but where was the camera ? 4) Jupiter simulation very good, but speeded up for effect. 5) `Antiquated' appearance: very Soviet. Do you really think they'll be total American clones in 30 years ? 6) Simulated gravity: you just can't get actors to do it right !! I have never seen anything which approximates the real thing (now available on your own TV, courtesy of the Shuttle), either for `fake' gravity or for weightlessness. Just forget it, and `invent' artifical gravity pads. 7) My favourite gripe: when they changed the monolith's 1x4x9 dimensions for 2001, it was for appearance sake (and, I admit, it does look better much slimmer). BUT they never mentioned the ratios. In 2010 they talk about the 1x4x9 quite often, even while looking at a clearly non-1x4x9 monolith. It makes me mad (strike forehead with heel of hand) ! 8) Wasn't British Helen Mirren's Russian good !!? Of course, the rest were everyone's favourite expatriate Russians (cf Moscow on the Hudson). Does anyone think subtitles would have helped ? Some of the remarks were quite amusing (I couldn't catch them all, they talk too quickly !). -- Nigel Sharp [noao!sharp National Optical Astronomy Observatories]
msc@qubix.UUCP (Mark Callow) (12/17/84)
> 2) Airbraking a perfectly respectable technique: time error - would you > really want to watch it for two hours ? Of course not, but there are many cinematic devices to show the passage of time. In any case it was depicted as much to violent. The deceleration involved in the real thing is much less than depicted. The thrust from Discovery was also shown more like a blast off from earth than a deep space craft leaving planetary orbit. > 3) Engine noise in space: sigh. Of course, inside they'd certainly hear > something, but where was the camera ? This was a constant annoyance to me. > 6) Simulated gravity: you just can't get actors to do it right !! I have > never seen anything which approximates the real thing (now available on > your own TV, courtesy of the Shuttle), either for `fake' gravity or for > weightlessness. Just forget it, and `invent' artifical gravity pads. What you see on the shuttle tapes in NOT zero gravity. It is free-fall. There is a considerable difference. But that does not excuse Hyams for his inaccuracies. -- From the TARDIS of Mark Callow msc@qubix.UUCP, qubix!msc@decwrl.ARPA ...{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!qubix!msc, ...{amd,ihnp4,ittvax}!qubix!msc
ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (12/26/84)
Mark Callow mentioned that there is a difference between
'zero gravity' and 'free fall'. I give up. What is it?
--
Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.)
{pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix}!wjvax!ronpallas@CSL-Vax.ARPA (12/28/84)
> Mark Callow mentioned that there is a difference between > 'zero gravity' and 'free fall'. I give up. What is it? Zero g == zero gravities == no acceleration == free fall "Zero gravity" is meaningless, because gravity obeys the inverse-square law, and is not blocked by anything. Hence, everywhere in the universe there is some gravitational influence.
robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (01/02/85)
>> Mark Callow mentioned that there is a difference between >> 'zero gravity' and 'free fall'. I give up. What is it? "Zero Gravity" refers to an ideal state in which no gravitational forces (or effectively, nearly none) act upon a body so that it can "float". In Relativity theory, "free fall" refers to the state in which an object is acted upon by gravitational forces ONLY. - Toby Robison (not Robinson!) {allegra, decvax!ittvax, fisher, princeton}!eosp1!robison
jeh@ritcv.UUCP (Jim Heliotis) (01/03/85)
> > Mark Callow mentioned that there is a difference between > > 'zero gravity' and 'free fall'. I give up. What is it? > > Zero g == zero gravities == no acceleration == free fall > > "Zero gravity" is meaningless, because gravity obeys the inverse-square law, > and is not blocked by anything. Hence, everywhere in the universe there is > some gravitational influence. What does this mean!? "g" = The force you feel on the surface of the earth (thus you feel > 1 g when taking off in a rocket). This means that 0 g means you feel no "force" pulling on you. Free fall is just one way to feel 0 g, and it certainly does not mean no acceleration, it means you are accelerating unhindered by by any source of friction/damping. The other way to feel (close to) 0 g is to be 'far' away from any other mass. Another way might be near masses where the vector sum of their gravi- tational forces equals 0, but even this is only approximate, since everyone has finite volume, and the equilibrium point is just a single point, or perhaps a line or plane.
ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (01/04/85)
********** >Zero g == zero gravities == no acceleration == free fall > >"Zero gravity" is meaningless, because gravity obeys the inverse-square law, >and is not blocked by anything. Hence, everywhere in the universe there is >some gravitational influence. ********* I agree. But the term 'zero gravity' really refers to 'no apparent gravity', at least, not apparent to our gross physical senses. It is in the same class as 'centrifugal force'. There is really no such thing, but you would have a tough time convincing someone who had experianced it. These terms, though not strictly accurate, enjoy popular usage. It seems senseless and even a bit stuffy to continually challenge them. -- Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.) {pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix}!wjvax!ron
bbanerje@sjuvax.UUCP (B. Banerjee) (01/08/85)
Look folks, this topic shouldn't be in this newsgroup.
Go to your bookcase and pull out that old and dusty high school or
freshman physics text. Flip to the index and check out one of the
following :
a) Postulate of equivalence
b) Inertial frames of reference
c) Einstein, Albert E.
They will probably have an illustration as well (usually a man in an
elevator).
Followups to net.physics (I don't subscribe there!)
--
Binayak Banerjee
{allegra | astrovax | bpa | burdvax}!sjuvax!bbanerje
P.S.
Send Flames, I love mail.grass@uiucdcsb.UUCP (01/08/85)
/* Written 2:26 am Dec 17, 1984 by sharp@aquila in uiucdcsb:net.movies */ /* ---------- "2010 mistakes/non-mistakes" ---------- */ 8) Wasn't British Helen Mirren's Russian good !!? Of course, the rest were everyone's favourite expatriate Russians (cf Moscow on the Hudson). Does anyone think subtitles would have helped ? Some of the remarks were quite amusing (I couldn't catch them all, they talk too quickly !). -- Nigel Sharp [noao!sharp National Optical Astronomy Observatories] /* End of text from uiucdcsb:net.movies */ I don't think subtitles would have helped. Most of the Russian was countdowns (400 meters, 350 meters, ...). A lot of the rest was of the "such and so condition normal" variety. Subtitles would have been a distraction both for Russian speakers and non-speakers. - Judy at Univ. of Illinois uiucdcs!grass
rjn@hpfcmp.UUCP (rjn) (01/14/85)
re: 2010 mistake (?) #9 All of the bezels surrounding HAL's lens "eyes" had the "IBM" logos carefully removed (Somebody from Armonk got to "Discovery" before 2010 crew did :-). On a different topic: movies will probably never get zero-G right until NASA starts selling shuttle time to Hollywood. Regards, Bob Niland Hewlett-Packard Ft. Collins CO [hplabs!]hpfcla!rjn