Sounds in space, how do you feel about it?

[TheEndIsNigh]

AGW:
OK see what your saying although in some ways in doing this comparison I would constantly be into the age old time travel dilemma. Would somebody that went backwards in time remember what used to be or only what was now the actual case given the interference. Also, given the interference would the development of time travel have happened.

But never mind that, the whole concept of time travel is a nonsense. If I was able to travel just one minute back in 'time' where would I end up. Certainly nowhere near my current location. Not even on earth (OK in the earth may be) I might just make the inner orbit of Mars. We travel at 1000 mph on a planet orbiting a star at approx. 60,000mph in a galaxy moving at whatever speed.

It's going to a bit distressing when I materialise. Now I have to suspend that knowledge to even pick up a book on time travel - since I assume you don't explain how it's possible and unless I do a massive suspension of reality it's never going to seem right.

CTG:
H. G. Wells' time machine: big dial complicated switches funny looking devices = time travel. You don't get an explanation of how it's done just that it can be done. It's the introduction of the idea and subsequent consequences of being able to do it thetas interesting. How it's done - who cares lets get into the story.

The thing about SF I like is that my own imagination fills in the gaps without the need for factual descriptions of what's going on. In my example above if the description of how the sound reached the listener I would have filled in the details with a theory of my own. It's not important unless it's highlighted as such in the plot. As in :-

Fred new things were getting desperate. So many of the spaceships had been destroyed that it was now possible to hear the faint explosions as more of them added to the small pocket of atmosphere that was developing in the battle space, a thing he knew was impossible/ a thing he knew was theoretically possible.

Either way the story works, we are interested in Fred's next move (or should be)

 

[ctg]

CTG:
H. G. Wells' time machine: big dial complicated switches funny looking devices = time travel. You don't get an explanation of how it's done just that it can be done. It's the introduction of the idea and subsequent consequences of being able to do it thetas interesting. How it's done - who cares lets get into the story.

Well, when the time machine wheel starts to spin and time itself jump forward and starts to move faster and faster, it provides that necessary belief to the audience of working time-machine. It samething in my own prose, when the time starts to move faster and faster, it hasn't broken people beliefs but they have travelled through the time into the dark future. The only thing that I needed to provide was the 'vessel' and the character narrative. Not for a moment people has gone, "fuc***g h*ll, what's he doing? I cannot take this boll**ks any longer..."

Look at the Practhett Diskworld. The whole world is resting on top of four elephants that are standing on top of the great turtoise, which is travelling through the space. People believe it, and they can go in there, they can see the water from the oceans disappering over the edge, but there is no physical explanation where the heck it goes. It just goes ... somewhere and we all know that's not possible (according to our science).

Writer has to provide some sort of explanation to the things, or the spell is broken. That's my opinion.

 

[Urlik]

Look at the Practhett Diskworld. The whole world is resting on top of four elephants that are standing on top of the great turtoise, which is travelling through the space. People believe it, and they can go in there, they can see the water from the oceans disappering over the edge, but there is no physical explanation where the heck it goes. It just goes ... somewhere and we all know that's not possible (according to our science).

Writer has to provide some sort of explanation to the things, or the spell is broken. That's my opinion.

but the Discworld isn't entirely Pratchett's idea and has roots in previous world beliefs. one variation even postulated that it is "turtles all the way down"
Pratchett also explains how it all works; the Discworld has a strong magical field and large amounts of narrativium

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

CTG: :- "fuc***g h*ll, what's he doing? I cannot take this boll**ks any longer..."

What an absolutely fine piece of expleting there. I'm still having trouble holding my sides in. Excelent, and I'm now having trouble seeing the post window due to the tears.

 

[ctg]

What an absolutely fine piece of expleting there. I'm still having trouble holding my sides in. Excelent, and I'm now having trouble seeing the post window due to the tears.

I'm glad to be in service. Swearing is my second nature, and I use it sometimes to really express myself, almost as if I was an artist.

 

[HardScienceFan]

you're ***k*** serious

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

OK lads back on your head.

H. G. Wells :- Yes it's nice to have a bit of extra detail though the story would work just as well without it.

He sat down adjusted a few dials and immediately the scene shifted - would be all that is needed to get to the next scene. The story is really about what might happen if time travel were possible not the technicalities of how it was supposed to work.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I guess I could try it with the DVD star wars scenes and press the mute button! (Though the sound track music over the top probably won’t help).

