Things learned while doing research...

[ShotokanXL]

While research material for my current manuscript I've found that I've learned quite a lot of odd, random things. Things like: how a chemical snap-light works, how an automatic assault rifle functions, how to navigate using the moon instead of the sun, why the Kolyma Highway in Siberia is know as The Road of Bones (it's quite tragic, actually) and how to ship something from Yakutsk to Seattle via Vladivostock!

So I was wondering if anyone else felt like sharing any strange or random things that they found out while doing research - something you never thought you would learn or need to know.

Anyone?

 

[thaddeus6th]

Occasionally on Twitter (MorrisF1) I make up a number and attach it to a Weird Research tag. Can't remember many, but a couple that spring to mind are that komodo dragons are capable of parthenogenesis, and that pistols with revolving barrels existed and pre-dated what we would today call revolvers.

 

[alchemist]

I've watched videos of sodium exploding when it hits water.
I've learned and unlearned much about time dilation when travelling at relativistic speeds.
I looked up Russian swear words (they're colourful and imaginative!).
I've researched different types of nucear reactor.
I looked up luch menus at Wimbledon, and took a virtual tour of restaurants there.
I've looked for first-hand accounts of lightning strikes.


And so on...

 

[ShotokanXL]

I've watched videos of sodium exploding when it hits water.
I've learned and unlearned much about time dilation when travelling at relativistic speeds.
I looked up Russian swear words (they're colourful and imaginative!).
I've researched different types of nucear reactor.
I looked up luch menus at Wimbledon, and took a virtual tour of restaurants there.
I've looked for first-hand accounts of lightning strikes.


And so on...

Ha ha! I've also looked up Russian swear words

 

[Ray McCarthy]

• Stuff about Ballet. Huge number of terms.
• Chinese and European Noble Ranks
• Chinese Government 200BC to 1912
• Boarding Schools, real and fictional, now and Victorian.
• Vision and colour perception, bichromats. trichromats, and tetrachromats
  
• How Glow Sticks work
• Spectrum & UV vs Star size
  
• The mysterious species specific Vitamins and Amino Acids.
• Some egg hatched species do have a faint belly button when young, but marsupials have no belly button.
• Flying Squirrels are Marsupials and don't really fly.
• Some Mega bats are smaller than ordinary bats. I knew a flying fox is a bat, but it's a Megabat.
  
• Koala Bears are Marsupials.
• Even with Fusion power, prolonged 1G acceleration is impractical before you even get close to speed of light.
• Mysterious non-linear nature of planet size vs density because even liquid iron compresses.
• There are nearly as many stars between spiral arms of Milky Way as on them. The brightness is the difference.
• We are not actually sure how big the Milky Way is.
• We live in a lower star density part of Galaxy perhaps due to a super nova very long ago.
• We have over 30 space ports (many not in operation, esp the African ones) but some are being added in Australia.
• One company (Arianespace) does over 50% of Launches and launched 60% of satellites in use. First Commercial Launch company.
• European Space Port was started in 1960 (it's in South America, which I did know).
• Cosmic Radiation is bigger issue than Solar Radiation in space and Solar wind actually reduces it. Currently Solar wind is too low for safe trip to Mars due to Cosmic Radiation.
• Nuclear Subs (even if no Nuclear missiles) are a bit like space ships. They can be independent of any external food, air, water or power for maybe a year (exact details are secret, but early ones was 6 months!).
• Commercial Fusion power may use a 1950s Russian design, the next generation "DEMO" is expected to have net output (current model is "ITER").
• A Starship would need hundreds of Launches each of about 10 to 20 tonnes! It would need Nuclear or Fusion power Ion drive and currently we only know how to make a Generation Ship that coasts most of the way. Jump Drive requires Science/Physics/Mathematics we have no knowledge of.

News just in:
2014: Arianespace sets a record for annual operations

As predicted earlier this year, Arianespace has set a new record for annual operations since the introduction of its complete family of launchers, logging a total of 11 launches in 2014.This impressive performance was made possible by the unflagging effort of the Arianespace teams and its partners at the Guiana Space Center to reduce the time between two missions and optimize preparations for the launches.

