10 Things Science Fiction Got Wrong

1. Dan Smith
   February 9th, 2009 at 5:30 am

   first off, i'm a huge dork

   secondly, you can't blame star trek for it's humanoid preference, this is explained in the series. specfically in star trek: the next generation i believe. although, maybe it was voyager?

   all of the alien races in star trek were originally seeded on their home worlds by a great ancient alien race from which they all received basic traits. so, the differences in klingons, humans, and vulcans are in fact variations on an old design from which they were all spawned.

2. acidhedz
   February 9th, 2009 at 5:50 am

   Apparently you don't keep up with science very well. There are plenty of theories on how to move faster than light, and time travel.
   Plus there are parasites (which the facehugger/alien was) that control the brains of their prey, or use another creature for baby food. For example there is a species of wasp that lays its eggs inside of a species of spider, which is eaten alive by the wasp larvae.
   Also I don't think it's ever stated that the "ray guns" of sci-fi movies are necessarily lasers.

3. pwscott
   February 9th, 2009 at 6:10 am

   In the opinion of huge dork #2 the humanoid problem was explained in Star Trek TNG and why question the technolgy or physics of other galaxies and worlds we haven't discovered or a future that hasn't arrived. Maybe there are many molecules in a cubic meter of space in a galaxy FAR FAR away. Oh and it's called fiction for reason. (Thank Roddenberry for you flip phone.)

4. Dan Smith
   February 9th, 2009 at 6:25 am

   i personally think that faster than light travel might be possible. we simply don't know. same with time travel. who knows.

   also, altho there is the unlikely interbreeding in star trek, it should also be pointed out that on at least one occasion, a sexual encounter was startlingly impossible. i can't remember who it was, but there was definitely an episode where two characters, one human and another female humanoid alien, were going to have sex but then it just cut to approximately 5 minutes later with the both of them being very confused and saying "well, you looked anatomically very similar...but i dunno what that was"

   also, here is the reference for that first dorky post i made:

   http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Ancient_humanoid

5. fidgety_sam
   February 9th, 2009 at 6:30 am

   Remember when Han Solo said he had crossed the universe in only 2 light years?

6. jay
   February 9th, 2009 at 6:39 am

   Hmm disappointing article, when your talking about Space and things we know NOTHING about, it's best to to make claims and definitions on things.

   I can understand the basic ones like how lazers dont travel as beams etc. but some you cant justify in black and white.

   as commenters have already said in reaction to the star trek claim, it is possible for humans like us to exist on other plants, in fact its extremely likely. We did evolve on this planet, but if there is another 'Earth' planet out there, with the same kind of weather, eco systems etc. then its highly possible there are people just like us out there. Look out in to Space at night, at all those stars and galaxies with their own solar systems and the millions of planets. I'd say the chances are pretty good that there are human looking people out there.

   And with the 'brain sucking aliens', as someones already said there are many species who choose hosts for their offspring.

   Also re: planeys gravity system.

   'Everywhere you go in science fiction, people are walking around like they weigh just what they do on Earth. Chances of that happening in the real universe? Slim.'

   Hello? Mars? That has almost the same gravitational field and its on our doorstep. And yes, the chances are small, but there's millions of planets out there, maybe even infinite, so it does happen.

   Space stuff is all things we know nothing about, we dont even know we can't travel at the speed of light, sure someone has put theories about it, but 100 years ago we said we could never fly, look at us now flying to Mars.

7. haiironezumi
   February 9th, 2009 at 6:43 am

   fidgety_sam: The actual claim was that he made the Kessel run in "less than 12 parsecs"

   The ret-conned answer to this is that the Kessel run is perilously close to multiple black holes. Taking a shorter distance means putting your cargo and your life at risk.

   http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kessel_Run

8. James Grebmops
   February 9th, 2009 at 6:51 am

   Feeling bored? What is the point of this article? Don't like science fiction? Get over yourself.

9. Dan Smith
   February 9th, 2009 at 7:04 am

   the 12 parsec quote is an obvious mistake but i love that fact that fans have explained it through complex logic

10. drew76
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:06 am

    #6 Let's posit that any creature that controls the brain of any other creature (not that any exist here on Earth)

    * The lancet fluke Dicrocoelium dendriticum forces its ant host to attach to the tips of grass blades, the easier to be eaten. The fluke needs to get into the gut of a grazing animal to complete its life cycle.
    * The fluke Euhaplorchis californiensis causes fish to shimmy and jump so wading birds will grab them and eat them, for the same reason.
    * Hairworms, which live inside grasshoppers, sabotage the grasshopper's central nervous system, forcing them to jump into pools of water, drowning themselves. Hairworms then swim away from their hapless hosts to continue their life cycle.

11. TimO
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:24 am

    To be fair on #9 and #10, humans would tend to only colonize planets similar in size, gravity and structure to the Earth (or as Trek puts it, EM-class or Earth/Mars planets...)

    If there are tens of millions of Earth-like planets in the galaxy, it wouldn't make sense for us to colonize anything else that would be uncomfortable or deadly to live on.

12. erin
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:28 am

    Consider my foundations crumbled.

13. Sid
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:46 am

    Sorry to rain on your parade. But there are plenty of examples on this planet where a parasite with take over a hosts body for its own purpose.

    I present to you the Zombie Ant!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCeyW9m0SXA

14. benjamin linus
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:56 am

    Well Star Trek often referred to a Single Origin theory, even in Voyager when they met a Lizard race there was someone on that planet who went against the theory that they were the first race and that Earth was the origin of life in the universe.

    There are a few theories to consider when talking about life on other planets and a few scenarios.

    First of all: Are we the firs planet in the Universe to sustain life? 150 million years of evolution. Before us there were dinosaurs. What was before that? Nobody really knows. Is it up to us to populate the universe, are we the firts? Are we the first planet to host life, is it up to us to expand to other planets?

    Secondly: Are we the last planet in the universe to host life? Did life die out in the universe 150 million years ago? If you think about it, we've been sending out radio signals and radiation into space for about 100 years. Let alone the chirping sound that is emitted by solar winds that cause the Aureole Buerola (sp.) that eminates a radio like signal into space for 150 million years. Given that we have been sending out signals for about 100 years of our own radio and tv etc., and the Earth has it's own radio signal - then how come no Alien race has tried to contact us? Furthermore if there are other aliens out there before us, even if their civilsations died out, how come in 150 million years of history have we not intercepted a radio signal, they've been travelling for 150 million years. Surely in the time we've been studying the universe we'd have picked up some transmissions. There are a few reasons why might not have. 1: We don't have equipment capable of interpreting their signals. 2: There are no signals to pick up, as there are no aliens out there or were out there. 3: Perhaps the signals didn't come our way, or past us before we had the technology to intercept them. So are we the last planet in the Universe to support life?

    Thirdly: Are we in a remote sector of the universe. Are we in the corner? Perhaps there are other solar systems out there thriving with interplanetary trade and wars? Are we being shielded from other races because we're not sophisticated enough?

    There is something we do know for sure. That we don't even know if there is life on other planets in our own solar system. Years ago nobody believed that fish could live so deep in the ocean, it would be too cold, to much pressure, etc., but when technology became available to go deeper in the oceans they discovered that there species of fish never seen before, heat coming from volcanic vents etc. that allowed life to thrive. Given that we don't even know how many speices of life there are on own planet how can we say there is no life on other planets, in any form? Some scientists believe the icey moons of some planets could in fact have life, which is interesting and missions are on going.

    But the whole point is we are just one small planet in a small solar system in a small galaxy, a galaxy which has 1000's of other solar systems and galaxies with millions of other planets. IN 2003 it was estimated that 25% of the Sun like stars in the Universe have planets, it is estimated there are Trillions of planets.

    There is something like 100 billion stars that have planets in our own Galaxy alone!

    It's all conjecture to say that we are alone in the universe, but the odds speak for themselves. If one planet around 1 Sun (star) has as much life and as many species then the odds of at least 1 other planet in the trillions of planets having life on it is quite large.

    That's not to say that it's humanoid life. As we evolved from a single cell, splitting into two cells and it just evolved from there. But given that life is traced back to one trillionth of a second after the big bang (science) then we have to assume that similar formations of cells occurred on other planets.

    What we do know is that it's very very likely there are other humanoid life forms out there. But after 150 million years of potential radio signals being sent in our direction we are yet to recieve a signal that we deem to be intelligent life as we know it. That's not to say that we missed other forms of transmissions that we don't know how to detect.

    Science fiction is based on actual science and then spruced up a bit for the fiction end of things. Of all the things in star trek, the only thing that wasn't theoretically possible it was the Inertia Dampners. That's the only thing that there is no scientific theory for in Star Trek, to the best of my knowledge.

    But for all we know it could be just turtles all the way down.

15. benjamin linus
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:02 am

    On the 4th last paragraph - I should add: After the big bang it would be very implausible that we were the only planet in the Universe that the materials to create life landed on Earth? Unlikely.

16. Gauldar
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:09 am

    I want to breed a half-man, half-facehugger Facehuggerman!

