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The Science of Iron Man
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist takes a look at the evidence-base behind the science and technology in the new blockbuster Iron Man, and finds it is pretty solid. From exoskeletons to real-time translation there are at the very least proof-of-concept demonstrations of pretty much all the glitzy tech the hero Tony Stark uses."
Martini's and babes!!!
It doesn't have hands yet, but it works. You even step into the boots with your feet in the same way Ripley did in Aliens.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/25/sarcos-military-exoskeleton-becomes-a-frightening-reality/
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn13815&print=true
Without the ads and other extraneous stuff.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
All that's left now is to find somebody who looks like Robert Downey Jr. in real life.
For once, it looks to be at least within the realm of possible science (i.e. real science-fiction as the term implies, not the usual hollywood acid trip scripts).
Oh, and none of the "I got bitten by a mutant spider/got exposed to gamma ray/etc" crap that is usually associated with american super-heroes.
From exoskeletons to real-time translation there are at the very least proof-of-concept demonstrations of pretty much all the glitzy tech the hero Tony Stark uses.
Bullshit. This is an AI hard problem; if you've got real, honest-to-god accurate real-time translation of a natural language, you've got an AI. What we have now is sometimes-acceptable real-time translation using corpora whose product is easily distinguishable by any native speaker as a machine translation.
Apart from the science reality, I'm more impressed with how close (at least from what I've seen) Iron Man sticks to the comic. It isn't set in WWII but that was a decision whoever directed/wrote/produced it made to appeal to the audience today. I'm not sure if I'll actually go see it but at least Uwe Boll didn't direct it.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Yeah. And scientists relate to nerds. :)
Sure, now all you have to do is work around the fact that the human body isn't aerodynamic, that there's no space for fuel, and make a rocket engine fast enough to outrace a fighter jet, yet fit into a shoe. Sounds like a SMOP to me.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
power source? oh and what about those rockets that are sitting on the uncomfortable side of close to the feet... wouldn't they be getting a little warm. and i'm sure there are many other flaws that the guys who are into engineering can find. but who cares, it'll be a awesome movie... can't wait for the aXXo too :D lol
That "article" was crap!
Might as well have posted a banner ad to the front page.
In the great magnetic field
Where he traveled time
For the future of mankind I must be confused.
"I got bitten by a mutant spider/got exposed to gamma ray/etc" crap that is usually associated with american super-heroes
That is not really the Science Fiction part of the story. It is just a plot forwarding device to explain how the person got the powers. Even Iron Man really isn't Sci-Fi they are more under "Modern Fanticy"
Good Sci-Fi uses unheard of technology or really advance technology to forward the plot. Bad Sci-Fi uses unheard of technology or really advance technology to resolve the plot (I talking to you Star Trek Fans (Espectially Voyager))
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's nice that Stuart Ross thinks he can develop rocketbelts to enable people to fly. However, until someone comes up with a way to store the, apparently, unlimited fuel necessary to power a suit such as Iron Mans, and have it weigh, again, apparently, next to nothing, we will never see flying suits of armor.
Forget for a moment that a large percentage of people can't safely drive a vehicle on the ground at 65 mph. We now want to develop suits of metal capable of flying hundreds of miles per hour (Iron Man can out run jets and other craft)?
Then there is all his armament that he carries within the suit. How many rounds of ammunition, not to mention various missiles and such, is he carrying? Yeah, I thought so.
Yeah, yeah, I realize this is all fantasy and it makes for good enjoyment. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and try to claim that everything developed in a fantasy environment is directly translatable to real life.
Super-duper computers capable of interacting with humans? Sure. It will take some time but it is feasible and most likely probable. New uber-compounds which can retain their shape or make repairs to themselves? Already happening. Suits of armor capable of flying hundreds of miles per hour? Not gonna happen.
On a side note, is it just me or do Downey's whoops and hollers sound flat? I realize he wasn't actually flying but his yelling just doesn't seem, to me, to be indicative of someone who's flying in a suit of armor.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Oh fucking please. It's a MOVIE.
And we'll never be able to make a computer small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.
Science-fiction is fiction based on science. It doesn't require actual, current technology, only theoretically possible technology.
Just because you think it's not possible with today's technology doesn't mean it'll never exist.
In any case, a rocket-jet-inside-a-shoe is still at least more believable than some guy being bitten by a spider who can then hold a tramway full of people with his bare hands.
The reason I dont want to see this movie is a preview scene in which IronMan turns a rocket 180o.
What they don't show is the fact before he puts on the suit he has beans.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
after watching spiderman, i was so psyched.
I went right home, caught a spider, microwaved it for a few seconds to mutate its DNA a little bit, then I took it out and let it bite me.
and guess what?
No superpowers
spiderman is bullshit.
this ironman fellow, this is real superhero stuff for sure...
-I only code in BASIC.-
Right. He develops a new tiny power source that produces megawatts. Out of scrap.
If he developed a new power source that good, commercializing it would put the oil states out of business. Success is the best revenge.
"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel." Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum (Dubai) 1912-1990.
Um okay just where does iron man keep his rocket fuel? Positional thrusters?
Where can i get some boots with engines capable of mach 2? A real life mach 2 engine is much larger than a man.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The article contains some spoilers. If you want to see how the movie unfolds for yourself, save reading the article until after you've seen it.
Say what you want about ST:Voyager, but at least the Doctor was one of the most entertaining character I ever saw (witty remarks without completely realizing it, etc).
I'd love to see a Seinfeld-style sitcom with the Doctor (Voyager), Data (Next Generation) and Julian Bashir (DS9).
Star Trek: The Seinfeld Chronicles.
Nuclear Energy. That solves all problems right.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
For once, it looks to be at least within the realm of possible science...Oh, and none of the "I got bitten by a mutant spider/got exposed to gamma ray/etc" crap that is usually associated with american super-heroes.
Of course, there are somewhat realistic aspects of the suit, but there are still problems. Notably, how are you going to generate power, how do you make something that sleek-looking also structurally sound enough to pull off the stunts he pulls, and how are you going to actually fly that suit.
It's realistic in about the same way as the whole "I got hit with radiation, was mutated, and gained super powers." Sure, you could argue that it's scientific because radiation can mutate living cells. But that doesn't mean the whole thing is scientific.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves and try to claim that everything developed in a fantasy environment is directly translatable to real life.
Nobody is claiming that.
The "unlimited energy" thing is an extremely obvious impossibility, as are others. This article focuses on those "super power" aspects which do have a plausible amount of reality behind them.
The enemies of Democracy are
I give you the mating call of the true nerd or 'Homo Patheticus':
"That's not real Science Fiction that's just Fantasy."
That's pretty cool that it survived the microwaving.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Hey, no spoilers! The movie isn't even out yet. Next you'll be telling us some other important plot point, something like him rising from his grave to kill the people he once saved. Have some respect.
I got a kick out of them using the old Black Sabbath song. Since, far from being a savior, Iron Man ends up destroy all humans. I'm not sure if that is what the movie makers intended.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
No, you're thinking of XML.
Well The Doctor was a character used to extend the plot, at least in the early seasons having a charactor who had limitations (suck in the sickbay, and 0 people skills). Foricing other people to expand their jobs as Medics, that was a good idea. But Resolving the final plot by the captian from the future giving them High Tech that lets them blast away the borg and armor that borg cant hit them really was just pushing it. The problem was whenever they were pushed in a spot in the plot that they can't possible excape they just come up wit tech that would take years of development, to get past it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Glad to hear the science is plausible. Otherwise, I might have had to suspend my disbelief in order to enjoy the movie at all!
