Reality check on SF action scenes

[GTOM]

Can it be right, that transhuman heroine can fry RFID chips with EMP, open an electromagnetic door lock, but can't knock out permanently an electric torch?
(I guess transistors of control systems are more sensitive than electric lighting.
Later she would fight a cyborg bodyguard, at first her pulse would be rather ineffective, but after multiple bullet hits, Faraday cages damaged, and she can slow the cyborg down a bit with next pulse)

 

[DaveC426913]

I just thought a magnetic field can properly rearrange armor shards without attaching mechanical arms to each plate.

View attachment 120168

I didn't see this till now.

Magnetism doesn't quite works that way. The filings are aligned with the field, true, but they are held in position by the paper substrate.
Without gravity and friction, your armour playing would simply be attracted directly to the magnets.

 

[DaveC426913]

Can it be right, that transhuman heroine can fry RFID chips with EMP, open an electromagnetic door lock, but can't knock out permanently an electric torch?
(I guess transistors of control systems are more sensitive than electric lighting.
Later she would fight a cyborg bodyguard, at first her pulse would be rather ineffective, but after multiple bullet hits, Faraday cages damaged, and she can slow the cyborg down a bit with next pulse)

She could do whatever you want her to. In a fantasy setting, there's little point in drawing a line between this fantastic events and that fantastic event.

 

[GTOM]

I didn't see this till now.

Magnetism doesn't quite works that way. The filings are aligned with the field, true, but they are held in position by the paper substrate.
Without gravity and friction, your armour playing would simply be attracted directly to the magnets.

She could do whatever you want her to. In a fantasy setting, there's little point in drawing a line between this fantastic events and that fantastic event.

The shards can be held by a nonmagnetic layer above the magnet.

Besides FTL (mostly communication), no fantasy. She get nano upgrades, but she can't do anything that a sophisticated lab equipment can't do. Microwaves can definitally affect electromagnetic stuff.
The constraint of her abilites has to be not enough energy density to seriously harm humans, or disarm them from a distance.
I just wondered, whether its enough to say a portable electric lamp is much more robust than an electromagnetic lock, so a well directed microwave pulse can deal with the later, not the former.
(The lock supposed to protect a generator room, in case of power failure, some kind of damage it should open so they can access the generator. It could be opened remotely by system administrator, but maybe local radio key should also work in case of central operating system crashes or whatever. )
If that scenario isn't realistic enough, i can find other ways, i already modified escape plot several times.

 

[chasrob]

While surfing the net this morning, I came across this paper about the probability of human self-teleportation. After a (admittedly quick) skim, are they concluding that it is equal to a number with something like ten thousand trillion trillion zeros after the decimal point? Geez, that's disheartening to a lot of SF authors (; .

With regard to an SF novel I'm working on, the setting's cosmology (which I dreamed up, of course) consists of a bubble of numerous domains, one of which we live in. With physics conducive to matter and life. There are 4→7→3→3 of these domains in the cosmic bubble, a minuscule number compared to the total number of domains in the bubble, but a large number nonetheless (: . Am I right in concluding that there are googolplexes upon googolplexes of domains where self-teleportation is possible in my setting?

 

[stefan r]

While surfing the net this morning, I came across this paper about the probability of human self-teleportation. After a (admittedly quick) skim, are they concluding that it is equal to a number with something like ten thousand trillion trillion zeros after the decimal point? Geez, that's disheartening to a lot of SF authors (; .

What prevents the atoms from rearranging as iron? Would be much easier to teleport a mouth full of water and make a fusion device.

 

[chasrob]

I’m working on a story that has an amateur astronomer tracking an asteroid. Its H is about 12, and this body is on an (approximate) earth-intercept trajectory from the main asteroid belt. It will pass within a million or so miles on its current trajectory. She minored in astronomy and is quite knowledgeable about that subject.

I didn’t, so a few questions. She wants to get a snapshot of the body at different times before it arrives, and compute how close it will be when it arrives in the vicinity of earth.

Will a telescope setup like https://www.meade.com/telescopes/lx600-acf-10-f-8.html?___SID=U be adequate? Most importantly, can she then calculate a new trajectory for the asteroid (using that scope and a camera) that will bring it closer to the earth?

 

[chasrob]

In my story with a superman protagonist, he tries to impress by pushing his fist through a battleship’s armored deck hatch (similar to this).

We’re talking about 8-10 inch thick high tensile steel, although manufactured during WWII.

What would actually happen if he just casually pushed his fist through the hatch? Would the steel liquefy under so much pressure, as I guess? Or would it just distort and rend apart? With a loud racket, as far as noise is concerned?

If he rapidly punched through instead, you’d hear a god-awful loud racket, would you not?

 

[stefan r]

What would actually happen if he just casually pushed his fist through the hatch? Would the steel liquefy under so much pressure, as I guess? Or would it just distort and rend apart? With a loud racket, as far as noise is concerned?

If he rapidly punched through instead, you’d hear a god-awful loud racket, would you not?

It would be loud either way. Pushing through slowly you run into the problem of feet pushing through the floor.