17. ikillhobos
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:11 am

    The article is interesting, if only for the fact that it sort of makes us think about some of the absolutes it declares...like the speed of light for instance. Our current perspective is that we can't go the speed of light, just like people speculated that you couldn't go faster than sound before 1947. We just don't have the tools or understanding to attack the problem. There's even variable in the speed of light itself. It goes 186,000 miles per second - in a vacuum; it slows down in other mediums. Things MIGHT be able to go faster than light, we just don't know HOW.
    As for brain-sucking aliens, pfft. There's plenty of terrestrial examples of that here, no matter than Uncle John's Reader says no by saying, "...any creature that controls the brain of any other creature (not that any exist here on Earth)". There's Dicrocoelium dendriticum, which takes over an ant's brain and makes it hang out at the top of grass blades so a passing sheep is more likely to eat it and then spread the parasite. Ditto for Toxoplasma gondii and rats. The toxoplasma bug takes over a rat's mind and makes it act very inclined to be eaten by a cat. So, aliens that zombify you are potentially possible in an infinite universe.
    ...and don't get me started on time travel.

18. Gail Pink
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:13 am

    A very informative and fun article - thanks!

19. Justin
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:33 am

    Well the article got it half wrong and half right when it comes to parasites controlling the brain of the host and using it to reproduce.

    The problem has nothing to do with the possibility of using another species as a means of reproduction. We have seen plenty of evidence of this on Earth. The problem is when you say an alien species would be able to arrive suddenly on a new planet and then instantly be able to use whatever animal material is around to act as a host for it's offspring.

    As Sid's video clearly stated, 'there are a variety of these fungus and each one is specialized for one insect.'

    It requires a bit of an evolutionary leap to be able to use different hosts for reproduction let alone being able to control a variety of different brain types. (which is probably a big reason why the parasitic fungus can only target one species)

    So in summary
    Parasitic mind control: Possible
    Universal parasitic mind control: Quite improbable

    On a side note, I've always been bothered when science fiction planets seemingly have one eco-system. I mean, if there was a planet where the poles were hot deserts, can you imagine what the equator would be like?

20. hithere
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:43 am

    THEY ARE CALLED BLASTERS NOT LASERS. STAR WARS NEVER CALLED THEM "LASER" GUNS.

21. benjamin linus
    February 9th, 2009 at 10:08 am

    From Wiki:

    The basic blaster technology of intensifying a beam of energy into a deadly bolt is scalable, and largely the same despite the differences in weapon types and sizes. The interior mechanisms of a tiny hold-out blaster, a blaster pistol, a large blaster rifle, and a turbolaser cannon are based on the same theories and principles. A squeeze of a trigger emits volatile blaster gas into a conversion chamber, where it is excited by energy from the weapon's power source. The agitated gas is then funneled through the actuating blaster module, where it is processed into an intense particle or plasma projectile. A prismatic crystal focuses the beam, and passes it through a refinement chamber which galvanizes the beam into its final bolt shaped like a cone with a high ballistic coefficient.

22. jay
    February 9th, 2009 at 10:17 am

    i like benjamin's post.

    there are indeed trillions of planets out there, and to say we are the only ones here is a bold statement.

    (if there are christians reading this ill point out i dont believe in any god, therefore your 'adam and eve' fairy tale doesn't concern me much.

    In regard to why aliens havent contacted us yet, i think this is down to technologies and such. say there are thousands of alien civilizations out there, they will all be at different stages of evolution - some just single cells, some extremely complex lifefors perhaps even we can't come to understand. Have they got the technology to come knocking on our door though? are they bound by the same technological restaints as we are? In space terms, a light year is nothing, in human terms a light year is something under our technological understanding, we could never travel in a concious life time. We simply can't travel far enough to discover other plents or lifeforms. We've never been outside our solar system, our back yard.

    As to claim we've never been visited, thats also bold. Ive never seen a 'UFO' or a green man walking around my garden. but out of the hundreds of thousands of unexplained sightings of UFOs you'd think at least 1 is real. If you read far enough in to it you'll find some unexplainable occurances on this planet, such as objects on radars traveling from one end of germany to the other in seconds.

    The evidence is there, but this planet insists on ignoring it, turning a blind eye or pretending its not there. im not some alien freak, im just saying it how it is.

    Truth is religion keeps alot of our society in order, it also gives stronger nations reasoning to invade other countries. Religion keeps alot of things in our world in order, and gives a lot of people faith.

    what would happen to society if an alien came along and told us all god was a load of s**t? Who said they even want to say hi? who says they're not going to destroy the whole planet next week?

    A lot of questions sparking a lot of thinking. People have written books on it.

23. rico
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:02 am

    Its television and movies, get a life geek, I hate to have to tell you this but Star Trek, Star Wars etc... its not real!!!!!! sorry to break it to you. Time you left your bedroom and went out into the real world. Go get laid or something, thats fun too!

24. Hey nice
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:16 am

    Einstein has in his theory of relativity that time travel IS possible, I however always get annoyed too that its ALWAYS a kind of humanoid alien, its never a huge blob or anything ORIGINAL in an alien movie.

25. Chris
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:44 am

    "For that matter, you'd never see laser beams in space either, since in a vacuum there's no medium to reveal them. So a real-life laser dog fight in space would be really boring to watch."

    Um, what? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this is correct. Lasers are a form of EM radiation, visible to be specific, which require no medium to travel (that's how sun light, UV light, cosmic rays etc. hit earth), so what is meant by "medium to reveal them" ? This statement makes sense in the context of sound, since it requires a medium to vibrate as was stated, but I don't get the comment about lasers.

26. Miramon
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:45 am

    A pointless and obvious article for any reader, one hopes.

27. edselpdx
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:46 am

    Hey, who's calling Mr. Spock a half-blood?

28. erak
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:53 am

    "Firefly" got #1 right--there are no sound effects for exterior outer space scenes--just silence and some ambient music for flavor. It was a small detail of the show I've always appreciated.

29. shecky
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:55 am

    I thought it was called science fiction for a reason.

30. KranzorZ
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    Yeah... It's called “fiction” for a reason. In Star Wars, for example, how do we know that words like "laser" and "light speed" don't mean something else to these people? Perhaps they’re slang words…?

    ...And for that matter, how about the fact that many alien and human races in galaxies far, far away speak ENGLISH? (or worse, English with quasi-Jamaican accents).

    There's a lot of "unrealism" going on in filmed entertainment, and you just have to accept it all to enjoy it. Otherwise, the only enjoyment you’ll get from watching sci-fi will be from having these nerdly debates with your fellow nerds.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if that makes you a happy. Just don’t expect to be invited back to any parties at my house.

31. benjamin linus
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    Hold on, I'm not saying we were ever visited by UFOs. Growing up I was fascinated with the ideaolgoy that aliens visit us. But I never believed it actually happened. I'd say in my opinion that 99% of UFO sightings are fake. I'd say the other 1% are technology glitches or elaborate pranks and optical illusions.

    There are trillions of planets, to say what stage of evolution they are at is unknown. I simply cannot believe that in an explosion such as the big bang that all the necessary material for life landed on Earth. It's just not plausible. Whether civilisations died out and we're the last ones, or we're the first civilistaion I don't know, nobody does. Could be there are billions or trillions of civilisations out there. And birth of life from two cells (call them Adam and Eve if you want) and splitting into other cells and forming life would be natural. But weather conditions and geographical climates produced what we are now through natural selection. To say that something similar happened on another planet isn't that far off, would they be intelligent humanoids?

    But to say that the movies leapt in imagination with humanoid aliens is a farce really. It's based on science as we know it. Look at all the races we have here, some people in africa have flatter and fatter noses, because the air is thin due to the heat, they're skulls evolved differently to ours. And the chinese and japanese have distinctinve slanty eyes, and that's due to extra deposits of fat in their eyes, take that deposit of fat out and their eyes look like ours.

    So different climates affect the way people's skin and bones form around our globe. It's not entirely out there that different climates and conditions on other planets result in different humanoid looking species.

    And the movies have used blobs as alien lifeforms, Star Trek did it about 5 times, Star Wars had Jabba, the movie The Thing, and many many others.

    It's just science fiction, as I said based on scientific facts that we know about, and spruced up for the movies. It's not a stretch of the imagination to think that people with different climates result in different appearances, we see it everywhere on this planet, so why not on others, and why not stretch the imagination and use ficticious skin tones and voices.

    Even the klingons in Star Trek are based on a religion of a an African tribe (I believe) and also that it is a real language they use. Most of the aliens on Star Trek derive their beliefs and religions based on religions that we know about.

32. ziggystardust
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Most of the older sci-fi books never predicted the internet.

33. Chris
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    There are two problems with this article.

    Regarding lasers, yes you are right about not being able to dodge a laser at the speed of light and yes lasers would not have a start and end point. However, you can dodge someone's aim. And a faster traveling bullet (or laser) doesn't immediately make you a marksman. Which is why it's possible to make yourself a hard target in real life against something that travels at the speed of sound, which is marginally easier that dodging the speed of light.

    Finally, regarding Shape shifting aliens that are human sized then changing into a rat. You assume that alien isn't mostly hollow when they are human shaped.

34. stinkyplum
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:37 pm

    I thought the Tatooine scenes were filmed in Tunisia?
    The same photo is used in the Wookipedia entry for Sidi Bouhlel, Tunisia.

    Either way I guess it wasn't filmed on an alien planet. Who knew?

35. Shawn
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:53 pm

    Chris in #22 you said that you didn't think his lasers in space thing was correct.
    While the lasers could travel through space, unless they have air to bounce off of you just couldn't see them. If this wasn't the case space would just be a blinding white sky of light at night and we wouldn't be able to see anything in space.