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Honestly though, you don't need to have lifting surfaces to fly, all you need is properly directed thrust. That takes energy and a lot of it. What you need is some sort of fuel that has a high thrust to mass ratio, like antimatter. It's something that we can and do make today and even though we don't make a lot of it right now we could easily ramp up production. The true problem is the cost of producing it but it's not inconceivable that the cost will eventually drop as we develop new ways to produce it.
Once you have enough antimatter the rest of the problem comes down to simple engineering and a computer capable enough to calculate all of the thrust vectors needed to perform stable flight. Can we do it today? Probably not but it's not that far-fetched that we can't imagine it being possible sometime soon.
Sapere aude!
Realism aside, there's another good thing about Iron Man. He got his powers on purpose. He wasn't accidently bitten by a spider, and he didn't go into space with crappy shielding. He built his armor. He really IS a self-made superhero.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Your comment reminds me of when I went to see Austin Powers at the theater. Two people in front of me sat silently through the movie until the point where Mini-Me picked up Austin over his head. At that point one of them yells "Yea, right!" I was unable to comprehend how they can accept time travel and Mike Myers getting a hot chick, and yet flat out refuse to believe a midget was strong enough to pick up a grown man.
What's with these thinly-veiled blockbuster release promotions in "legitimate" media? Seems like every time a new blockbuster comes out, science shows start doing their "The science of..." specials on the figments of a comic book writer's imagination.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
That Iron Man suit is cool, but can it run Linux?
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
The suit is nuclear-powered. Lots of people here have never read the comic, it seems! For shame!
If they don't open up with Black Sabbath, they wont see a penny of mine.
The more a creator does to facilitate this in the audience the better your chances for their immersion into your fictional world. When it comes to science fiction, however, this is especially challenging given that we who enjoy the genre tend to also be quite analytical and detail oriented. I love it!
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
I believe that preview scene was from the video game.
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Iron Man's Suit Defies Physics -- Mostly
By James Kakalios
Tony Stark's amazing suit is a long way from realization, mostly due to practical energy constraints.
As a comic book fan and physics professor, I am looking forward to the big screen debut of Iron Man. This is due, in part, to the fact that instead of getting belted with gamma rays or being born a demon from hell, industrialist and scientist Tony Stark got his super powers by means of his engineering genius.
But just how realistic is Stark's amazing suit?
Sadly, nearly all of the features of the Iron Man suit, with one important exception, are not likely to be realized anytime soon. Let's look at each of the suit's major elements in turn.
Jet boots
The reason that we don't fly to work using boot-mounted jets as Iron Man does has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with energy. We know how to achieve thrust and propulsion using personal jet packs, and a person can indeed fly from home to their place of employment like Buck Rogers or Adam Strange -- provided they live 30 seconds from work.
The problem is that lifting a full-grown person 100 feet into the air considerably increases their potential energy, and that gain in energy must come from the stored chemical energy in the jet pack. Ditto for the energy required to zip around once airborne. You just can't store enough energy to make long flights without making the suit too big to wear. So jet boots alone don't make Iron Man an escapist fantasy, but the idea that Stark could store enough energy in his suit to fly for more than half a minute does.
Repulsor rays
Similarly, the directed energy weapons Iron Man uses, such as the "repulsor rays" built into the palms of his gloves, should require that Stark drag along a large power generator whenever he faces off against the Mandarin or Titanium Man. I'm not exactly sure what a "repulsor ray" is, but if it's anything like a high-power laser, then the energy demands are considerable.
Even assuming that Iron Man can convert any stored energy in his suit into laser light with 100 percent efficiency, then to generate a beam powerful enough to melt a fist-size hole through a half-inch thick steel plate (which any comic book fan can tell you is well within Shellhead's capabilities) would require an energy pulse of more than 2 gigawatts of power, greater than the output of a nuclear power plant.
Cybernetic helmet
There is one aspect of Iron Man's armor that is not only scientifically sound, but may be available for our use someday soon: the "cybernetic helmet" Tony Stark uses to control the devices within his armor. When Iron Man wants to discharge his palm-mounted repulsor rays, he does not have to manually release a safety switch, enter a firing sequence code or even pull a trigger -- he just tells the supervillain to "talk to the hand" and fires!
In fact, Bin He of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota has already created a helmet much like Iron Man's. It works on the principle that neurons' electrical currents create electric and magnetic fields, which can be detected with devices such as the electroencephalograph, or EEG. While the EEG has been around since the 1920s, recent advances in signal processing have enabled scientists to isolate and identify the firing signatures of neurons associated with particular motor-imagery tasks.
Professor He identified the specific firing pattern that arises when a person, watching images on a computer monitor, tries to mentally move a cursor to the left or right. These detected frequencies can then be amplified and, when suitably modified, can instruct the computer to move the cursor in the same direction.
Of course, He is not int
Oh, and none of the "I got bitten by a mutant spider/got exposed to gamma ray/etc" crap that is usually associated with american super-heroes. As opposed to European super heroes like the Frenchman that changed after he ate some radioactive Brie or the Scotsman who mutated after he was exposed to sun light? Super Heroes have always been far more fantasy than science fiction. You might as well debate the science merits of LOTR or Harry Potter. I always hear this "American" crap. So American super heroes are far less plausible than say Japanese super heroes like Ultraman?
"Science-fiction is fiction based on science. It doesn't require actual, current technology, only theoretically possible technology."
Then you please can tell us what's the theoretical possibility for some one hundred kilograms mass the form a human body to be pushed from their feet and be able to control it without any control surfaces -on the air? (do you know what happens with a back-traction car on a slipery road? Then think about the same on a 1000 times more slipery "road": the air).
No to talk about the fact of such a mass being pushed by a reactor (action and reaction Newton's law) without any source to explain where all the ejected mass comes from.
"In any case, a rocket-jet-inside-a-shoe is still at least more believable than some guy being bitten by a spider who can then hold a tramway full of people with his bare hands."
But this film wants to play somehow "science-fiction" while spiderman tries to be simply fantasy.
As long as he stays in the atmosphere, it doesn't necessarily violate conservation of mass (I guess the air intakes are just improbably small and the compressor improbably effective). Energy is a different matter; that'd be one hell of a freaking battery he's got crammed up in there.
The enemies of Democracy are
> unless the laws of physics are much different than we imagine them to be
The whole world is only what we imagine it to be. So, I think both spider-man and iron-man are equally possible. The only problem left is that it's damn hard to get out of this matrix, ya know, coz it's the only thing most of us have ever managed to consciously experience. But it is doable.
Here. I don't know if the article is yet open the public, I subscribe to the magazine so I have full access to the article. But none the less it gives a minor history of exoskeletons and expectations of them. One of popsci's better articles.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
When we engage in science fiction, it can be broad-strokes of extrapolation (e.g. Diamond Age) or very specific pieces of well-explained tech, but the core element of science fiction is science, not just as setting or plot device, but as a means of understanding.
> a large percentage of people can't safely drive a vehicle on the ground at 65 mph.
actually, only a small %, otherwise there'd be no traffic moving anywhere;-)
Come on people, it's a comic book idea! That suit is not the least bit aerodynamic. If he moved to take any action, any stability he might have would be lost and he would go out of control. Then there is the small matter of a power and weapon supply.
The Iron Man suit is not possible, it wouldn't be stable in flight.
The man inside the suit could never survive the forces the suit goes through during combat. I don't care how strong the material is, you run into to something at 100+ mph and important parts of your body become goo.
Guess what? It doesn't matter, it's an action comic book movie. All you need is consistency within the premise...and not being Emo.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I always found the lesson Spiderman teaches a little weird; if you get bitten by a spider and start stumbling around and seeing everything blurred don't tell a soul, pretend like nothing happened, and go up to your room to sleep.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
only if you ignore conservation of momentum;-)
"The whole world is only what we imagine it to be"
No.