• 11 launches (6 Ariane 5, 4 Soyuz, 1 Vega)in 2014: a record for the Arianespace family
• 78.3 metric tons orbited from French Guiana in 2014 (versus 74.1 in 2012), setting an all-time record
• >500 satellites launched since 1980 (23 in 2014)

After the official announcement of the orbital injection of the four O3b satellites, Stéphane Israël, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, said: "I would like to express my warm thanks to O3b Networks for once again placing their trust in Arianespace, so they can develop their offering of innovative telecommunications services in emerging markets. We are very proud of our role in continuing to support the growth of our customer O3b, following the start of commercial service on September 1st. We share with them a core commitment to bringing the benefits of space down to people on Earth. Thanks to Thales Alenia Space for the disponibility of this four additionnal satellites. I would also like to thank our Russian partners for ensuring the successful return to flight of the Soyuz launcher at the Guiana Space Center. And last but not least, thanks to all the teams at Arianespace, to our partners CNES/CSG and to all spaceport employees for their exceptional commitment throughout 2014, enabling us to set this new record of 11 launches during the year. Meeting this objective was not a foregone conclusion, and nothing would have been possible without the all-out commitment of everybody involved."

CNES is French Equivalent of NASA. Obviously no-one spelling checks the Arianespace translations from French.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

The shape and geology of an island
The path up a certain hill
Irish fairies, and mythologies related to changelings. Also a certain cairn on a hillside - how to reach it, what's there, what it looked like
Callisto - pretty much everything
The mental impact of torture (torture in general wasn't a highlight)
Folie-a-deux, a mental condition that allows a shared psychosis
The various estates of Belfast and their demographs
How a certain waterfall is lit up at night
What a futuristic wedding service might entael, belief-wise (@Parson helped with that)
Military training procedures and how to carry out a military attack (@Tywin was a hero with that)


So a lot of my research seems to involve walking to places and checking out mental health advice.
Which sums up an awful lot of my books...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The various estates of Belfast and their demographs

Material for a Horror story. Esp. if you include Dundonald, Newtownabbey etc.

 

[Boneman]

So I was wondering if anyone else felt like sharing any strange or random things that they found out while doing research - something you never thought you would learn or need to know.

Anyone?

An awful lot about the process of blacksmithing, particularly the mobile forges an army would carry around, and how they worked. Went to a medieval fair in France and videod a guy producing a knife, which was brilliant.

Do you do Karate?

 

[ShotokanXL]

Yes, I study Shotokan karate

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Material for a Horror story. Esp. if you include Dundonald, Newtownabbey etc.

It was all around North Belfast. The challenge was to find a Catholic area in the catchment area of an Integrated school near enough to a Protestant area to cross the ruined peacewall into it, and also close to the Cave Hill. In the end, I settled on the Oldpark. It didn't start out that complicated...

 

[ShotokanXL]

It was all around North Belfast. The challenge was to find a Catholic area in the catchment area of an Integrated school near enough to a Protestant area to cross the ruined peacewall into it, and also close to the Cave Hill. In the end, I settled on the Oldpark. It didn't start out that complicated...

Things never start out that complicated... they just become that way on their own!

 

[mosquiter]

Some of the things I picked up along the way:

-Also learned about glow sticks, whether they would work if treated by EMP. (guess they would, chemiluminescence);
-How to relocate a dislocated shoulder (haven't actually tried it yet, any volunteers?);
-Various information on the origin and physics of the Moon (courtesy of sff forum members who provided me with useful info and links, the Cosmos series and various youtube videos);
-Several words in Arabic (eventually taken up learning Arabic ) and German, and some Latin names for plants species;
-Chemical features of solid ash residue;

I am writing my first military sci-fi novel, and learning not-so-useful stuff is one of the things I really enjoy about it.