36. LisaL
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    Very disappointing article where the writer didn't do enough research. Disappointing b/c everything is given in such a black & white manner.

37. ADSGNAT
    February 9th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    Every knee shall bow and everyone will recognize their folly in following the theories of man. Watch what you say. Don't be a mocker. Watch what happens this september. Everyone is brainwashed to believe the societal line and evolution is part of that. Where there is design, there must be a designer. The probability of one protein molecule (which is essential for a cell to become living) is 10 to the 50,000 power which in mathematical terms is an impossibility. Don't build your knowledge off of consensus.

38. Miss Cellania
    February 9th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    What kind of a rollicking yarn would you have if you can't interbreed with aliens?

39. Alletron
    February 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Ok, so the thing about the Doctor and the TARDIS.. well, come on.. that show (as much as I adore it) has so many plot holes with so many "convenient" fixes, that it really doesn't matter where or how he travels... it's just good old-fashioned fun. Let it be what it is! Besides, look at the old episodes, before they revamped it with the CG effects - the budget was so low that their main enemy had a whisk and a plunger for weapons.

40. Skull Thuggery
    February 9th, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    I stopped taking the article seriously when it said, "The reason no one can hear you scream is that sound needs air to travel in, and there's none in space". Sound travels just fine through water, air is not necessary. It also travels through other gases, as any nerd with a helium balloon will gladly demonstrate. In fact, when I was 4 years old, I discovered that sound travels quite well through railroad tracks.
    I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you're going to point out other peoples scientific errors, don't make claims like "sound needs air to travel."

41. Chris
    February 9th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    @ Shawn, 35.

    How is the Earth visible from the moon then? The moon has no atmosphere, yet the light given off (reflected from sun) by the earth is plainly viewable. Moreover, you can see the sun itself from the moon (given you are at the right location and proper time in orbit), where the sun has no atmosphere either. A source of EM radiation is being projected within your field of view, you can see it.

    Lasers only slightly bounce off of air. If they did to any measurable extent, the diffusion caused which undermine the use of the beam. Lasers can illuminate smoke, which "reveals the beam" but mainly pass through unreflected. You need a good solid surface to reflect the light for you.

    Of course, you wouldn't be able to see the entire beam (we rarely can on earth, and that's why laser shows use smoke), but you could definitely view the light at its source and destination given your field of view permitted it.

42. Byrd Brain
    February 9th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    I think I made it clear on some sort of zombie-related article a little bit ago that trying to apply realism to fiction is pretty stupid. Then you take an article like this, that doesn't have an understanding of the sci-fi it is "disproving" and you have a real big waste of time. A lot of people have pointed out the shortcomings of this article, and I can't speak to the Star Trek stuff, as that's not my particular brand, but- yeah, this thing is bunk. Claiming that lazers are used in Star Wars shows that you don't know what you're talking about. Referencing t-1000 while talking about shape-shiting aliens? Really? Earth-bound humans and machines are aliens just because they come from the future? My favorite was the one about planets with a single ecosystem: no, I REALLY thought that they filmed the Tatooine scenes from Star Wars on Tatooine, not Earth. Thanks for shattering that perception. Then article also states that planets don't exist that have only one ecosystem- oh except Venus. So, actually, they do. Oh, but Venus' troubles we caused by run-away greenhouse effect. Damn aliens on Venus must have driven one too many SUVs, I guess.

43. butterandguns
    February 9th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    I came here to point out the flaws with the article but seems like the entire internet beat me to it.

44. Hevach
    February 9th, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    Two points.

    A laser beam is only visible in two situations - if you're directly in it's path, or if the light from the beam is scattered out of the beam. Even in air, they're usually invisible to the unaided eye.

    Somebody already raised the point, though - in science fiction, ray guns need not be lasers. The weapons in Star Trek use a few different mechanisms, but they're all based on some type of charged particle, not coherent light.

    About the brain sucking aliens, though? There's actually a few pretty good examples here on earth of parasites that radically alter the behavior of their hosts, and most of them can infect different species with similar results. A fungus that infects a specific species of ant and causes them to climb to high places and release their spores has been shown to work on almost any ant species. A parasite that causes rodents to seek out predators has been linked to behavioral changes in multiple species it has never evolved to infect.

    All this is based on the similar chemistry accross life, but a few scientists are finally starting to fight back against the growing trend that alien life must be so radically different to our own. No example of a viable silicon organic compound has ever been found or created, it's still purely theoretical if it's even possible. Carbon organic molecules follow pretty predictable forms - we've found the simplest ones all over in space already, up to and including amino acids. There's growing evidence that, while alien life will be radically different to us physically, if it's carbon based, there will likely be a great deal of chemical similarities.

45. Yay
    February 9th, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    And that is why I read fantasy, not science fiction... it's so much easier to explain all the strange crap ("Of course there's no logical explanation for this, it's magic!").

46. mike r baker
    February 9th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    Wow! Science Fiction movie fans are very serious people. I'm not so sure about a lot of the points made in this article - there are many exceptions and assumptions - but as for the first point - no, there is no sound in a vacuum, no sound in space. George Lucas actually discussed this with Ben Burtt. He chose to forgo physics and go with a more emotional effect. Glad he did.

    http://filmsound.org/starwars/dramatic.htm

47. Mugato
    February 9th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    1. Sound in space

    This common complaint really annoys the hell out of me. The sound effects during space scenes are for the audiences benefit. You might as well complain about the music score or subtitles. Now if a character ever actually heard something in space, it'd be one thing but they never did. That argument is just people trying to lord their third grade physics knowledge over the rest of us.

    3. Laser Bolts You Can Dodge

    The "lasers" in Star Wars are clearly not really lasers and were never meant to be. They're bolts of energy. "Laser" is obviously a slang term they use.

    All of the other examples they give are artistic license, making this the list most full of fail ever.

48. retarded list is retarded
    February 9th, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    When the first trains were used to haul passengers Doctors warned against them towing carriages because at 30+ mph people wouldn't be able to breathe.

    And the 4-minute mile was impossible until somebody did it.

    Some of the things in this list are 'artistic license' (sound in space, 'lasers' that are visible) and the rest is just thing we haven't found out how to do, yet.

49. vasco
    February 9th, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    1 thing you got wrong:
    Science FICTION

50. gjg
    February 9th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    This is just for fun. Substitute any numbers in here for your own calculations.

    There are estimates that visible universe contains over 5X10^22 stars so for the sake of argument let us say that there could be 10^24 stars even if we overestimate the number.

    “Sun-like” stars of the correct size and composition are probably 1/100 of the total stars (10^22).

    Approximately 1/1000 of the total number of stars are in the galactic habitable zone (10^19).

    Approximately 1/10 of the sun-like stars will have a rocky planet in orbit (10^18).

    Approximately 1/10 of the sun-like stars will have a gaseous planet in an outer orbit that helps protect the rocky planet from catastrophic impacts (10^17).

    Approximately 1/100 of the rocky planets will have a large moon that helps protect the rocky planet from catastrophic impacts (10^15).

    Approximately 1/100 of the rocky planets will have an orbit that allows surface temperatures necessary for the establishment of long term evolution (10^13).

    Approximately 1/100 of the rocky planets will have a sufficient amount of water that will allow the formation of large oceans necessary to buffer temperature fluctuations and help form the correct atmospheric conditions necessary for life and long term evolution (10^11).

    Approximately 1/10 of the rocky planets will have a correct atmospheric composition necessary for life and long term evolution (10^10).

    Approximately 1/10 of the potentially inhabitable planets will evolve single cell life(10^9).

    Approximately 1/10 of the planets with life will evolve different life forms that will generate a CO2-O2 carbon cycle (10^8).

    Approximately 1/10 of the planets with life will evolve life forms that will have “mitochondria” for energy utilization (10^7).

    Approximately 1/10 of the planets with life will evolve multi-cellular life (10^6).

    Approximately 1/10 of the planets with multi-cellular life will evolve complex organisms (105).

    Approximately 1/10 of the planets with complex organisms will evolve life on land (10^4).

    Approximately 1/10 of the planets with life on land will evolve advanced animal life (10^3).

    Approximately 1/1000 of the planets with advanced animal life will evolve civilizations (10^0).

    With this type of calculation there are X number of plantets with civilizations.

51. Gay
    February 9th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    Either: Do some research before you claim to disprove things - most of those are explained in at least one Sci-Fi show (not to mention that you're ignoring books)

    Or: Make the post "10 things you can get away with in Sci-Fi"

52. gjg
    February 9th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    Planets not plantets.

53. guitarMan666
    February 9th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    It is highly unlikely that a planet would be entirely forest. However, it is possible (although unlikely) that a planet just a TINY BIT CLOSER to its sun (assuming it's a type G2 like ours) could be entirely desert (i.e. Tatooine and Arrakis (Dune)) the inverse works the same way. Although, as I said, this is unlikely.

54. Mytake
    February 9th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    The cartoon at number 6 is hilarious!

55. Turealis
    February 9th, 2009 at 4:17 pm

    I didn't read any of the comments; but just to be clear: all of these things are possible. If you get technical, nothing is impossible. I know that's very cliche, but it's true. So I wouldn't say they got them wrong, I would say that these things are very unlikely, or improbable. anyway, cool article.