"So, I think both spider-man and iron-man are equally possible."
neither are possible.
Both can be fun.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Uh, I don't care if the suit has the ability to not be destroyed by the impact of the rocket, the kinetic energy from the explosion is still going to be transferred. My understanding of how highly explosive things work is that the explosion is part of it but it's the shock wave that really screws things up, and does any sort of technology exist to mitigate shock wave damage?
:)
In other words, when he gets hit by those missiles, he's done
Maybe I'm wrong, I ain't no weapons engineer.
And neither is Iron Man, nor has it ever been.
> As opposed to European super heroes like the Frenchman that...
You mean this one ?
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Now TRANSISTOR-POWERED!!
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
Sure the suit might survive a free fall - sorry, POWERED ballistic trajectory - but the person inside hitting the sides of that suit will still turn to something akin to liquid.
Then again maybe the suit does serve a purpose.
It keeps your floors clean of that sticky human mess. The suit can then get itself to a morgue all on its own.
I knew it's have a purpose!
JB
Forget for a moment that a large percentage of people can't safely drive a vehicle on the ground at 65 mph.
no. That would be a small percentage. Millions and millions of people driving over 2000 billion miles accident free every day.
Yes over 2 trillion miles.
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2004/html/table_01_32.html
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That and much more is discussed in "Iron Manual" I wish I could find my copy... About it's creation and how it works, etc...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Remove the accident free, I changed the sentence and that slipped through, sorry.
6 million accidents.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nuclear XML. I've seen it in production once.
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
I'm told that the Iron Man suit in the comics has inertial dampening or acceleration compensators or whatever techno-babble name to keep him from being turned into raspberry jam. He still would have been killed when he tested out the flying boots for the first time when it was just his fleshy frame crashing against the wall. And if there are acceleration compensators, he's just invented antigravity.
I love love love the idea of super-suits, been in love with them since I first saw the Greatest American Hero as a kid, fell in love with them all over again after reading Starship Troopers. Sadly, I have to admit that we're talking about some insane super-science to make this shit happen.
One thing that's funny when applying real logic to super-heroes, think about what it would be like for a flying hero who doesn't also have superman invulnerability. All of the worst vulnerabilities of BASE jumping but with even more danger. I saw a scary video showing some stunt jumpers trying to do a flyby of a bridge. One misjudged and hit at pretty much the maximum dive velocity for a streamlined human form. Pieces of him went everywhere. So when my 10-year old self is thinking "flying suits would be so awesome," my more practical self is thinking "yeah, and parents are thinking ninja street bikes are dangerous, wait until they get a load of this!"
A proper Iron Man suit is looking at major super-science. First off, the power source. I don't know about the comic but I like that they at least said it would have to be something crazy and revolutionary. You're not going to run this thing on laptop batteries. For the kind of power density we're talking here, it would have to be nuclear fusion or matter/antimatter. That's very super-science. And consider the energy density, we know laptop batteries contain about as much energy as a quarter stick of dynamite, can you imagine the power requirements for a flying super-suit? To give it any range, I'm guessing it would have to have enough energy density to equal a suitcase nuke if it were all released at once. If it's a fusion power source, the fuel isn't explosive but if it's antimatter, ho boy.
Then there's the levitation devices or whatever the hell he's using to fly. We don't even know where to begin with for anti-gravity, don't even have the slightest means to guess. Major super-science. But once we have that, gravity manipulation gives us the repulsor beam punches such as we saw used in the movie. So between power source and flight mechanism, armament, and also the presumed inertial compensator to keep the pilot from being squooshed.
At this point in time, an Iron Man suit is so advanced that it may as well be magic, probably as far off as androids indistinguishable from humans. The Aliens powerloader is getting scary close to reality. That "Big Dog" quadroped robot is also extremely advanced.
What I find scarier than Iron Man is the eminently plausible unmanned surveillance/kill systems we're building right now, exemplified by the Predators and Global Hawks. Between satellite, micro-drone, macro-drone, and electronic surveillance, we're going to be able to put a level of surveillance on this planet that's downright frightening. And as the drones get smaller, just how difficult is it going to be to escape assassination? Let's say the target is an Arafat-type guy who never sleeps in the same room, never lets people near him without being disarmed, etc, what does that matter if a fly-sized drone can slip in and confirm his location? What does that matter if a hunter-seeker like from Dune can penetrate his room and inject him with a nerve agent? Right now the intel side is still the weakest part for the CIA's assassin drones, they're guessing at who's in the cars and are firing their missiles based on guesswork. This is kind of like how naval guns in WWI completely outranged effective fire control. "Yeah, we can sink that ship at maximum range! If only we could make sure it was actually under the shells when they fall..." Get a micro-drone in to make ID
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
"Iron Man, Iron Man
Does whatever an iron can
Presses pants really fine
Keeps those pleats right in line
Look out! Here comes the Iron Man"
Original appear in a marvel book.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> No.
Prove me wrong, if you think you can.
You didn't use the right kind of spider! You need a spider that already has some serious mojo that can be enhanced by the radiation.
I used a Brown Recluse. After a couple seconds of microwave enhancement, I let it bit me. And damned if I didn't develop a bad-ass super power:
Necrotic Lesions.
Sure, sure, doesn't sound like much. But you just have to be creative. Normally I keep them covered up, but when I'm say getting the jump on some bank robbers, I just expose my hideous gaping wounds and dead flesh, and they toss their cookies giving me ample time to shoot them or whatever. It's awesome. Everyone should get super powers like mine.
The enemies of Democracy are
Well, in fairness, most of the Marvel universe was formed at a time when fear of radiation and the like was on peoples minds.
A lot of the superheroes are mutations or caused by some form of radiation, or some unexplained source. Both because it was a hot issue of the day, and because it was a convenient way of doing it.
The whole X-men context takes place in a "semi-parallel" universe (ours, but with a few tweaks) in which mutation and such things are actively happening, and it's taken as fact. It's at least internally self-consistent in its reasoning.
There's really only a handful of superheroes that, in fact, have no super powers (Batman and Iron Man come to mind immediately). Iron Man takes place along side all of these other things that you are finding so completely implausible. Batman is, of course, DC, so not quite in the same context.
Ummm
(You know, the sad thing, I'm not even anything near what you'd call a comic book geek.)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No, no, you need ionizing radiation. Put an operating air ionizer in the microwave with the spider next time. You may have to drill a hole in the side of the microwave to feed the power cable through, but it's totally worth it. *fwip fwip*
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
It's true that it's all rather far-fetched, but the best SF (in my oh-so-humble opinion) is always an incredible extrapolation from existing technology, and the article does a good job of demonstrating how that's true of Iron Man.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
... of someone in Hollywood perfecting the science of making a movie that doesn't suck? Honestly, apart from Gwyneth Paltrow, there's very little in there that's worth watching. Tony Stark is just a whiny, selfish shit in copper-coloured-kecks.
I like basketball!!1!
Iron Man is neither Sci-Fi, nor "Modern Fantasy"
Nobody, not even the original authors, has ever tried to reconcile what you can get away with in that universe. It exists, it is there, and if you aren't willing to buy in, you are not the people it's targeting. No offense, but trying to reconcile reactionless thrusters or where he keeps his fuel is completely missing the mark.
Really, as much as there is a lot of interesting subtext about the human condition and the like in comics, the parts where it strictly deviates from the rules of physics are just simply there. There is no need to reconcile it. First and foremost, it's intended to be entertaining, then maybe enlightening or illuminating.
But, make no mistake about it, the Marvel Universe is not, strictly speaking, the one we live in.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
However, until someone comes up with a way to store the, apparently, unlimited fuel necessary to power a suit such as Iron Mans, and have it weigh, again, apparently, next to nothing, we will never see flying suits of armor.