As steel (or similar crystals) deform there are dislocations in each crystal grain. Most dislocations in a lattice disappear if you have two of them. The individual atoms are dislocated by half a step and a full step is just a normal crystal with no dislocation. At high velocity the perpendicular(or angled) dislocations get "tangled". So the same plate will shatter or spall under a high velocity impact and it will stretch, become thinner, and then rip when subjected to low velocity pressure.

We’re talking about 8-10 inch thick high tensile steel, although manufactured during WWII.

Usually high tensile strength is more likely to fracture. It is not very likely that they used high tensile strength steel for a hatch. After the 1890s navies were using Krupp armor. (or Harvey armor which is similar) The outside face will be high carbon steel. It will have higher tensile strength, an harder surface, and it is much easier to shatter (low fracture toughness). The inside face will be low carbon and soft. This is one solid piece of metal but a gradient in the carbon content. The soft steel is much less likely to spall. Sometimes armor bounces a shell away but little bits of shrapnel fly off the inside surface and kill anyone on the other side. Modern armies have anti-tank shells that maximize spall.

Punching from the inside out will be easier than punching from the outside in. It is still hard to punch through a steel plate regardless. The difference in direction will be the equivalent of ±10 to 20% in thickness. Punching out will just break the clamps.

 

[DaveC426913]

What would actually happen if he just casually pushed his fist through the hatch? Would the steel liquefy under so much pressure, as I guess? Or would it just distort and rend apart? With a loud racket, as far as noise is concerned?

It would buckle and crimp with groaning and clanking. Eventually, it would fold enough that it would just fall through the opening.

Assume his fist is simply a solid steel pole, with an arbitrarily massive weight on the top.
Think about what would happen if you stood a tank on its main gun on the hatch.

If he rapidly punched through instead, you’d hear a god-awful loud racket, would you not?

Imagine it being hit with a kinetic artillery shell (i.e. no explosive, just kinetic energy) just massive enough to bust it.
That's exactly what his arm is doing.

 

[stefan r]

It would buckle and crimp with groaning and clanking. Eventually, it would fold enough that it would just fall through the opening...
.

The hatch looks like a 45°angle, is hard to tell from a picture. Suppose it is 20 cm thick and the top width is 1 meter. The inner width of the hatch would be 60cm. In order to fold the hatch through the portal without breaking the portal you will need to compress the top by 40%. The "fold" would be more than 90°. The bottom inside of the hatch needs to stretch. It is hard to find a steel that can elongate 20% without failure. I believe that either the hatch will rupture with cracks growing from the inside or the corners of the portal will rip outward.

...

Assume his fist is simply a solid steel pole, with an arbitrarily massive weight on the top.
Think about what would happen if you stood a tank on its main gun on the hatch.
...
Imagine it being hit with a kinetic artillery shell (i.e. no explosive, just kinetic energy) just massive enough to bust it.
That's exactly what his arm is doing.

This cannot be the same. The recoil on a tank gun has more force than the shell it fires because gas also leaves the barrel. We do not normally see tank barrels punching a hole through the turret of tank that fires a shell. The turret also does not usually shear off the shoulder. The tank moves backwards and the suspension system transfers the momentum to the ground. If another tank fires a shell at the rear of a tank's turret the shell does usually go through. Sometimes shells can shear off turrets too. A piddly wave will displace an Iowa battleship much more than firing the 16 inch gun (video skip to 2:24).

There is no time for the displacement to spread around the mass of the tank when it gets hit by a shell. The damage is done in the impact area and a ring/cone around the impact location. A pole with weight on it is very different. You could push most ships under the water without rupturing a 20cm iron plate.

 

[DaveC426913]

This cannot be the same. The recoil on a tank gun has more force than the shell it fires because gas also leaves the barrel. We do not normally see tank barrels punching a hole through the turret of tank that fires a ...

Wait, wait.

Two unrelated scenarios that the OP provided.
1] A slow, inexorable push.
2] A punch.

The first scenario is comparable to simply balancing a sufficient mass on a contact surface the size of a fist. A tank, or any other massive object - balanced on a pole - will simply push its way through the hatch.

The second scenario is comparable to any method of conveying sufficient kinetic energy to the hatch. A ballistic mass sufficient to penetrate the hatch will be tantamount to a punch of equivalent kinetic energy.Actually, I'm not sure if that directly addresses your comments after all. Still, I see no flaw in my logic. Nor do I see where your logic counters mine.

A slow, inexorable push can be simulated by a sufficient weight on a fist-sized area.
A punch can be simulated by anything delivering sufficient kinetic energy.

 

[chasrob]

When y’all said pushing through, low velocity, would be loud, do you think it will be deafening in a small compartment like that on a ship? As in ear damage to any humans?

 

[DaveC426913]

When y’all said pushing through, low velocity, would be loud, do you think it will be deafening in a small compartment like that on a ship? As in ear damage to any humans?

It is plausible that a particularly large release of bending steel could cause a squeal that would make most people cringe and plug their ears.
I would guess it would not be so loud as to do damage, and it's only for a moment or two. So, no.

(I hope our hero is suitably embarrassed afterwards, for not knowing his own strength, and causing such a commotion just to show off. It sounds irresponsible.

Then again, I've been assuming the demonstration is for friendlies. If it's to impress baddies, then presumably he could make the noise arbitrarily loud if he chose to.

Either way, it doesn't really sound all that heroic. Heros tend to act - when they need to - not posture.)