56. ElGuapoGuano
    February 9th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    While it is true that in space you would not hear the explosions, however you would hear the explosions inside your ship if you've got an atmosphere in there...

57. just a guy
    February 9th, 2009 at 4:56 pm

    "...or gestate in your chest.."

    If I recall, the Aliens were genetically engineered by the Preditor species, specifically to infect other species and breed scary monsters that were hard to hunt.
    If that's the case, I'm guessing they could have 'redundant DNA' or other genetically engineered apsects that would make the 'compatible' to gestate within a lot of different species.

58. Scientist
    February 9th, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    Poorly written article with gross assumptions and some convenient fact dodging.

59. KC
    February 9th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    Without #2 science fiction would be mighty dull.

    Thousands of generations being born and dying on a starship traveling at a crawl to distant places trying to find some other intelligent beings out there.

60. Bob Barker
    February 9th, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    This list is retarded.

    You are retarded.

61. Vern
    February 9th, 2009 at 5:46 pm

    When blocking the energy weapons of Star Wars, would it not make more since for the Jedi to be predicting where the shot will go before it is made? I don't see why they would have to be watching the blast in like a baseball.

62. Lizard
    February 9th, 2009 at 6:04 pm

    Wow... just... wow.

    Not the article. The comments.

    "how do u now we cant travel faster than light u dont ha ha" (and other words, if you can call them words, to that effect).

    The level of ignorance displayed by the posters here is terrifying. We DO know why you can't travel faster than light. It's not something someone arbitrarily made up because they want to ruin all your fun. It's an aspect of a model of the universe which is constantly tested, and constantly proven. As someone once quipped, changing laws of physics is like eating peanuts -- you can't stop with one. They all fit together in an intricate puzzle, and the only way to prove them wrong is to build an entirely new model which a)explains absolutely everything the old model explains, and, b)explains something new the old model doesn't. No one's managed to come up with one yet... and I wouldn't bet on one arriving anytime soon.

    (As for humanoid life on another world... think of all the many ways life evolved on this one world, the incredible diversity of species. Do you honestly think that some other world would produce anything remotely like humanity? Even if you go with the idea of some alien 'seeding' program as Star Trek did, consider this: The difference between a shrew and a blue whale is about 100 million years of evolution. Planting the same 'seed' a BILLION years ago on two different planets, and the resulting life forms will have nothing in common.)

    Most of the "mistakes" noted in the article are not so much errors as plot contrivances -- they're no more mistakes, per se, than the "computers" on CSI (which do things no real computer can do), or the acrobatic stunts of any action movie (most action heroes would be dead or crippled for life before the first act was over...). If you want to say the author of the article is just trying to be a downer, well, that's cool -- but to claim that the things he points out AREN'T error of science is to show an astounding level of ignorance.

    There's nothing he lists which falls into the category of "We just don't know". We DO know. YOU may not know, but that's your problem, lint-for-brains.

63. Astroboyz
    February 9th, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    Wait 500 - 1,000 years and then write this article again and see if they are correct or not....

64. Andrew G.
    February 9th, 2009 at 6:42 pm

    It amuses me to see that because you know a few facts about physical laws as they apply to our universe/ dimension that you can speak with authority about ALL universes/ dimensions. Humanities total accumulated knowledge amounts to less that 1% of all there is to know. The irony is not lost on me that I am even bothering to post a reply.

65. MD
    February 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

    Lizard,

    I can only assume that your education on scientific concepts has been relegated to force-fed classical textbooks only. You yourself have just made multiple errors in your refutations. Case in point:

    While it is true that the speed of light cannot be exceeded via classical methods (i.e. force-generating reactions), nothing in physics denies the possibility of "shortcuts" through space via wormholes, space-time distortions, etc. In fact, several theories already exist on ways to construct such methods of travel, although they are admittedly far beyond our technological means. Enlighten yourself on the topic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light#Space-time_distortion

    As for humanoid life evolving on alien planets, first consider why humans, the only intelligent species on earth, look the way they do. We stand on two legs in order to enable us to see distant objects and also to free our hands for tools. More limbs would mean more energy consumption and also more evolutionary complexity. Our sensory apparatuses are in our heads because observing objects from above is more advantageous than from below. We have two eyes in the front of our head to offer stereoscopic vision (depth perception). Jointed limbs offer a wide range of movement and the ability to climb trees and other obstacles. I could go on, but I hope you get the point - in similar environmental conditions, it is likely that evolution would produce similar solutions to the ones widely seen on earth. Humanoid life is thus merely improbable, not ludicrous as you seem to think.

    Other explanations in the comments are equally plausible and demonstrable via a bit of searching and logical deduction.

    Please, in the future I beseech you to at least seriously consider the possibilities of what others say before calling them "lint-for-brains".

66. eyin
    February 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

    ha! you're article seems like it's been written by a high schooler. get your facts and theories in line.

67. Howard M. Lewis Ship
    February 9th, 2009 at 7:06 pm

    RE: Dodging Lasers

    In the original Terminator, the plasma weapons that wer briefly seen in the flash-forwards were somewhat realistic: when fired, the result was a brief "strobe" extending in a straight line from the weapon to the target, along with a kind of crackling/popping sound. And these were some kind of "plasma rifle" (in the 40 watt range), no specifically a laser weapon.

    Alas, by the time of Terminator 2, the weapons more more traditional: like a slow tracer bullet.

    One could imagine, perhaps, that such a weapon was firing some high energy plasma, perhaps encased in a self-propogating soliton wave bubble ... or some other technobabble.

    That leads to another false trope: the hand-held energy weapon that can selectively incenerate a human target. First: that's an awful lot of energy! Second: wouldn't the target turn into a giant light bulb filiment and roast everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity?

68. Mitso
    February 9th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

    "Let's posit that any creature that controls the brain of any other creature (not that any exist here on Earth)"
    You've never heard of the larva that attach themselves to snails and control their brains, creating zombie snails?

69. The Kid
    February 9th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    @guy number 5: i thought he said 4 parsecs. but it is essentially the same thing, taking a distance and turning it into a time. and at the author: in number 8, gravity also slows time, not just the speed at which you travel.

70. jb4567123
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    @Chris. You are wrong. Medium to reveal is not medium to propagate. Lasers are collimated light. Therefore it is impossible to see a laser unless 1) it is shooting you in the eye 2) it is being dispersed by something i.e. a medium that reveals the laser

71. CTS
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    I wasn't able to read all the comments so forgive me if this has already been mentioned.

    Time travel is impossible.

    Why?

    If it were possible we would know about it.

    If time travel becomes possible a thousand years in the future, that would open up any era of time to be visited. Which means they could come back to a time before time travel was invented.

    From the instant time travel is possible it opens up any time in the past (or future) to visit. So, if it's made possible in a thousand years, someone could come back to now and say "Hey we have time travel in the future" therefore giving us the knowledge of time travel.

    You can't say "...but it hasn't been invented yet!" It doesn't matter, if it is made possible any time n the future, someone could come back and we would know about it.

    All the regular arguments:

    "You're not supposed to alter time in any way, so you can't tell anyone about it in a time where they don't already know" C'mon... you can't say some idiot, or disgruntled scientist hasn't tried out the time machine and went back in time and said "Hey look at me!!!"

    "Maybe you can only travel short distances..." You can add a bunch of small distances together to make a long one!

    "The future hasn't happened yet so no one can come back!" OUR future hasn't happened yet. By definition time travel allows you to go to any time that isn't NOW. So technically someone that doesn't 'exist' right now, does exist in their present, our future. We are in George Washington's future right now. When he was running around, his future hadn't happened but it's happening right now.

    Any way... that's what I think! Wish I had more patience to explain, but it gets too confusing for a text comment. I'm also in class and I need to get to listening!

72. Adam B
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    To Chris, #25

    you can only see light if light comes into contact with your eye

    lasers are very focused light. This means *ALL* the light goes in one direction. The only person who might ever see a glimpse of a laser beam in space would be the person whose eyeball it just seared through.

    Even in atmosphere, unless there is dust, fog, or something else to cause some of the light to go off in different directions, a laser is invisible.

73. Adam B
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    to #71, CTS:

    There are a few possible exceptions to all your explanations.

    1) Time travel requires use of massive scale phenomenon, and manipulating something like black holes into exotic configurations to produce a proper wormhole that was large enough to not simply squeeze your ship into a thin stream of atoms. This would prevent casual/easy use, and might be very limited in aiming, such as going only so many years&days back in time, so the exact same amount of time passes on each end of the portal.

    2) Time travel is like the idea of a teleporter, that requires a sender and received. So you can't Time Travel to any point before the activation of the very first receiver.

    just some thoughts

74. Jason
    February 9th, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    Lizard,

    As others have said, your assertion that travel faster than the speed of light is IMPOSSIBLE reminds us of everything else that was impossible before someone did it.

    Now, we are not arguing with you about getting in a car and raveling faster than the speed of light as you go down the highway. We're (I'm) saying there are probably ways: wormholes (as mentioned above) or bending space, or entering a different type of space where such limits don't apply.

    There may certainly be flaws with the way FTL travel is presented in some media, but simply saying it is impossible is... neanderthalish.

75. davidjcarney
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:11 pm

    Valid, reliable comments in your list, 1 through 10.

    May I add a number 11 to your list: The classic exposed-to-radiation explanation for why ants became as big as buses, or why people become homicidal zombies.

