Bad and good science in Avatar!

[ExLibrisMortis]

The wrath of Eywa was already held back by the RDA at Hell's Gate. What... you don't think the Na'vi didn't try to fight them anytime prior to the events within Avatar? Come on, if they didn't, or even the nature of Pandora itself didn't try to fight Hell's Gate, there would be no reason for the No Man's land that completely surrounds the base of Hell's Gate/Mine pit.

I mean look at it this way. The RDA will only send the bare essentials to Pandora because of how limited space in on the ISV/How stupid expensive it is to get stuff to Pandora. If there was no need for the Dragon, it would not be there. If there was no essential need for the SecOps, they would not be there.

Man is a damn good resilient creature, able to overcome ANYTHING it puts it's mind too. What's a simple planet/moon's worth of creature gonna do to stop and interplanetary species. Nothing.

If you use Kinetic Impacters, aka the Tungsten rod Idea, there would be no radiation damage, just a large crater, which can then be mined for the material. Poison clouds, nah.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

However the bombing of hometree was quite unrealistic. Do the RDA suppose that cleaning up the mess of an ENORMOUS fallen kelutral is easier than simply going underground and getting the unobtanium out? Don't tell me that the trees of kelutral are messing them up - they did NOT uproot kelutral - they just fell it by detonating its trunk. Useless.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Well, if you noticed, the entirety of the trunk burned through. That was the point of using the incendiary rounds, was to burn the tree down. And when you strip mine, you can remove the roots the same way you loosen the dirt.... more explosives.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405122

Just something to toss into the whole ISV fuel debate.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Okay let's get BOT.

Thomas R, I'm still not sure how you got the acceleration of the water molecules. Could you give me a heads-up on the calculation method you used?

@maktoyu Great news! However, the antiprotons there are far less than required to go to Pandora. Probably just enough to make a flight to the moon, or even less. The article says that the antiprotons' concentration is 1/1000 of the matter concentration there. Don't forget that the matter concentration there is already extremely, EXTREMELY thin.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

But that's still an incredible amount of energy. Not to mention if one began to stockpile it in some say. (Anti-proton exotic atom similar to positronium, or just a big-ass vacuum tank or artificial magnetic field island in space).

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

The antiprotons will be quickly depleted.

By the way, why store it has antihydrogen? You still need to generate some positrons out of energy, and it is immensely difficult to keep antihydrogen from annihilating the ISV - since antihydrogen is neutral, you can't trap it with mag fields. Antiprotons can be controlled with magnetic fields.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Yes you can. How do you think they are able to hold it for the lengths of time that they do?

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

you can't store antihydrogen but you can store antiprotons.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

No. Last I checked, a lot of the experiments done with antimatter involved antihydrogen, including storing it for 1000+ seconds. You can store any element with a magnetic field, even noble gases. Just because an electron shell is filled doesn't mean the electrons won't react when an outside magnetic force is applied.

[Clarke]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405122

Just something to toss into the whole ISV fuel debate.

I stand corrected. Unfortunately, I do believe that you can only gather a few nanograms per day of the stuff, which isn't useful for an ISV.  To Jupiter!  

you can't store antihydrogen but you can store antiprotons.

You can store antihydrogen, you just need to cool it down to 5K or so, and then stick it in an electric field. It's also easier to store than antiproton plasma, since the antiprotons repel each other.

Thomas R, I'm still not sure how you got the acceleration of the water molecules. Could you give me a heads-up on the calculation method you used?

I've lost/didn't write down the original calculations, so hang on while I do everything again...

If we assume:

• B=19.2MT
• T=311K=37.85C
• E=0
• the kinetic energy of an electron bound to hydrogen is 13.6eV.
  
• classical physics works for electrons orbiting a nucleus. This isn't actually true, but I can't do the quantum.  
  

Then...

• the electron's speed is v=sqrt(2E/m)=sqrt( 2*13.6eV/511keV/c²)= 2.2×10⁶ m/s
• Substituting in from the Lorentz force, , F = (-1.6×10^-19 C)(0 + [2.2x10⁶m/s x 19.2MT]) = 6.8×10^-6 N
• Dividing by the electron mass, (511keV/c²) the total acceleration on the electron is 7.4×10²⁴ ms^-2.

This would mean that the water pretty much instantly splits into atomic oxygen and hydrogen. As a bonus, the protons in these not-atoms-anymore will be accelerated slightly more slowly (because they're heavier, and moving slower) in the  opposite direction.

My personal canon says that the mountains are actually hollow and filled with hydrogen gas.   So what if he's implied in pretty much every way that I'm wrong? Dirigible mountains don't plasma-fy the whole moon. 