That is why I have always thought that in order to create a real/usable flying mechanism for things like rocket belts and the like, we would have to find something (in nature) that is "normally" suspended in the air. This is, something which natural state is to be floating.
We kind got it with Zepellins (gases) but of course we need something which does not require that much volume.
After we get that, then it would just be a matter of "modulating" the efficacy of such thing to get higher or lower in the sky.
Until them, we are bound by Newtons law, "Everything that goes up, must come down"
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all,
Or if he moves will he fall?
Is he alive or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?
We'll just pass him there
why should we even care?
waaaaah waaaah waaaaaaah waaaah waaah wah wah wah...
This article indicates that not everything is correct. http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2008/04/ironman_physics
If neither are possible, then both are equally possible. So you're both right.
Take a fresh, unwrinkled piece of aluminium foil, hold it tight against your face by pressing your hands against the side of your face, and say in a deep, resonant voice Only really works once. Then you need a fresh piece of foil.
Hell, The Rocketeer did it, so why can't Stark?
As for control surfaces... Ask a skydiver what he's doing while he's falling. They can manuever to a surprising degree. The human body isn't the best airplane, but it can do a pretty fair imitation of one- within limits. Those guys aren't just dropping staright down, y'know. They can get actually get a slight glide going- though the ratio is pretty poor and the landings with that sort of glide ratio is such that you're not going to walk away from it.
No, you can't go out today and buy the damn suit. Yes, it still requires some suspension of disbelief.
The point of the article is that it's reasonably plausible that Iron Man's suit could someday exist in some form, and it's mostly based on real technologies.
Eliot R. Brown did the first Iron Manual that went into depth on the components of the various Iron Man armors from the comic. Brown has been the "tech" guy for Marvel for decades and is an expert at translating the comic concepts into (plausible) real-life technologies. In the Manual, each suit is comprised of a millions of tiny, intelocking "tiles". These tiles have several layers that handle everything from power to articulation. The components of the tiles are so small that they have to be worked on under an electron microscope and the suit-tiles are mass produced buy his supercomputer. It's a really good read.
If you go back a couple dozen years it was outright impossible to build an engine capable of mach 2. We didn't have the science or technology to make it happen. It was maybe a glimmer in some technician's imagination, but that's it.
And before that we didn't even have the ability to fly at all.
Today we have cell phones with more processing power than an entire building full of computers a few years back.
We've got tiny motors in toys and gizmos that were also flat-out impossible a few years back.
Sure, by today's standards Iron Man is completely impossible, but that really doesn't mean much. I'm not claiming that such a thing will ever actually be possible... But claiming that our current understanding of science and technology is as good as it is ever going to get is awfully arrogant.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
If you want to see really cool, take a cockroach in your college dorm room, microwave it until it dies, and leave it in the sealed container you caught it in.
If you're lucky (like I was), a week later, there will be little baby cockroaches running around the container that you can then microwave until they die!
Okay, it was cool ten years ago when I was a freshman in college anyway.
I run Ubuntu skinned to look like a Mac on a PC. Go figure.
With essentially infinite amounts of energy, you don't need rocket fuel - you just suck in some atmospheric gas, give it ridiculous amounts of directed kinetic energy, and you're on your way.
Also, when all you're pushing is a man & a tin suit (always assuming that magical infinite energy source that doesn't require matter for fuel), your engine doesn't need to be as big as what is required for a jet.
Almost all of that movie tech boils down to what he's using as a power source.
Only if you prove the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist.
Virtual funny mod.
even beavis and butthead got the science of iron man.
duuuuuh deeh
de neh neh
de-neh neh-neh neh-neh deh
duh neh neh
boyoyoyoyoooinng!
The superhuman stength without giant external components, flying with pulse jets small enough to go in your feet, and infinite shock-absorbing ability are all the most useful skills, and coincidentally all the ones still far from possible with todays tech, so I think its not really true to say the science and tech of Ironman is pretty solid.
We can't even get people to agree on a safe way to store hydrogen fuel. You think there the magnetic fields required to hold antimatter away from any regular matter and feed it consistently to some sort of thrust chamber are going to be easy not just technically, but politically?
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
So that's where the rocket boots get their fuel from.
Bravo!
Just get some wormholes; keep all your bulky equipment elsewhere :p
It's like that vertical take-off plane, I recall someone saying that this thing shouldn't even be able to fly, the only thing keeping it in the air is the computers (technically speaking).
Well, my brother pointed out, "Um, excuse me, Star Wars takes place long, long ago in a galaxy far away. Exactly how would Darth Vader get to earth's Solar System to be 'banished to Mars?'"
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
$ man ironman
No manual entry for ironman
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Invisible pink unicorns are actually one of those things that will be possible in the not too distant future through genetic engineering and metamaterials.
Score: 6:, Funny
That reply just made by day, thank you.
The burden of proof is on the claimant.
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
I would disagree to a slight degree on this one. I remember reading one Spider-man comic where Peter talks about LED's he attached to his web shooters to let him know when he was running dry. I guess it was related to a plot point, but I think the explanation about Light Emitting Diodes was totally unnecessary, and served only to "enlighten" or "illuminate" because it certainly wasn't entertaining, unless the whole point was to make it seem "real" like the real world, which is also contrary to your point.
In Iron Man I also remember reading some attempts (that were frankly boring because they were trying too hard) to tie Tony's technology to real world devices, like thermocouples (to absorb heat and convert into electricity), transistors that can seemingly do anything, Head Up Displays, etc.
My point is not that these comic books are trying to explain everything in real world technology, but they are also not totally divorced from it, which is I think what you are trying to say.
At least Star Trek is science fiction. That is much more than can be said about Star Wars!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I think IronMan is a pretty cool guy, eh uses fake physics and doesn't afraid of anything.
maybe your syntax is Invaid
Please try your search again. -?
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
They're getting ready to redo it, apparently... http://www.superheroes-r-us.com/index.php/2008/all-new-iron-manual-on-may-14/ Here's info on the first one: http://www.advancediron.org/iron-man-specials/the-iron-manual-1993
You know, the whole "real science fiction" thing reeks of the the True Scotsman fallacy. Science fiction encompasses a vast range of work, probably the widest spectrum in all of literature.
What you are referring to is traditionally known as "hard" science fiction: SF that tries to refrain from mumbo-jumbo hand-waving when it comes to advanced technology/psychic powers etc., instead relying on only that which is theoretically possible with our current understanding of the universe.
It isn't a value judgement: excellent works lie on both ends of the spectrum. To me, what makes SF valuable and interesting is not what it says about technology or the future, but what it says about us: a fun-house mirror to suss out and give insight to the nature of our humanity.
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
No that any of this is horribly likely, but stark is a billionaire personally and has all the resources of top secret weapons research company behind him. If it's "technically" possible, the "politically" possible is mostly immaterial to a guy like that. Between what he can do with his personal fortune and rerouting company resources (IIRC Stark Enterprises is a Sole Proprietorship not answerable to any investors) into his new "secret project", who's going to stop him?
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I'd be more interested in some technology to get that song out of my head.
It was done way back in 1993 as I seem to recall. I don't see any way you could improve on this.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
P.S. In case you're wondering what name to use in your list of Top 10 Favorite Super Heroes, or what to say to the Police Chief when he asks with a mix of incredulity and quiet respect "Who was that cloaked man?" after I stop a bank robbery, I am known as "The Lesionnaire"
The enemies of Democracy are
That is why Marvel invented the X-Men, they are mutants born with the X-Factor gene that gives them super powers. Stan Lee got tired of gamma rays, cosmic rays, radioactive spider bites, etc. It made it a lot better to write if one is born with that gene and it activates when they reach adolescence.