    Radiation damages DNA so that the victims offspring are born with mutations. A gecko exposed to nuclear fallout doesn't turn into the Thing That Messed Up Bakersfield during its own lifetime, assuming it still has a lifetime after being irradiated. But if it lives to reproduce, those offspring may have birth defects. The irradiated gecko is more likely to die from slow, agonizing radiation poisoning.

    Also, there's a standard ratio between surface area and body mass. If the creature's body does not stay close to that ratio, then it can't maintain it's body temperature. Therefore, it can't live. (Especially if it's cold blooded.) So, giant ants, a la "Them," or giant spiders a la "8 Legged Freaks" are entertaining fiction with no science to support there existence.

76. Chad Cloman
    February 9th, 2009 at 9:22 pm

    Re: Faster than light

    The article is not quite accurate. Einstein's theory doesn't say that traveling faster than light is impossible; rather, it says that getting -to- the speed of light is impossible.

    Anything that travels faster than light would have the same problem decelerating to the speed of light.

    Science fiction often assumes that we remove ourselves from spacetime, and thus from the restriction of reaching lightspeed.

77. Bryce Rasmussen
    February 9th, 2009 at 10:01 pm

    Well now, sounds in space-if I remember right, I could be hallucinating the way I remember this, but, the star wars guys replied to Phil Plait (who has done the ultra-awesome '101 Things I would NOT do if I was an evil super-villain) about the no sounds in space-yeah, hey, we kinda know that-how about you try and sit through a couple of hours of dead silent space battle! And, as concerns Star Trek, Gene Rodenberry originally said "You don't want Kirk to stop, and suddenly explain how a phaser works. You just assume it does." Basically, what works in reality, doesn't work too well on the silver screen

78. andrew
    February 9th, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    Wow a lot of posts.

    Some of these claims are dubious, in that we simply don't know enough. The planet wide ecosystem and gravity levels are one of them. We only have a sample size of a few planets to judge from, and we can't detect earth size planets (yet) that are outside of our solar system. Also, if you poke around the anthropic principle you could deduce that life (as we know it) would probably do best on planets similar to earth. So every planet we would visit would be pretty comfortable.

    But the mind control one is flat out wrong. it says no earth species preform mind control. Wrong. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_9_57/ai_70872766 parasites drive ants up blades of grass to their deaths because it is the best place for the parasite.

79. chudez
    February 9th, 2009 at 11:35 pm

    most writers of scifi already know about all the stuff listed in the article but they go ahead and violate these facts anyway. it's called dramatic license -- if the spaceship didn't make a huge grumbling sound the audience will have no way of relating to it as a large, powerful machine.

    another reason why writers end up ignoring the small details that are "wrong" is simply because it isn't relevant to the story. if necessary, an explanation is added as an afterthought -- "retconned".

    a very skillful scifi writer would know exactly what niggling details need to be justified and what needs to be ignored. for example, "Dune" was able to justify a planetwide dessert (via a biological entity) convincingly. it was also able to convincingly justify a medieval society in an apparent high tech future (fear of uncontrolled AI and technology that renders projectile weaponry useless).

    a bad scifi writer would end up ignoring the wrong facts and causes the viewer/reader to think "WTF" and it ends up ruining the suspension of disbelief (see "Armageddon" and "Jurassic Park 3")

80. Joe
    February 10th, 2009 at 12:16 am

    well as far as Einstein pointed out that getting to the speed of light is impossible i'd like to say that Zeno has shown that motion itself is impossible. also possible worlds may exist with different laws of nature that allow such things as blasters even if ours do not. just because we don't have a formalized system for explaining something doesn't mean it can't happen.

81. AcesHigh
    February 10th, 2009 at 12:29 am

    Its funny so many people are defending here that FTL travel is actually possible. No people. Its NOT possible. There isnt ANY doubt about it. If you think it is, you simply does not understand the nature of space time and relativity.

    Now... FTL itself is impossible... but as it was mentioned, sci-fi usually deals with warp drives or hiperspace. NONE OF THOSE are FTL travel really. In fact, the article author fails to mention WHICH books mention FTL travel as really going faster than the speed of light.

    Warp Drive was explained by the author. Yes, it probably needs strange matter... or something else similar. So what? Still its possible. As for the creation of strange matter or devices to distort space-time, thats up for fiction. But still its fiction that follows physics rules.

    Hiperspace is usually described as an alternate dimension/parallel universe of the sorts, where distances are smaller than in our space-time. Thus, a ship doesnt travels faster than light at hiperspace. But travelling 1 million km in hiperspace, at 1km/s speed will get you to a point in space-time several light years away from the point where you entered hiperspace. But you NEVER travelled faster than light.

82. Alexis
    February 10th, 2009 at 12:42 am

    Like many have posted:

    Faster than light travel is quite possible.

    Yes, their are creatures on earth that control the brain of other animals. (For example: one that makes a rat/mouse not afraid of cats, so they will be ingested and the creature will be able to grow up in the cat its self)

    And time travel? The theories are sound, and its possible. But then again, we're also beginning to realize...time is but an illusion.

83. different point of view
    February 10th, 2009 at 12:44 am

    well...firstly in terms of how long we have existed, we are merely a second on 24hr clock ( something like that)...
    so, it may be possible civilizations may have already existed well before our time or will exist after our time. in 6 billion years the sun will die, earth well before that. maybe we are the 100th earth like civilization with our technology to exist but we dont know it. its a suprise our earth has lasted this long.
    secondly, if you were an alien life form would YOU want to just come down and say hi? we are a violent and volitile society. we need more time to develop! and if you were an alien life form smart enough to travel faster than the speed of light etc, maybe they are waiting for the right time as an advanced alien race would actually use their brain and would not need the use of religion ( humans scapegoat for our existance )and are waiting for our development before we are made savvy to an interplantary federation lol.
    also...maybe time travel has already been possible...maybe our future has been changed ten times over. maybe the powers that be in the future took control of this and moniter it aka timecop? and if someone did comeback to say "hey its possible" im sure you could time travel just before he landed and execute him effectively "cleaning up" any "ripples". the brain cant comprehend this technology yet so until we do its speculation.
    also what if...WHAT IF... "aliens" are us? the "ufo's you see could be us time travelling...maybe we as an advanced human race, came back in time to give basic technology to egyptians...which could explian alot...to speed our evolution up. so that we dont end up dead in a couple of billion of years?
    whilst this is all speculation, and the arguments could be infinate, we wont be around to see any result, as technology to bend space and time, or travel to other systems ( disregarding the technology to create and build this, how would humans even survive a 12 parsec run with hyperdrive set to max is another issue haha) is all well hundreds of years away.
    we have alot to learn, humans need to evolve to another level to comrehend turning fiction into reality, but who knows. maybe tomorrow something happens to change the world?

84. edc
    February 10th, 2009 at 1:49 am

    jay, adam and eve is jewish. thanks for playing. no gift.

85. edc
    February 10th, 2009 at 1:51 am

    cafepress dotcom somedumshirts
    has some 'no sound in space' tshirts.

86. Silverstride
    February 10th, 2009 at 1:54 am

    They totally forgot fire in space...it can't happen since there's no air in space.

87. Joseph Francis
    February 10th, 2009 at 2:44 am

    The author is apparently unfamiliar with 'Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development.'

    

88. bookman
    February 10th, 2009 at 2:53 am

    The article forgot to mention the apparently magical ability of a Stargate to automatically re-wire the brains of travelers to speak whatever language is being spoken on the world visited. Either that, or by the most amazing set of coincidences, every single world on intelligent beings (human AND alien) in three galaxies all speak perfect American English.

89. Robert Vannrox
    February 10th, 2009 at 3:27 am

    Until the X-1, everyone "knew" that the speed of sound was an unbreakable barrier. This was because the pressure of the inlet air on the front of the aircraft approached infinity as the vehicle approached the speed of sound. Engineers of course proved that this "commonly understood" fact was really a misinterpretation of the equations involved.

    Funny, but the equations for the increase in a vehicles mass at the vehicles speed at light speed is of the same format. infact, are identical. the only difference is that the vehicle mass approaches infinity.

    When the engineers solved the problem with the intake pressure it was through a configuration of the inlet shape. they managed to change the flow parameters so that the behavior of the atmosphere was localized differently. in a like way, we can expect this to be true as well for the variations of the local mass.

    Unlike the so called commonly understood belief, mass is not a constant in the quantum regime. and thus, can have its properties altered as a function of localized geometric behavior.

    OK. Enough of this. Suffice to say that the statement that "Einstein Proved that the speed of light was a impossible barrier" is a complete fallacy. He did nothing of the sort. He wrote an equation that stated that...

    Provided that the object mass is constant, and the the relativistic effects of speed at the light speed is UNABLE TO ALTER THE PROPERTIES OF MASS AT A QUANTUM LEVEL, then the vehicles mass approaches infinity at the speed of light in a vacuum.

90. SciFi Fan
    February 10th, 2009 at 5:37 am

    I don't think you "get" science fiction.

91. Random Commenter
    February 10th, 2009 at 7:35 am

    Yeah, somehow these brainiacs always miss the fiction part.

    "But... but... but..."

92. Chuck
    February 10th, 2009 at 8:29 am

    Why are you trying to use Science to disprove Science FICTION? Arguments aside, it's not supposed to be real dummy. That's kinda the point.