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Yeah, but this discovery sets a very good precedent, doesn't it? I wonder how much antimatter can be extracted from around other gaseous/atmospheric bodies with magnetic fields? Imagine how much antimatter might be around the Jovian system.

[Clarke]

Oh, it's less than that. You can't do much with 28 antiprotons.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

s***! Well, so much for that.

[Human No More]

2) How do they disprove them? Are you talking about Foxconn? That proves I'm right. They put their workers in such horrible conditions because it is more profitable for them. I don't know about England, but most of the problems in my country can be traced back to money in politics, and corporate control of government. But isn't the IMF reaming Europe as we speak?

I'm going to leave it at that. I kinda want this thread on topic again...

Again, what's so 'horrible' about paying workers more (for longer hours), having better provision for workers than any other industry in the area, and providing free health insurance and payouts on accident or death? - if they abolished the latter, nobody would consider it profitable to commit suicide to get a big payout for their family any more (yes, ore than they would earn working there, which is itself significantly more than working anywhere else in the area), but you would complain far more vocally.

Europe isn't a country. Several countries IN IT are bankrupt, but not others. The US is unique in the relationship between industry and government.

DU bullets are classed as a weapon of mass destruction under international law.

Yeah, but what about a tungsten rod dropped from 100km in the air?

Weapon of mass destruction, and breaking their contract. You should know this, stop fantasising about the story you wanted Avatar to be.

...And umpteen billion dollars of unobtanium.   You nuke Hometree, the resulting dust-storms poison everything for miles around then you can jump in and stripmine everything.

See the above. PS. fi you think it wouldn't damage/destroy the deposits, you need to learn basic physics.

Man is a damn good resilient creature, able to overcome ANYTHING it puts it's mind too. What's a simple planet/moon's worth of creature gonna do to stop and interplanetary species. Nothing.

If you use Kinetic Impacters, aka the Tungsten rod Idea, there would be no radiation damage, just a large crater, which can then be mined for the material. Poison clouds, nah.

Again, see the above. If you want some 'spess mehrens kill everything' story, there are plenty - here, the RDA are bound by governmental and contractual limitations. Wanting to turn Avatar into some such a story is completely unrealistic and flying in the face of the actual film.


Antihydrogen CAN be stored in a magnetic field and has been done so today for short times.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Again, what's so 'horrible' about paying workers more (for longer hours), having better provision for workers than any other industry in the area, and providing free health insurance and payouts on accident or death? - if they abolished the latter, nobody would consider it profitable to commit suicide to get a big payout for their family any more (yes, ore than they would earn working there, which is itself significantly more than working anywhere else in the area), but you would complain far more vocally.

Well, since you didn't want to drop it...

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/foxconn-no-suicide-pledge/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/7773011/A-look-inside-the-Foxconn-suicide-factory.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6520663,00.html

There's more reasons for them to be suicidal than life insurance claims, you know. Have you considered maybe the draconian management plays a role? Many of the services that are available they can't even use because of the hours they work. And besides, the pay is still meager either way. The workers can't even afford the very products they make.

"Though we produce for iPhone, I haven't got a chance to use iPhone," a worker from Guanlan said. "I believe it is fascinating and has lots of function. However I don't think I can own one by myself." A luxury gadget like that would cost a Foxconn employee around two months' salary.

Now, I'm putting my foot down. This is over. If you want to keep going on about this and continue to derail this thread, you'll have to do it yourself.

[ExLibrisMortis]

If you really wanted to end it... you shouldn't have offered a rebuttal. At least not here in the thread. Best way to get something to happen is to do it yourself.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

For the iPhone thing listen to this.

1. The tariff on iPhones here in China is terrific. Like 25 percent or even more.
2. For the AVERAGE Chinese worker, about three or four months' salary can buy an iPhone. The Foxconn employees are already pretty well off. In fact, since the iPhone is 7000 RMB (tariff included) and two months' salary can buy an iPhone, then the calculated salary is 3,500 RMB per month. Doesn't sound like much, but it is 42,000 RMB a year, which already counts as pretty well off. (Rich here by the official definition is >80,000 RMB per year)
3. iPhones are already pretty expensive. They should get a 70% off discount! Why pay so much money for a slow phone when you can buy a computer 20 times faster than an iPhone with the money?

The point is that Chinese people are generally poorer, and the Foxconn employees did not commit suicide because they were underpaid or worked under bad circumstances.

And before you launch into an ad hominem attack, let me make it clear that nobody in my family runs a factory or corporation or even a small company.