Stan Lee did Iron Man on a bet that he couldn't take a rich guy and turn him into a super hero using technology instead of super powers. So he used Tony Stark's genius and money to invent the Iron Man armor. So Stan based Tony Stark on Howard Hughes.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I remember Eddington writing in one essay that if a book was sitting on the table, and all the atoms of the table suddenly started vibrating in the vertical plane, then the book would fly off and hit the ceiling.
So to make a new compact energy source, all you *really* have to do is... break the 2nd law of thermodynamics in one direction, for a small percentage of the atoms, in a small region around your feet.
Actually, if you had 1 coloumb of +charge, and set it 1m apart from a similar ball of -charge, the force of attraction between them would be enough to lift the earth. 1 coloumb of charge could fit into the size of a baseball. Separating the charges from their equilibrium (inside atoms) would be difficult though.
Hasan
Ok, maybe not Mach 2, but you want boots that can let you keep your altitude constant, or even increase it? Here ya go Few years old too.
Umm it is a comic book. And I don't care if everything is completely possible or not. It is for entertainment.
Of course I really hated Signs. DUMBEST Aliens ever. Imagine crossing Interstellar distances only to be defeated by super soakers and a Redneck with a baseball bat.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
lawnmowers are for heroes.
Everybody love Magical Trevor!
This problem was solved fifty years ago in Western movies. Once you can store 300 bullets in a single Colt Model 1873 Single Action Revolver, slipping a few thousand litres of jet fuel into someone's backpack is trivial.
Excellent points, all of them.
Essentially, I agree with you. In places they have tried to explain the stuff, or maybe it's just technobabble for the sake if it, it gets a little strained because the explanations are tenuous. They also try to include some of the latest buzzwords to make it sound more plausible or cool.
I think in a lot of places, they would have been better served by NOT trying to reconcile the two, because you go so far down the garden path it's not funny. The human elements are more likely to be illuminating than anytime they stray into technology.
My primary point was that comics aren't sci-fi, and (bad attempts by the authors notwithstanding) one shouldn't try too hard to sort out the "real world" science of this stuff. It necessarily exists in its own world, and that has a few minor differences.
Trying too hard to have a serious discussion on some of the corner cases in comics and the movies they inspire is best left to venues with beer, or a Master's in English. (Note to English majors, this isn't a dis -- I know someone who did her MA in English lit with a strong comic content using Sandman and Conrad's "Heart of Darkness".)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Just for the record, I was tempted to make a joke about fitting my bulky equipment up your Mom's wormhole last night. I did think about it. But I didn't. ;)
"Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox
Any other stupid platitudes you'd like shredding while I'm here?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Right, and it's perfectly feasible to build a nuclear reactor small enough to integrate into a suit like that, powerful enough to meet the energy requirements, and safe enough to also put a man into the same suit?
OK.
Heh, it's kind of weird. Have you watched "The Truman Show", "The Matrix"? It'd be a lot easier if you did, because you'll get my idea easier. How can you tell if there exists ANYTHING beyond what you think there is? Or, in other words: if you can prove the existence of at least one thing, that hasn't been heard, seen, touched, smelled or tasted (directly through our organs, or indirectly via some specialized device like a microscope, IR camera, and such), then you have proven me wrong. But I'll save you time and effort and already tell you that this is impossible. Because it's like trying to prove that the contents of some register or memory address are such and such, while being limited by having no way of reading those contents. So, that's true - anything that you can tell that is real, has to go into your brain through one of your senses.
And here comes in the imagination. Some damn wise scientists have attached that thing that can measure the brainwaves and stuff to one guy's head. They've showed him an apple, wrote down whatever the machine spitted out. Then told him to close his eyes and imagine that apple, and compared both measurements. Guess what? Your brain doesn't give a fuck whether you actually see something with your eyes or only imagine that. I don't have any references on that, but hey, am I a Wikipedia of some kind?
What's more, direct brain interfaces are not anything new. We've all saw those little documentaries on the TV about blind people with attached cameras, who were able to "see" again (or maybe even for the first time). So in fact, anything could be fed into someone's mind, and that person would perceive it as "real", that will be the reality they "see". Then we can fiddle & tinker with that poor guy's perception, making him believe that crazy things are actually "reality". Or someone else might be doing that with us.
Well. Then how can WE prove that anything we "see, hear, touch, smell and taste" is really real? There is no single fuckin' way of telling that, because we're in a sandbox, in a virtual machine, in a game of "The Sims", or however you'd like to call it. We can *only* tell if something "happens" if it's inside our heads.
==
And about my claim that there is a way out... That's a bit of a longer story. But it is doable, because people were doing it. It's just all about pushing the boundaries... Or maybe: realizing, that any and all boundaries that are limiting our minds are illusionary, "made real" only by our minds themselves. I was able to realize that, Buddha was, Jesus was, a shitload of other people were... And I know that anyone could, if they only wanted.
Actually, if you had 1 coloumb of +charge, and set it 1m apart from a similar ball of -charge, the force of attraction between them would be enough to lift the earth. 1 coloumb of charge could fit into the size of a baseball. Separating the charges from their equilibrium (inside atoms) would be difficult though.
:)
Yes - it just might be difficult. It would require as much energy as that which would otherwise be necessary to lift the earth.
Not that this analogy is really a good one - I can "lift" the earth just by jumping - the Earth's center of mass (not including myself) does indeed shift slightly every time I take a step.
There are lots of examples of huge amounts of potential energy - the problem is releasing this energy.
So actually, you'd have to go back ~40 (or ~3.33-dozen) years to arrive at a time when no-one had built a Mach 2 capable engine (which is approximately 67% more than, "a couple dozen years"), and doesn't mean that it was necessarily technologically "impossible" for some number of years before that point.
-AC
Well, not really. No way you can make a suit that flies that way for more than a few meters without anti-gravity. Where are the fuel tanks? And if a real person was inside of it, doing the things it supposedly does, you'd end up with a can of Campell's Hearty Tomato Stew with Real Meat Chunks.
And don't get me started on the issue of batteries. The existence of a battery system as good as Iron Man's is inconsistent with the world as we know it today.
What is different about the story is that it is located in a world that is more recognizably our own. The Batman movies are more blatantly archetypal. Gotham City is closer to Middle Earth than it is to our world. It isn't just that the story features real place names like "Vietnam" or "Afghanistan" (which in the story don't actually much resemble the real countries of the same name). It's that Tony Stark lives in a world where most people get along, and few like him do very well, by not rocking the boat, not questioning the status quo, and acting as if the aftermath of their actions were somebody else's job to clean up.
What gives the Iron Man story a different twist on most comic book stories is that if you strip away Tony Stark's engineering genius, he isn't really all that different from any other American; he just has the money to do indulge himself on a larger scale.
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Hey! I was bit by a mutant spider you insensitive clod!
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
Holy Shit Duuude! -- Where can I get my hands on whatever the fuck it is you've been smoking?!
It must have been some goddamned amazing stuff!
Indeed - it's actually a bit of a plot hole that Peter Parker, who was clearly very smart, would behave that way.
I saw a Star Trek interview a few years back that was talking about how whenever the writers would encounter a situation in the plot that they couldn't find a way out of, they would send the script in to some "engineers" (not sure how qualified they really were as real engineers) and just ask them to "tech the tech" in the difficult area. Problem solved!
But Star Trek was always originally about the human element, and some of the later series had a nasty habit of using technology to fix stuff instead of people(I'm not dissing Trek by the way [I am a hardcore Trekkie], just stating a minor annoyance). If you compare problem solving in TOS with Voyager it's all quite a bit different. In TOS they would try and bluff/strategize their way out of a situation, where as in Voyager and some of the other later series they would just invent/acquire new technology to solve all their problems.