93. John Locke
    February 10th, 2009 at 8:45 am

    Yeah... I don't think most of these things were made because of nothing but ignorance, just pretty much so the movie isn't boring. How fun would it be if jedis couldnt dodge/deflect the blasters, or if in space it'd be like a silent movie and no lasers would seem like they're being fired. It'd look like the crappiest movie in the world, and I'm sure for star trek, if you made completely weird looking aliens, it would of looked cheesy.

94. Josh
    February 10th, 2009 at 9:55 am

    The thing I find the most ridiculous about star wars weaponry is the battle droids in the prequels that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. We have robots today that have gyroscopically stabilized weapons and laser range finding so good that they basically never miss a stationary target and have such good tracking that they get almost 100 percent accuracy on moving threats. That scene where jar jar's people were fighting the battle droids would have been a blood bath if the droids used technology as "primitive" as what we have now let alone some super advanced future tech.

    Not to mention that it makes no sense for a battle droid as infective as those to be manufactured at all let alone in such vast quantities as depicted in the movies.

95. losergeek
    February 10th, 2009 at 10:23 am

    I actually really like stuff like #s 1 and 3, where movies are making improper use of real concepts that are testable and disproven, but come on - pointing out that different alien species can't interbreed isn't impressing anyone (espeically after you've already said that those aliens can't exist anyway). Drop some real science on us instead of trying to poke holes in concepts that obviously rely on the suspension of disbelief in the first place.

96. Josh
    February 10th, 2009 at 10:30 am

    I just wanted to add that the main reason we don't used autonomous robots in combat already it problems with threat identification. Most of the targeting/tracking is motion and or heat based. You just can't have your robot blasting friendlies and non coms. along with the enemies.

97. Moon
    February 10th, 2009 at 10:44 am

    You should all take a lesson from the Mystery Science Theater theme song:

    If you're wondering how he eats & breathes,
    And other science facts...(la! la! la!)
    Then repeat to yourself its just a show,
    I should really just relax.

    Relax.

98. Marjan
    February 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am

    "Where does rest of the alien go?"

    Well, penis is a spungy meat which grows into less spungy and quite bigger meat. So the conclusion would be that penis is a shape-shifting alien.

99. Frosty
    February 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am

    There is sound in space and that is probably one of the biggest misconceptions people have about space (the second would be that the moon is a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Earth).

    As others stated, it's not actually "air" that is required for sound but just something for sound to reverberate off of. It's true that much of space is a vacuum but in our solar system, especially in our little corner of it, space is actually filled with plasma, in the form of Solar Winds. These "winds" provide something for sound to travel on.

    Still, there is some truth to this misunderstanding of sound: most of it would vibrate at a different frequency than the human ear can interpret. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, just that we can't hear it (sort of like a dog whistle).

    Just thought I'd complain about something like the rest of these yahoos.

100. 8rustystaples
     February 10th, 2009 at 10:50 am

     Venus is similar in size, composition, and, therefore, gravitational force. It's not unlikely at all that in the vastness of the universe, there is another similarly sized planet.

     Toxoplasma gondii, the protozoa that causes toxoplasmosis, is known to change the behavior of rats and mice causing them to be drawn to the scent of cats as opposed to fearful of the scent. This results in the mouse being eaten to allow the parasite to sexually reproduce in its host, the cat. There are other similar examples in nature.

     And, just to nit-pick, your examples of earth's animals that do not share human's basic body shape is incorrect. Seals have four limbs, bilateral symmetry, and one head. Earlier ancestors of snakes and whales did as well, and vestigial remnants remain in many modern species of these animals.

101. Tim G
     February 10th, 2009 at 10:57 am

     It was a good read but one thing....... It's called SCIENCE FICTION for a reason FICTION!!!!

102. JamesT67
     February 10th, 2009 at 11:56 am

     Very entertaining. Let's see Obi Wan repel a spray of Mac-10 bullets, genius.

103. Benji
     February 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm

     Cool post, but factually inaccurate in many instances.

     2) Faster-than-light travel. You forgot to mention wormholes, which are used in a lot of science fiction stories. Space folding as well. These are ways of covering fast distances without crossing the light barrier.

     4) Human-looking aliens. There's no reason there couldn't be human-looking aliens. In fact, people who claim to have seen aliens see basically humanoid-looking creatures

     5) Half-breed aliens. Humans and hamsters have compatible sperm and eggs. Strange, I know. And certainly a birth from such a joining would be improbable. But it's possible.

     6) Brain-sucking aliens. First, there is a kind of fungus that controls the brains of ants. It causes them to act weird, then climb up to a high place where the fungus them grows like a horn out of the ant and drops spores. There is another kind of parasite or creature that controls crabs, able to drive them around. There are amoebas that affect behavior to cause their host to behave in such a way as to continue their life cycle. Like rabies, which causes rage, and is transferred by bites. Also, brains are found in almost all life forms here, so it's not a stretch to think they would be found in alien life forms.

     Anyways, an interesting post, but reality is closer to sci-fi in a lot of instances here.

104. Benji
     February 10th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

     Oops, just a follow up: hamster-human babies are probably not possible. But interspecies breeding might be with humanoid aliens. That's what I meant to say.

     And I accidentally implied rabies was an amoeba - but I was referring to all sorts of viruses, bacteria, and other small infectious organisms in that part.

105. Gargaryun
     February 10th, 2009 at 1:57 pm

     While viable interbreeding might be unlikely, RISHRATHRA is for FUN & DIPLOMACY !

106. mercedes
     February 10th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

     just how are you gonna tell me i can't dodge a laser bolt

107. phil
     February 10th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

     Thanks for the article. I'd like to add two more:

     1.) Movement in space: No matter how fast you go, you will never see stars swoosh by. Actually only a very few movies do it right (for example 2001: A Space Odyssey).

     2.) Using light years to measure time instead of distance (also a common mistake among journalists, for example there's an article on usatoday.com called "A device light-years ahead of its time"). I find this one quite funny, it reminds me of the kids joke "What's heavier: A kilo of iron or a kilo of feathers?".

108. Scooter
     February 10th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

     WOW. what's the record for most comments here on Neat-o-rama. I read to about 50 and then just skipped down here to say this. 107 is impressive.

109. AcesHigh
     February 10th, 2009 at 5:28 pm

     @Benji:

     You said
     "4) Human-looking aliens. There’s no reason there couldn’t be human-looking aliens. In fact, people who claim to have seen aliens see basically humanoid-looking creatures"

     Sorry pal, there is a lot of reasons there shouldnt be human looking aliens. For an alien to look like a human, they would need to have followed all the same evolutionary path as humans! That means, they would need to have evolved from apes, who would have evolved from monkeys, who would have evolved from other simples mammals, who would have evolved from... well, you see where I am going.

     The reason we are like we are is merely an accident, billions of years of natural selection and random mutation, where animals have adapted to their specific environments! How many millions of animal species there existed so far on Earth? How many look so similar to us?

     "5) Half-breed aliens. Humans and hamsters have compatible sperm and eggs. Strange, I know. And certainly a birth from such a joining would be improbable. But it’s possible."

     Although I doubt humans and hamsters can generate offspring even if by in vitro fertilization... humans and hamsters are CLOSE COUSINS on the huge Earth tree of life. Aliens wouldnt even BELONG to that tree of life! Even if they had DNA with the same nucleotids, double helix, etc, etc (already quite hard), they would be so different from humans that they would be LESS COMPATIBLE with us than is a Sea Spounge and a Human.

110. Anon y mous
     February 10th, 2009 at 6:52 pm

     I was going to counter a few points in the article but, again, it seems like the internet beat me to it. So I'll just diverge a bit.

     In some of my favorite sci-fi you see lasers in space, and hear explosions and such. Why? Because your interaction with space is a simulation, and these effects are added to allow a pilot to use all of his senses to react and interact in combat.

     Gimmicky? Yeah, sure, but it makes it halfway believable and ten times cooler than the hard physics method.

111. Sarah-Louise
     February 10th, 2009 at 7:29 pm

     Firstly, you missed a few more points:
     Ford Anglias will never fly or be invisible; rabbits will never be able to speak to each other, let alone philosophize; there are no immortal beings who suck blood, have no pulses or reflections; there has never or shall ever be a creature made from dead corpses who quotes the Classics at you.
     These are points taken from general fiction, anyone who reads/watches them knows what they're reading/seeing is unlikely to happen or ever have happened and since the average sci-fi fan knows more science than the average physics undergraduate, I think it's safe to say the same can be said of us sci-fi geeks. We know these things will not happen in our lifetime (or ever) - hence the term science FICTION - that is why we love it, it gives us a taste of the unreal, the extraordinary, the impossible.
     Secondly, as for human looking aliens: today's technology has neither the animatronic nor the CGI capabilities to create realistic looking, exobiologically accurate aliens and so these shows and films do what they can with the resources available to them here and now: people and prosthetics.

112. Ulaa
     February 11th, 2009 at 1:04 am

     Why is it that you think that humans live only on this Earth? And why shouldn't something like Earth exist replicated x-times? It reminds me of a frog that lived in a well...and thought it to be a whole universe...
     Sci-fiction is much more then less then mediocre Star Trek; the first of I could recommend would be Jules Verne, or newer Stargate SG1, excellent science fiction serial that had many examples of technology applications that is not only scientifically proven as possible, but in use already...yet officially not recognized.