Talking of the suspension of reality required in cinema films and TV: how many times in your life has an orchestra been just out of view, playing exactly the right music to suit whatever you're experiencing? Let alone playing that music in outer space

I wonder if anyone's written a spoof novel in which the character keeps hearing this annoying music all the time, and knows he'd better watch out when it begins to sound threatening...could be useful, I suppose. I mean, if he was with a girl and the syrupy romantic stuff started up, he'd know he was in with a good chance

 

[chrispenycate]

He'd know he wasn't in with a chance at all - that as soon as he'd got a few of her outer garments loosened and snuggled a bit, there'd be a green circle appear in the sky, and reel change would transfer him to the morning after, with all of the guilt and none of the memories.
Yes, I think I did see the film, probably in black and white after midnight. Like the symphony orchestra in the desert, Hollywood has no major problem with mocking its own traditions.
I, of course, don't merit a string section; I get a solo "Film noir" saxophonist blowing weird atonal sequences that don't give a clue what's going on – they hadn't the budget for more.
Still, I'd like to see him play in hard vacuum…

 

[Dave]

I wonder if anyone's written a spoof novel in which the character keeps hearing this annoying music all the time

I think I remember a scene in Mel Brook's Spaceballs, along with the scene of the Orchestra getting impatient with the size of the passing spaceship. There is certainly a scene in one spoof film I remember where the Orchestra is told to quiet down.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

I wonder if anyone's written a spoof novel in which the character keeps hearing this annoying music all the time, and knows he'd better watch out when it begins to sound threatening...could be useful, I suppose. I mean, if he was with a girl and the syrupy romantic stuff started up, he'd know he was in with a good chance

LOL get it written before someone else gets there.

 

[jezelf]

I think I remember a scene in Mel Brook's Spaceballs,...

A bit off topic, but I like the scene in 'Top Secret' where they are on a train stopped at a station. Then it looks like they are moving but it is actually some prop guys wheeling away the platform prop! great visual gag. Comes to mind everytime I take a train journey.

 

[ctg]

Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered. SPACE.com -- Earth's Cries Recorded in Space

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered. SPACE.com -- Earth's Cries Recorded in Space

Interesting, but those are radio waves, not sound waves.

 

[ctg]

Interesting, but those are radio waves, not sound waves.

True, still goes by using sounds. I'll be waiting for something to broke in ISS and making sounds so that I can post it.

 

[Ursa major]

True, still goes by using sounds.

Er, no: it does not "go" by using sounds. It travels like all other electromagnetic radiation travels. As for sound, I'll quote Wiki: "Sound is vibration transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas"; this is why it does not propagate through a vacuum.

Just because someone goes out of their way to convert a radio wave into something that they can hear, it doesn't make it a sound (either when it was created or when it's travelling through a vacuum).


(By the way, if the listener doesn't want their ears to be pierced by what they've created by converting the radio wave into sound, they should turn the volume down.)

 

[ctg]

Er, no: it does not "go" by using sounds. It travels like all other electromagnetic radiation travels. As for sound, I'll quote Wiki: "Sound is vibration transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas"; this is why it does not propagate through a vacuum.

Just because someone goes out of their way to convert a radio wave into something that they can hear, it doesn't make it a sound (either when it was created or when it's travelling through a vacuum).


(By the way, if the listener doesn't want their ears to be pierced by what they've created by converting the radio wave into sound, they should turn the volume down.)

Ok, ok, I'll back down. My fault. Man, I don't want to get slapped by a bear. I like bears.

 

[Troo]

Funnily enough I've recently published a story that featured impossible sounds and odd physics. And I didn't edit them out.

It seemed to fit the story

 

[Urlik]

Funnily enough I've recently published a story that featured impossible sounds and odd physics. And I didn't edit them out.

It seemed to fit the story

and right at the heart of it, that is the only thing that is important
Douglas Adams had some incredibly inaccurate physics in his books, but they fitted into the story and the imaginary universe that the story was set in, and therefore the reader was able to accept them.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Funnily enough I've recently published a story that featured impossible sounds and odd physics. And I didn't edit them out.

It seemed to fit the story

Ah ha. There you are then. Did it do well?

OR did you get thousands of letters from ctg and his mates describing their excruciating pain in the reproductive regions.