Some examples, just because I can: In Wrath of Khan when the Enterprise was almost beaten by the augment-controlled USS Reliant, instead of coming up with some crazy tech to solve their problem they considered the situation and used the Reliant's prefix codes to lower their shields. Brilliant! In Voyager, instead of thinking their way out, they just used future tech. Boring and not as cool. Though it made the space battles cooler... In The Corbomite Maneuver (TOS) they bluffed themselves out of a tight spot rather than just conjuring some unheard of solution involving weird technology. Well, it did kind of involve weird technology (the corbomite device), but at least it wasn't claimed that it was real.
I just friended you for that, Spidey.
So being bitten by a radioactive spider gave you necrotic lesions and hideous gaping wounds, but you keep walking around?
That's not superpowers! That's being a ZOMBIE!
We need a team of sanitizers over here, NOW!
Yes, yes, that's all very nice.
Still. You're missing the point. The burden of proof is on the claimant. I don't *have* to prove you wrong. You have to prove yourself right. It's not enough to say "Well, it's possible!" It's not enough to say "There's no way to prove me wrong!" It doesn't matter. YOU have to prove yourself RIGHT.
Look, if there is no functional difference between "real, objective reality" and "we live in THE MATRIX OMG" then there is no difference, period. If it is not possible to distinguish between the two, then for all intents and purposes, they are identical. The burden of proof is on you to show me the flaw in the matrix that proves that we are in fact a simulation running on a machine--until that time, the rational, logical position is that the shared reality we all see, hear, feel, taste, and smell is in fact a real, objective reality.
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
2 out of 3 ain't bad.
Heck for a suit like that I'd wear one (for a while).
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
When one's brain goes wonky, sometimes comfort is all one cares about.
I took a few good whacks to the head in my youth, and my first response was always utterly dumb. One time, despite bleeding profusely, I wanted to stay by my mangled bike so no one could steal it. Thankfully, my friend was able to think straight for me.
With other accidents, I always sought medical care, although I had a fever once that rendered me stupid for the duration.
I always found the lesson Spiderman teaches a little weird; if you get bitten by a spider and start stumbling around and seeing everything blurred don't tell a soul, pretend like nothing happened, and go up to your room to sleep.
Completely off topic... When I was in high school (err... 35 years ago? was it really that long?) I was sitting in class when in the space of about 10 seconds, my vision faded completely to black. I sat there like nothing was wrong, trying to figure out what I should do. The guy in front of me turned around and said something to me, and I pointed my eyes in the direction of his voice and answered. After an eternity (probably 3-4 minutes) I slowly noticed silhouettes of orange and black appearing. Vision slowly returned. I never told anyone; not my friends, not my parents, certainly not a doctor. Fortunately, it has never happened again.
Well, I'll debate the science merits of Harry Potter.
Magic, in Harry Potter, is depicted as much more scientific the science is in most sci-fi. It is more technological than mechanical engineering is in Iron Man.
It is true that magic, in Harry Potter, can only be done by some people. However if you are one of those people, it operates in a repeatable way. In fact, it is not just repeatable in a hocus pocus way, but in a way that allows people to abstract general laws and principles for its operation. Magical techniques and knowledge are improved both by practical experimentation and theoretical exploration. There are even scholarly journals in specialized magical sub-discplines ("Transfiguration Today", and "Challenges in Charming").
In fact in several cases these magical disciplines are actually real world cases of obsolete sciences that did not keep up with the empirical advances of science as a whole. Newton was an alchemist, after all, and numerology ("arithmancy") and astrology where related Hermetic proto-sciences much studied by Newton's contemporaries. Medicine barely squeaked over the line in the real world, leaving chiropractic just on the other side. Osteopathy was the last bit over the fence, and medicine is absorbing it into normal "allopathic" practice.
In Harry Potter's world economic competition spurs technological innovation in broomstick design. Research is discovering new treatments for ancient diseases (lycanthropy) and new applications for materials (dragon's blood). The government itself has advanced research facilities for advanced research into topics like the nature of time.
Education seems to follow this pattern: students are introduced to a theoretical concept, then they are given a practical demonstration, followed by a lab exercise. If they fail the lab exercise, they are given additional practice and theory assignments, culminating in an essay which demonstrates their grasp of the principles being taught. After a course of many such cycles, they are given an exam which determines their competency to study more advanced topics. In many ways, the educational practices of Hogwarts would be exemplary if it were an engineering college.
In most stories, magic is a kind of detritus of a past Golden Age; the knowledge of that age has been shattered and its pieces are slowly disappearing out of the world. Lucky (or sometimes very unlucky) individuals come into possession of bits of that knowledge, often in the form of ancient and hard-decipher scrolls or mouldy old grimoires. It is notable that Hogwarts texts, while at times a bit -- eccentric, are generally freshly printed and (sometimes) represent the efforts of reasonably contemporary scholars.
In short, the world of Harry Potter is most strongly characterized by progress in theoretical knowledge (science) and practical applications (technology). The one difference is that the minds of individual magic practitioners are interfaced in ways that are more direct than trough the the nerve endings in their bodies.
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Fit in a shoe and not burn your feet off. Or to make an exoskeleton light enough to fly and still give you the strength of ten men etc etc etc.
I'll also say the examples given in the article are complete crap for saying "this could be real" even in the next 20 years for most of the technology.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I disagree. How can it be pink and invisible? Seriously. The only current way we have of making things invisible is camouflage, either active (cloaking) or passive (painting) both of which would necessitate the unicorn not being pink.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
if you have a box the size of a horse , there's always the possibility that an invisible pink unicorn apears.... no wait
They generally aren't traveling laterally very much (without suits) and they definitely aren't traveling at near-sonic or hypersonic speeds as the clips seem to show iron-man doing.
You're right though, it doesn't take much to change course for a body as small as a human. Slight variations can make huge trajectory differences.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
You have to go back to the original source material. Tony Stark was a genius at using transistors to miniaturize technological gadgetry. He transistorized his rocket boots, the fuel they use, and the batteries. Just remember that he did it all with transistors.
Sure, other super-heroes relied on semi-magical crutches like "radioactive spiders", "super soldier serums", "cosmic radiation exposure", but Iron Man is pure technology. Just slap (well solder) a three legged transistor on small widget and you will find it is able to do the same work as a room sized version of the same widget.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Real-time translation is impossible as much as redefining pi to be 3. Different languages present different information, and even when they present the same information they can give it at different times. The part that is lost in translation can carry critically important information, such as irony, cultural quotations, idiomatic expressions, or simply words that do not have an appropriate equivalent.
So, if you are dealing with a critical situation, such as an hostage situation as in the Iron Man movie, you had better use a human interpreter, because machine translator is just too error-prone.
I think language is by a long shot the most complex tool people use. Using it everyday we do not realise how insanely complex it is and how skilled we are at using it, constantly keeping track of tens of thousands of words and their combinations. Try to live for some time in a foreign country where you have to learn the local language in order to be understood, and you'll rapidly see why real-time translation will never work.
I for one think that using a planned, easy-to-learn language all over the world and teach it to everybody (did anyone say Esperanto?) would be far more economical than developing accurate real-time machine translation—not that it is very likely to happen anytime soon.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I know you were making a good joke, but the thing that makes characters like Batman and Iron Man interesting is that they're regular guys. Heros, not Superheros. It's easy to be a hero if you're Superman, odds are you're not gonna die on a given day. Batman and Iron Man have only their wits to keep them alive. And their toys.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
What if you put the invisible unicorn in front of a pink wall? ;)
Oh, come now, would you expect a genius like Stark would miss that bit?