113. woundedduck
     February 11th, 2009 at 2:42 am

     You refer to science fantasy, not hard science fiction. No self-respecting scifi writer (of which Rodenberry isn't one) has posited such things.

114. tissmekyle
     February 11th, 2009 at 7:44 am

     with aliens controlling other beings. basically all ya need to do is find a way to put your own electrical signals in the brian and do what it does to control the body.
     so say 4 tenticles latch onto head and force electrical signals in.
     as for symatry the movie f"final fantasy the spirit with in" the alliens arnt dipicted symetrical at all but lop sided and bigger

115. tissmekyle
     February 11th, 2009 at 7:57 am

     also as something extra, whats to say that because the genetics of aliens might be so different the havent evolde so that they can inter species breed.

     heck theres a 25%human sheep. around 25 anyway i think by injecting human dna into the baby when its like a week after being made in wowb if they hit 50/50 who knows what ya get

116. trollU
     February 11th, 2009 at 10:39 am

     it's called scienceFICTION for a reason...

117. John Markley
     February 11th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

     I’m not going to defend the article, which is accurate but still rather uninteresting. That said, so help me, if I read one more person defend bad science by saying, as if it were some amazing revelation, “It’s science FICTION” I think I’m going to put my fist through the wall. Yes, it’s science fiction. It has fiction (excuse me, FICTION) in it. However, the name also has another word in it. You know, Latin etymology, rhymes with “appliance,” starts with the letter S…

118. GH
     February 11th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

     I like the Planetary Gravity and Planetary Sameness points and I agree with most of your other points, especialy the humanoid aliens, that is possibly the most glaring fault with all of TV and film science fiction.
     Star Trek's weak explanation on humanoid aliens be damned. That was nothing but an afterthought dreamt up decades after the original series and has no bearing on other science fiction universes.
     But IMO, even in fictional universes,it should be true that aliens are in fact, alien and it would be a lot more interesting if more of them were. (also my opinion)

     But you missed one category of errors that can really be a major annoyance when watching science fiction TV. That's when characters get basic grade school level science wrong.
     I guess we've all accepted by now that when ships pass by in space they make a big wooshing noises, I hardly ever notice that anymore but when are "galaxy" "solar system" and even "universe" are synonymous terms I tend to lose the ability to suspend disbelief.
     It's really shouldn't be too much trouble to have the scripts checked for errors like this but they show up all too often.
     Ever seen the "Bad Astronomer's" web site? Google it for tons of very funny fact checking on your favorite science fiction.

119. HulkSmashNow
     February 11th, 2009 at 4:18 pm

     "Got wrong?" Well, it is science FICTION. And, besides, who knows how science will progress in another century or so. I know one thing, though. There will still be dumbass lists like this being posted somewhere on the information superhighway.

120. Ingrod
     February 11th, 2009 at 7:21 pm

     A cliche article about some light sci-fi cliches, no more, no less.

     No drama here.

121. Monika Stoces
     February 11th, 2009 at 10:23 pm

     I believe all what is mentioned here listed as aliens ect, is the long for waited singularity , indeed controlling our brain and producing the most extreem bizarr stories to go unnoticed , using VERY SMART DECEPTION
     ALIENS is virtual reality , the trauma is trauma bases mind control, by intelligent technology, it tampers with memories, explains "recovered memories " of all kind of strange things since the 80 ties, included satanic abuse , its all REAL AND NON CONSENTUAL HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION

     greetings from Belgium , please take this seriously, alien abductees dont just like are more traumatized than vietnam veterans, and sorry for my bad English too . Any questions are welcome, i am convinced its about the biggest surprise in history ......

     Monika

122. Dex
     February 12th, 2009 at 9:36 am

     I realize this is reprinted but...really? Maybe they missed the FICTION part of science fiction? =)

     And that photo of Tatooine is actually from Tunisa not Arizona. The parts of Tatooine that were shot in Arizona are in Return of the Jedi, not Star Wars.

123. choHIlqoq
     February 12th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

     You Terrans and your limited grasp,you think it's the end all and be all for all of Material space.
     Bah,I say! One day when you've grown beyond a grievously savage child race,humans may join the rest of the larger Universe,but for now we'll leave you with feeble 'science'.

124. Ash the Flash
     February 12th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

     Regarding the brain control thing, there is actually a species of grub here on earth that can control a snail.....look on youtube for Leucochloridium paradoxum, or zombie snails. also look up parasitic mind control...the ant video on youtube. this particular one is called the liver fluke.

125. dsm2506
     February 13th, 2009 at 9:11 am

     I think the point of this article is "only Battlestar got it right, but sci-fi fans hate it. Go figure".

126. bongo drums
     February 13th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

     Why does anyone beleive a word Einstein says anyway?

127. Glitch
     February 13th, 2009 at 9:13 pm

     I enjoy the fun facts but it is science FICTION meaning not true, it doesn't have to make sense

128. Mailliw
     February 14th, 2009 at 2:05 pm

     3 Things This Article Got Wrong

     Come on, man. You're debating science fiction here! It's fiction, it's made up, but here's 10 things you got wrong about it

     1. Obi-Wan Kenobi vs Mac 10
     First of all lightsaber blades are emitted from a crystal, it's not "light" and he could use the force to sizzle Mac 10 bullets any day

     2. Aliens and Humans
     Okay, if the universe is infinite and there's millions of solar systems out there with countless possibilities for life there's a great chance that many of them have DNA or are even close enough to humans genetically to look like us and reproduce with us. That is, this opinion or yours can be proved empirically, but there is a good chance that there is life out there similar to humans

     3. Mind Controlling Alien
     Even on earth there's a fungus called the Cordyceps that infect and control the brains of insects. There's a different variety for each insect in the rain forest. They get into the brain of an ant and cause it to climb high up where it grows out of the ant's head and sends spores out to infect other ants. The possibility of an alien with this adaptation in an infinite universe is pretty likely.

129. Ben B.
     February 14th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

     Ok, I just can't let this one pass. )

     1) Sounds, as far as we're concerned) are vibrations in a gas. If you (or a story character) are in a spaceship, you will hear vibrations in the gas you're breathing. Therefore, if any varying field, such as (but not limited to) a magnetic field, impinges upon the ship's hull, the hull vibrates, the gas vibrates, and you will hear it if the amplitude and frequency range are compatible with your hearing. Likewise, if physical objects impact your ship, or weapons cause damage on it, you'll hear that, too. This is a perfectly good explanation for many sounds in space.

     2) Faster than light travel: Our understanding of physics is incomplete. With the successful teleportation of information having been achieved recently, to say that travel (going from point a to point b) at rates faster than c is impossible is to assume facts not in evidence.

     3) Dodging lasers: No one will be dodging lasers visually. But space battles may occur over distances significant enough that a laser may take a finite, useful time to transit the distance from weapon to target. If the detection of the emission can be made using another form (such as teleportation of information, which we can do already), then we might be able to analyze the emission vector and not be in the way when the beam arrives; this information might be displayed in a heads-up format for the pilot, giving the exact impression we see a laser beam -- that can be dodged because it isn't *there* yet. Also, just because something manifests in a beam configuration does not mean it is either a laser, or light, or that the initial beam carries the deadly payload. For instance, we have weapons now that emit two IR laser beams that after a few moments, significantly ionize the air they are traveling through. Once ionization is complete, the weapon routes a high voltage charge across the two emission points, effectively "tasering" the target at the other end. If one detected the initial IR pulse, dodging is perfectly practical. In that case, you'd need IR sensitive goggles to see the beams to dodge them, but that's also practical. Any weapon that emits light as a side effect, but where light is not *the* weapon might be dodged, depends on what is being delivered to the target, and just how fast. Finally, if someone shoots a laser at you and misses (quite possible), you *will* see it, and you may have time to duck before they fire again. The beam gives you a vector to the source, and that tells you which objects in the area might be between you and them.

     4) Aliens similar to us: The claim here is based upon the idea that humans evolved only on earth. This has not been established. They may have been seeded here -- as humans or even as pre-animal cells -- and elsewhere. In which case we will could easily find similar forms elsewhere. Quite aside from this, our forms are reasonably efficient forms, and if one accepts that evolution generates, over time, efficient forms, similar forms are likely, especially in a large universe with many planets.

     5) Alien interbreeding: Can you say genetic engineering? I knew you could. Even if an alien uses a different form of encoding bodily form and function, there's nothing saying that advanced engineering could not duplicate form and function such that we could have it, too. From here, it's not a huge leap to imagine an alien and a human collaborating on some offspring based upon their own codes. And as for sex itself... if you don't think THAT would happen, you're just silly. And then there are parasites. You're not a womb, per se, you're a food store and temporary shelter. Perfectly reasonable.

     6) Brain-sucking aliens: Various body parts have various nutritional loads. And tastes. Etc. This is why I can't be in a room where liver is being cooked; and why I get almost dizzy with anticipation when a T-bone is being cooked. Some people eat brains, liver, heart, etc. If an alien form finds anything about our nutritional load attractive (and not outright poisonous), there's no reason to think that it wouldn't have a preference for one part of your biology over another. Again, we're down to compatibility for nutrition; and that remains to be seen. As a potential for a story line, there's nothing wrong or incorrect about it.