 

[ShotokanXL]

Some of the things I picked up along the way:

-Also learned about glow sticks, whether they would work if treated by EMP. (guess they would, chemiluminescence);
-How to relocate a dislocated shoulder (haven't actually tried it yet, any volunteers?);
-Various information on the origin and physics of the Moon (courtesy of sff forum members who provided me with useful info and links, the Cosmos series and various youtube videos);
-Several words in Arabic (eventually taken up learning Arabic ) and German, and some Latin names for plants species;
-Chemical features of solid ash residue;

I am writing my first military sci-fi novel, and learning not-so-useful stuff is one of the things I really enjoy about it.

I also learned about glow sticks and assault rifle mechanics because I wanted to know if they would function under emp-like effects. They would

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Mostly I research places for my urban fantasy since I can't actually go to most of them - Google maps is awesome by the way! And also names - I like to know their derivations and make sure that I'm not unintentionally maligning someone reasonably well known that I don't know. Marjan - the wizard from Maverick for example - means bitter fruit. I started out as I often do by simply altering an English name (Martin) to make it sound more in keeping with the setting. But when I learned that I thought it was just perfect for the character.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Another thing found researching Genetics:
Eye colour and Hair Colour have a high correlation due to historical accident, not genetics.
i.e. Commonly believed:
Blue & Fair
Green and Ginger
Brown and Dark

Since the eye colour and hair colour are separate genetics any mix is possible. Though anything other than Brown eyes is an old European mutation.
Blue is really no colour.
Green, grey, hazel are all variations of the not brown.
One eye colour is an optical illusion.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

glow sticks and assault rifle mechanics because I wanted to know if they would function under emp-like effects

Used up glow sticks will light up with UV. They MIGHT also light up due to EMP or radiation (if they do, you may die).

 

[K.S. Crooks]

For my first novel when characters were travelling aboard a sail ship I learned the different locations such as forecastle, poop deck, orlop deck, etc. I also learned some of the rigging for the many sails, which was interesting to know and in a way made me want to go back in time to experience the real thing. All I need is a T.A.R.D.I.S.

 

[Venusian Broon]

For my first novel when characters were travelling aboard a sail ship I learned the different locations such as forecastle, poop deck, orlop deck, etc. I also learned some of the rigging for the many sails, which was interesting to know and in a way made me want to go back in time to experience the real thing. All I need is a T.A.R.D.I.S.

Typical SF response !

You don't need to bend the fabric of space-time to get the experience. Just a fair bit of money:

http://www.classic-sailing.co.uk/tall-ships

ok, not quite the same as 18th century conditions I admit, no doubt your festooned with safety gear etc...but it looks like you get heavily involved in all the elements of sailing.

Note. I am not connected with these people, nor not really advertising their services - they were just the first lot that appeared in my Google search. Just showing their website as an example of the many tall classic ship holidays that you can buy! I personally also know people who have done real Viking cruises in a modern replicas longships - so up and down the fjords pulling oars (not sure if pillaging and attacks on monasteries are part of these excursions...)

 

[Tyburn]

I learned about some very interesting Viet Cong boobytraps - the bicycle bomb in particular struck me as clever. Explosives stuffed in the frame wired to a detonator powered by the dynamo that would normally power the bicycle's front light.

Salvia Divinorum is a hallucinogenic which (processed correctly) can be at least as powerful as LSD, if not more so. It's also referred to as 'Witches Sage'.

Admiral Lutjens, who was aboard the Bismarck when it was sunk, was a quarter Jewish and refused to give the proper Nazi salute to Hitler during an inspection, stating that "I serve my country, not her ruler". This one I integrated into the character of Grossadmiral Vaader.

A Ghost (capital 'G') is an ancient Egyptian spirit of vengance which kills by sucking the air out of the subject's lungs.

To attract a Domovoi (Russian house-elf) to your house, place a piece of bread under the cooker before you install it. Domovois take the shape of small old men with long beards and can be quite mischievous when unhappy.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

bicycle bomb

Perhaps copied from pre WWII India and Palestine?