The suit (apparently) has an excellent communications system, that surely include things like noise cancellation and background noise shaping. When he is suited up and taking a call in his Tony Stark persona, he doesn't want to sound like he's talking into a cheap headset, while standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier with with a cookpot over his head.
Come to think of it, the "flatness" is probably a deliberate attempt by the director to insinuate the notion into your head that you are hearing Stark over a mobile communication system. He probably could have made Downey sound ling Bing Crosby crooning into an RCA-44 mic, if he wanted to. In fact, that might have been an interesting choice.
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The Matrix, The 13th Floor, Existenz, The Truman Show, Deckard in Blade Runner, the last unknown Cylon in the new Battlestar Galactica, etc.
As you say, what you think is real is what is around you. If we're all simulations in a giant computer (or something similar) than our reality is the environment around us and the "real reality" would be perceived as "unreal" to most people.
On a side note, is it just me or do Downey's whoops and hollers sound flat? I realize he wasn't actually flying but his yelling just doesn't seem, to me, to be indicative of someone who's flying in a suit of armor.
On any given day, Tony Stark is likely hung over. How's that for casting?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Now Tony can use Memristors too! So his future suit won't require boot-up times, and can have an AI that is human-level via pure circuitry.
Iron man is shown leaving contrails -- or possibly smoke trails. Either way he's burning something that has to have mass and volume. Where does he keep it?
In the trailer, we see him crash the suit from thousand of feet up, breaking his fall by going through meters of reinforced concrete. Granting that the suit might survive this, its occupant is supposed to be human. Keep in mind that he brain and spinal cord have the approximate consistency of toothpaste.
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The "Corbomite Device" was a bluff? So that means the "Photonic Canon" threat used by the Doctor in Voyager was also a remake of an old episode?
Nuclear power? Far too crude for Stark; it's the world's most dangerously overcomplicated method of boiling water. You'd need all kinds of fuel mass, not to mention complicated machinery, just to eke out a measly few neutrons.
... duotronically controlled matter antimatter reaction dirven vectorized propulsion. That'd be just the thing for a rocket boot, if you don't mind the risk that your athlete's foot would mutate into something unexpectedly horrible.
Stark would use something like
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I just want to know if this movie's suit has the retractable roller skates. Those were hawt.
If you look at what the suit is supposed to do, and remember that there is supposed to be a person in it that is not screaming in agony, the only plausible explanation is that the suit is equipped with exotic physics technology that manipulates gravity or inertia. That would explain why he doesn't need to carry hundreds of liters of reaction mass around.
The "contrails" it leaves might be something like condensation trails in a could chamber, or they might literally be a kind of "smoke screen".
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Get a look at the Large Dextrous Arm.
http://www.sarcos.com/teleop_videos.html
It's hydraulically actuated, so it's very strong and yet approaches the speed of a human arm (if it were scaled up). On top of that, there's haptic force feedback! In the video someone is holding an anvil like a freaking beer mug!
If you developed a full-body haptic feedback harness with their technology and put it in the center of mass of a giant robot body, you'd basically have a real-life Anime style mecha. Since the pilot's body would be tied to the orientation of the robot body, the pilot's own middle-ear would be the balancing mechanism! (You'd probably have to power it externally at first, which would give you something like Evangelion!)
(Back when I first posted about this, some idiot posted "Duh. It's called GEARS. But if you set those up for strength, they become SLOW." Unfortunately, the thread closed before I could respond. No gears involved, it's all hydraulics. Hydraulics can approach or surpass the speed of muscle, but with even more strength. I hate it when idiots get the last word, and they're just flat-out WRONG!)
Passive & a pink wall?
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Now that's just completely unfair. The majority of my tissue and all my organs are still completely alive. Sure it's spreading, but I'll probably just die when it goes too far. On the other hand, this is a great hook.
"Counting down to his untimely death, pursued by overzealous zombie hunters, The Lesionnaire fights for his life and his freedom while bringing justice to criminals."
Okay, you're hired as my well-meaning pseudo-nemesis.
The enemies of Democracy are
It's all about the writing.
Voyager came along at a time when keeping the franchise running creatively would have been a huge challenge in any case. TNG extended the formula from TOS as far as the creative team could. But on top of that they were already running another series in the same franchise: DS9.
You'd think that there is enough writing talent in the world to keep two Star Trek series running in parallel. However the number of writers capable of and interested in writing Star Trek scripts, and who were trusted to do so, might narrow down the possibilities a great deal.
For whatever reason, as time went on the creative well was evidently dry, and it was being shared by two series.
There were a lot of very good episodes in DS9. There were not a few reasonably good Voyager episodes. But towards the end of the DS9 run there were an inordinate number of stinkers, and Voyager was breaking out in lousy scripts as well.
If you imagine that there had been a single series, without the worst of the episodes and wth a few more really good episodes, then you would have had something closer to TNG in its popularity.
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2 words: Occam's Razor
Since, as you said, if both are identical, then following Occam's Razor you are right, and the GGP (or whoever said things are only what you imagine them to be) is wrong.
The only way to escape Occam's Razor on this is not to prove he is right or wrong, but to prove that our general concept of reality is wrong. He doesn't even need to prove his to be right.
My spoon is just a spoon.
morcego
Is it really fair to call a movie a blockbuster when it hasn't been released yet?
I mean, odds are it will go on to be a blockbuster. And it' a blockbuster type of movie... but I thought the term blockbuster meant it's a movie that has also enjoyed some level of commercial success.
Then again I'm sure the movie tie-in deals alone are worth more than I'll make in the next couple of years.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Good Sci-Fi uses unheard of technology or really advance technology to forward the plot. Bad Sci-Fi uses unheard of technology or really advance technology to resolve the plot (I talking to you Star Trek Fans (Espectially Voyager))
No, good science-fiction uses technologies which are a reasonable extrapolation from existing applied science. Otherwise, it's not science fiction, it's fantasy or some other genre entirely, because if you're just going to invent your science you can say anything. That's why I always enjoyed the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and other hard science fiction authors: the math always worked.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That's true, the Photonic Canon was a pretty good bluff. I'm not saying Voyager didn't have its share of bluffy goodness, it just wasn't as prevalent.
If the film writers were able to explain every detail about how the Iron Man suit worked, it wouldn't be science fiction.
Or just squeeze your huge ball of pus to squirt them with some nice yellowish ooze!
Ok Ok, but I hope you understood what I was trying to say.
Millions and millions of people whose combined mileage driven is over 2000 billion miles, and there are only 6 million accidents a year.
And I hate getting behind those slow ass photons, they always seem to be taking up all the lanes traveling the same speed! grrrr...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As someone who has let an excited whoop loose in a motorcycle helmet, let me reassure it's not something you want to do too enthusiastically. I can imagine it being even worse with a completely sealed, metal job like his. ;-)
Oh, and none of the "I got bitten by a mutant spider/got exposed to gamma ray/etc" crap that is usually associated with american super-heroes. I saw the movie yesterday (hooray for prerelease showings). Quite honestly, if you're looking for something "within the realm of possible science," you're probably going to be disappointed.
The suit, and the movie, defy both physics and common sense in a number of ways. A few of the more egregious violations:
1) The suit's power supply. It's basically magic. They give a halfhearted explanation for it, but even they don't seem to be very enthusiastic.
2) The suit apparently uses a thrust-exhaust system to fly...without any fuel source.
3) He gets knocked around, crash-lands at high speed, etc., and then gets up and walks away. Even assuming the suit itself is indestructible, basic inertia means that Stark himself would be splattered around the inside of the suit.