     7) Aliens that change volume / shape significantly: Have you ever watch a sea anemone? I have on ein my fishtank. At one point, it is a large, tentacle-waving entity, capable of grabbing a large fish, shoving it in it's two-inch wide mouth, and digesting it in its several inch-across stem. But later, when the lights are out, the entire thing shrinks to about the size of a nickle, plus some thickness. It does this by using water to inflate its cells. Likewise, an octopus can demonstrate to you significant strength at one moment, and the ability to oooze underneath a sill the next. While I am not aware of an animal that does these tricks with gas, as opposed to a fluid, it is certainly well within the realm of possibility that such an animal might evolve somewhere. The basic trick is to use the gas or fluid in the environment for most of your volume, and to have stretchy cells. There might be other ways to do this as well, but this came right to mind. And as for built-in camouflage... that's well established on land and sea.

     Time travel. One can go forward, all it takes is enough energy to get you going faster than the things around you are going. The faster you go, the more the time differential increases (tau.) Backwards... I'm inclined to agree. But I would also hastily point out that there's a great deal we don't know about physics and the basic structure of the universe as yet. So I'm not going to rule it out for SF.

     9) Gravity scams? I must watch and read different SF than the author. Ii have seen, and read, many stories where folks were bouncing around in low gravity, or had to wear power suits to get around in high gravity. Steve Perry posits characters who, raised on heavy gravity worlds, are very strong; they are purpose-bred mutants who can take the load. Starwolf posited a man raised on a slightly heavy gravity world (Varna) from childhood who successfully adapted and enjoyed many benefits. James Blish wrote about building a bridge on Jupiter using remotes, because the gravity was out of the question. Forces similar to gravity on spacecraft can be controlled currently by spinning the vessel, and we saw this in 2001; given that this is the case (and it is), then why not one G? Just design the structure for it and you're good to go.

     10) Planetary sameness... come on now, this is really stretching it. First of all, the assumption is that the planet is ok to settle on. This implies similar gases and gravity. Which in turn imply similar geology. We're evolved for a particular spectral environment as well, and so blue skies (oxygen present in compatible amounts, Raleigh scattering) are likely. As far as erosion and rocks go, sedimentation, these are not things limited to our planet alone. Just look at the martian terrain. Nope, not going to give you this one, either.

     So the reader is ten for ten -- wrong in every case. SF has it right; though I will certainly give you that some writers - Asimov, Benford, Blish, DeCamp, Hogan, Silverberg, Zelazny - are a lot better at painting a likely picture than others, or anything that's been filtered through the collective idiocy of Hollywood inc. I am always reminded of the scene in "The Majestic" where the writer is sitting there, and the high up muckity mucks are discussing his script, and the one is pacing around and goes "I know! Let's add a dog! Everyone loves a dog!" Oy. Or "Soylent Green is People!", from "Soylent Green" (the movie title), but actually from "Make Room, Make Room", by Harry Harrison, a wonderful novel where soylent green was, in fact, seaweed and had *nothing* to do with any key plot element other than the difficulty of obtaining foods as we currently know them.

     [tips hat]

130. Tirann
     February 14th, 2009 at 11:18 pm

     8 is worng. Time travel is theoretically possible within Einstein's theory of relativity. The catch is that you cannot travel into the future or past when the machine was turned on.

131. Not Enki
     February 15th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

     Regarding the long time involved in space travel, if you have ever read any of Zecharia Sitchin's writings you discover that the earliest race to populate the earth (the Anunnaki) had extremely long life spans (probably at least hundreds of thousands of earth years) - they were not immortal, but seemed that way to humans - these were the "gods" of very ancient times. We also find that something about the earth is apparently corrosive to long life spans (note how even human life spans have decreased since the days of Genesis) which is probably one reason they finally packed up and left - they discovered that they were aging faster than their ancestors back home (evere wonder why the "gods" interacted with early humans but then suddenly stopped, leving us with what were essentially "cargo cults" that evolved into religions?). Anyway, if you were nearly immortal then suudenly a trip of many light years would not seem so farfetched, even if you worship at the temple of Einstein and believe that no one will ever discover how to travel faster than light (remember how many learned scientists stated unequivocally that it would be impossible for man to ever fly in a heavier-than-air vehicle, just before the Wright brothers went and did it anyway!).

132. JAB
     February 16th, 2009 at 1:26 am

     to #71, CTS:

     Haven't you ever seen people out on a street corner claiming to have seen something or have some secret knowledge of the future. Well, how do you know that someone from the future hasn't come back and was just not believed by anyone on earth. Yes, they could have brought back some future tech to show off, but look at Murphy's law, anything that can go wrong will. Say one of them brought back a phone with no physical display, only for it to be dropped and no longer work. Hmmm?

     To #84 edc:

     Adam and Eve is also a christian belief, you are the weakest link, good-bye.

     Now, I'm not saying I believe any of this can happen, I'm not really sure, but what I am saying is that a closed mind is a wasted mind. You can't just say, "This scenario can never happen". Why? Because we simply don't know every single possible thing that could happen to that scenario. Anything CAN plausibly happen, simply because we will never be able to rule out everything that can't.

133. ALSNOW
     February 17th, 2009 at 6:23 am

     WELL THEY WOULDN'T CALL it Fiction if they got it right...now WOULD THEY.
     You Know virtually nothing about the speed of light and traveling towards it.

134. Ookami
     February 17th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

     There are many things about the universe that we don't know. There are dimensions that we know little to nothing about. We know things about gravity, but not everything. We understand how it bends light, space, and time. So if time and space can be bended, it is possible to create a worm hole between two areas by bending space to connect these points.

     We pretty much know nothing of what we will learn in the next century.

135. Duros62
     February 17th, 2009 at 5:56 pm

     but there's a tiny problem in having a roughly human sized lump of alien protoplasm turning itself into, say, a rat, to scurry around in the ventilation shaft: Where does rest of the alien go?

     Ah ha, but it could be a very heavy, or rather, a very dense rat. The mass would remain the same, but the density would be increased.

     Buyin' it?

136. Duros62
     February 17th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

     bongo drums
     February 13th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

     Why does anyone beleive a word Einstein says anyway?

     Because he could spell.

137. moomoomoo
     February 20th, 2009 at 2:23 am

     LASER stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. So yes, lasers CAN travel through space. Light travels fine through a vacuum.

     There are organisms on earth that "control" the brains of others. There's a fungus that affects ants, compelling them to climb as high as possible so that the fungus can sprout and send out spores.

     If you actually watch Star Trek TNG, you'd know that all of the humanoid aliens that humans encounter on M-class planets are actually from the same batch of humanoids who seeded the galaxy when they realised they were going extinct. So they all share the same basic DNA and happened to evolve different physical structures. It's not nuts to think that a bunch of them evolved extremely similar and compatible sexual systems. Afterall, a donkey isn't a horse but you can still mate them.

     Neat list. It just sounds like it was compiled by somebody who likes to complain more than they like to read.

138. dR dMo
     February 20th, 2009 at 6:23 pm

     Well if you can't make alien women pregnant, all the more reason to shag them.

139. Tanya
     February 28th, 2009 at 11:53 am

     Key word, Theoretically.

140. sciguy
     March 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm

     Did not have time to read all comments to see if anyone addressed what I will. Here goes. I believe Einstein's limit to the speed of light is a function of the mathematics that the equation runs to infinity at the extreme of matter traveling at the speed of light. However, the equation does not do the same for speeds beyond the speed of light. Challenge is how to accelerate to, through, and beyond the speed of light. It may be possible to skip the intermediary step of the speed of light. Some particles seem to be able to do this. I am not real well versed on these things, just things I ran across in various readings. If a particle can instantly change it's spin as a result of a "linked" particle elswhere it implies transferance of information faster than the speed of light. Do not know if this is helpful or not, just some comments.

141. Kane
     March 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm

     Kind of a lame article but it apparently was one hell of a conversation starter.

142. ?
     April 11th, 2009 at 3:43 pm

     YOU REALLY NEED to up date this because half things are wrong

143. casey
     April 20th, 2009 at 2:43 pm

     sound may be possible in space, think of the explosion of particles and junk they would radiate out at a very high speed impacting your ship, helmet or whatever would cause some kind of vibration or impact that impact would transfer to your atmosphere into your wax filled ears

144. commm
     May 8th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

     dR dMo: as in star trek movie - their 'reproductive system' may NOT be what you expect.. a female frog lays lots of 'eggs' & the male frog just covers them with 'sperm'..

145. commm
     May 8th, 2009 at 6:09 pm

     sciguy: I think the 'linked' particle is not actual movement, but 'transfer of info'.. what some are calling a possibility of 'teleportation'..

     But it is found that a lot of things do not 'scale' up or down..
     EG, Gold nanoparticles actually appear red or black..
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoparticle

146. Singularity
     May 12th, 2009 at 5:23 am

     Hey genius, why they call it science FICTION..eh?

147. xytan4
     July 3rd, 2009 at 12:32 am

     The greatest sci-fi movie ever made is 2001. It got EVERY THING right. And no sci-fi movie to date can rival it.

148. bobo
     October 28th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

     Hey shallow oaf of an article writer: do sum reserch lululz. They use blasters for weaponry, not lasers, in Star Wars. It's a heated gas projectile, essentially. Factor in precognition through the force and there's no more legs for your anti-Jedi argument of garbage, garbage land inhabitant (that's you).

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