That said, if you want scientific realism, you shouldn't be watching superhero movies. It's a reasonably entertaining spectacle, and I accept the above are pretty much necessary if you're going to make a superhero movie. TFA doesn't really claim the entire movie is realistic, but rather makes a few good points about some of the more plausible tech featured, such as AI, helper robots, UI choices for design and targeting, etc. But overall, just because the superhero-magic is based in fake "science" doesn't mean that it's more realistic--even theoretically--than developing superpowers from getting bitten by a mutant spider.
so you only watch movies that you feel portray believable situations
Try Eloctroconvulsive Therapy. Been around since the 1930's, and induces temporary to permanent amnesia an/or memory loss.
Wipe that song right out of your head with a few electric jolts!
From the wiki article here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroshock_therapy
"Adverse effects
The physical risks of ECT are similar to those of brief general anesthesia; the United States' Surgeon General's report says that there are "no absolute health contraindications" to its use.[11] Immediately following treatment the most common adverse effects are confusion and memory loss. The state of confusion usually disappears after an hour.
[edit] Effects on cognition and memory
It is the effects of ECT on long-term memory that give rise to much of the concern surrounding its use.[35]The acute effects of ECT include amnesia, both retrograde (for events occurring before the treatment) and anterograde (for events occurring after the treatment).[36] Memory loss and confusion are more pronounced with bilateral electrode placement rather than unilateral, and with sine-wave rather than brief-pulse currents."
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
That "thousands of feet" thing in the trailer bothered me too -- turns out it's a classic bit of Hollywood misdirection.
Spoiler (based on a different trailer, haven't seen the movie yet):
He apparently recovers from the boot explosion/flameout and comes to a hover about five feet above the roof. He asks Jarvis what the load rating for the roof is, cuts the jets without waiting for an answer --
And goes right through the roof. Whoops.
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
True, the acrobatic stunts he pulls in the trailer would probably only be physically possible if he has some sort of inertial canceler. Unfortunately, that kind of technology goes up there into the pure science fiction realm, rather than the "possible with an infinite amount of energy" real.
True. :)
I was thinking along the lines of a genetically engineered pink unicorn wearing active camouflage. Then the unicorn would be invisible, even though the unicorn itself would not be invisible. I guess it depends on the definition of a pink, invisible unicorn.
take a whole load of beans to keep that lot in the air and one lax moment clean up job anyone .. hummmmm ..
Me: the mankind has been sitting in a basement, claiming that the world is the basement. If it's all they've ever seen, that's true. But I'm trying to say that there is a stairway with which you can go outside and see the sky and sun and all the other things, because I've been outside and saw that. (The only flaw is that everything you can have as a proof that there is the "outside world" is my (or someone else's) word; or eventually *your own experience*.)
...
Some Random Basement Inhabitant: it's BS. There is no stairway there. The sun doesn't exist. The world is the basement. You must've been smoking something.
Me: oh, of course you don't see it. You have never ever saw a stairway before, so even when you see it, how can you recognize it as a stairway? Your own mind is imposing a barrier on you. I can't help it.
SRBI: all right, lead me to the stairway and show me that there is that "suns" and "skies" outside.
Me: I can't. Every human must find their own stairway. My stairway will not work for you. Your stairway will most likely be completely different from mine. Hell, it might even be a ladder. You must search it for yourself, in exactly the same way that you think for yourself. You do think for yourself, don't you?
SRBI: I don't know what you're smoking, but I want some.
Me:
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
Really? the SR-71 was designed and built in the 1960's. Last i checked that was both more than a few years ago and was more fuel efficient when traveling mach 3.
and you call me arrogant. At least I know the history of jet engines.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I forgot about that one. hahaha
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
and you call me arrogant. At least I know the history of jet engines. Pedantic much?
There's a reason I was vague on the details - because I don't know them I'm not an aerospace engineer, nor a flight historian, and I don't pretend to be either one. But I guarantee you there was a point in time when we couldn't build jet engines - whether it was a "couple dozen" years ago, or "several dozen", or "two hundred" is hardly relevant to the point I was making.
There was a point, in the past, where our modern jet engines were flat-out impossible. A point where we had achieved flight but lacked the science and technology to make a jet engine. And it took years of work to discover exactly how to make it happen, and then to develop our technological infrastructure to the point that it could actually happen.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
That's all I have to say. There's a *lot* that could be done... but there is *no* power source capable of being small enough to do this.
mark "until I find Metal X and build an exciter...."
What about a personal version of the project pluto nuclear ramjet?
Very simple design - you collect air, heat it up and squirt it out the back. You have no shortage of air and the reactor can stay hot for ages.
http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html
You'd need some very advanced neutron shield of course. But a nuclear ramjet gives you unlimited flight time and no problems with reaction mass. And if you can shield the pilot from neutrons it seems like you could shield the air too, so the exhaust wouldn't be radioactive. In fact I'm not sure that air, mostly Oxygen and Nitrogen, would absorb neutrons even if it were not shielded. There's a probelm if you crash of and crack the shielding of course.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
SRBI: all right, lead me to the stairway and show me that there is that "suns" and "skies" outside.
You: I can't, so I'll suddenly start backpedaling and claim that it's a magical stairway that conveniently works differently for everyone. Now when you don't believe in my magic stairs it's because you're all closed-minded and stuff, and certainly not because I have completely failed to make an even remotely convincing case for any of my claims. I'm enlightened, you know!
Remember that Isaac Asimov also used a nuclear reactor the size of a fist in the first part of the Foundation series, to generate a personal powerfield.
Oh yeah, you know where he stores that fuel!
If you're going to talk about a topic, you should at least have a modicum of knowledge about it, otherwise you just look like an ignorant fool.
Anyone that knows anything about aviation knows that most of the major advances in jet airplanes came about in the 40s-60s. Ever since then, there haven't been any huge breakthroughs, except perhaps thrust vectoring and VTOL. This is similar to how there haven't been any major breakthroughs in automobile technology for over a half century.
Jets have been traveling beyond Mach 2 for a long, long time. I'm no aerospace engineer or flight historian, either, and I know this, just like I know basic history, math, science, literature, and other topics which add up to make one be considered "educated".
A real life mach 2 engine, while much larger than a man, also powers an airplane which is much, much larger than a man (usually on the order of 10-25,000 pounds). Accelerating a 170 pound man to mach 2 doesn't require nearly as much energy, so it stands to reason that the engines for this would be very small as well.
You have a point with the fuel, however. In a typical jet aircraft, the fuel requires a lot of space, possibly more volume in fact than the engines. Of course, if Iron Man is using something other than jet engines, or engines of any kind powered by petroleum-based fuel, then this might not be a problem. But no one's ever made a nuclear-powered rocket that I know of.
How do i shot web???
"Hell, The Rocketeer did it, so why can't Stark?"
Because The Rocketeer was pushed near his gravity center, not his feet.
"As for control surfaces... Ask a skydiver what he's doing while he's falling."
Because he is pulled (by gravity) from exactly his gravity center, not his feet.
"If the film writers were able to explain every detail about how the Iron Man suit worked, it wouldn't be science fiction."
Not exactly.
You can have "science fiction", like in "2001, a Space Oddisey": you don't have the technology to build neither HAL, nor the big spaceship or the hibernation systems, but you know it could work "in principle".
Or you can have "weird science fiction", like an antimatter engine, a "quantic force shield" or even some kind of "hyperspatial, faster than light" flight, that could work by an aduced "current lack of knowledge".
And then you have "nuts science fiction" where the explained or seen parts are obviously unworkable by known applied physical principles, like sounds on spatial explosions or fighters that navigate on a vacuum as if they were on an atmosphere on Starwars or an obvious reaction jet-like engine without an expellable mass deposit, which is the case here.