I thought I read... but I can't vouch for it:

Wikipedia: Welding

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I'm guessing the Russian experiments were done on earth.

Off topic babbling would be a good place, I think.

Why use the hands of cosmonauts, then? Why the curious Wikipedia wording about welding in space being first attempted?

On the Web, I see plenty of stories about welding in space, like American Welding Society: A pictorial history of welding (page 5):

Is it a massive hoax -- or real?

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<whisper>I want to hear about the trapped in a space suit story before we go into this.</whisper>

We may have different goals.

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As far as I know, no one has actually carried out welding as a requirement for the mission, all the trials were either done on the ground, in capsules like ours, or in the case of the Russians, done on samples, not on real parts of the spaceship.

Of course I would be happy if it has been done, and I would love to be corrected on that.

What I am talking about were not tests for hand held welding equipment. That is very risky in space and will be almost impossible to do. We were working on a system where you have a small Mouse like robot, placed on a weld prep an "optocator" laser system would cause the mouse to follow any weld prep to within thousands of an inch. The arc length and wire feed would also be automatically adjusted by the robot. This system can follow any weld prep, we used to have the robot writing words during demonstrations.This creates an almost perfect weld with no human hands required. The only thing the human has to do is make sure the mouse doesn't go wandering off somewhere it shouldn't. This would be by far the best solution for welding in space.

I can find evidence that the Russians have done it for real, but they were not welding, they were using the equipment to actually cut through damaged material on their spacecraft.

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"If you've made it to retirement without being blamed for a major disaster, you've failed as an engineer."

What a lame excuse. Movies don't just get the science wrong they get the science wrong in such weird ways that would be easy to fix. Jurassic Park couldn't even electrocute someone without breaking the laws of physics.

Welcome aboard, technoextreme. Read the rules and stay awhile. I assure you, you'll get no argument from me on the point you've just raised.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Sorry if that tone was harsh. I didn't mean to cause any disrespect. I agree and yet disagree with RAF_Blackace. The little things sometimes become very annoying. If anyone does not know about the scene from Jurassic Park it involves a person who is in the middle of climbing an electric fence geting electrocuted. The problem is he wouldn't have been electrocuted. If he was standing on the ground while grabbing the fence then he would have been electrocuted. On the other hand if you are complaining about Spider Man's arm not being ripped out because of the forces from swining then you are being pedantic.

Comic book physics, right. Though interestingly, one of the best examples of what happens when you're caught while falling from a great height is from a Spider-Man comic.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

But not in the film.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Its actually debatable as to whether or not Gwen snapped her neck or just died from the fall (DUMB). I remember reading somewhere that they never actually intended for the snap to be the cause. If Spider Man's webbing was like a rubber band then in fact he shouldn't have killed her. If Spider Man's webbing is like rope then he killed her.

One of the younger kids at Space Camp didn't understand the principle of "Not the fall that kills you, but the stopping", and that was the example I used.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

As do most people

I actually met** Dustin Hoffman last year when he was shooting "Last Chance Harvey" at Stansted Airport. If I had any idea at the time he was going to promote better science in films I might not have booed him so much.

**He walked past me within touching distance whilst I was eating a sandwich at Prets, that counts as a meeting doesn't it ?

Who is to say that the fence in Jurassic Park didn't have alternate phases on the wires ?

If so, the director is right to show it how he did.

It probably didn't, but every director has some argument for showing what he does, even it its wrong.

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"If you've made it to retirement without being blamed for a major disaster, you've failed as an engineer."

If the argument is "I didn't think about it," "no one will know the difference," or some such, it's a bad argument and the story is rightly excoriated.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Actually if you look at any electric fence manual, they recommend alternating an active/live wire with an earth wire- this takes away the ground losses involved in a ground return. Its especially recommended for sandy soils and (hehe) larger animals...

(I seriously doubt they would use one of my old bosses electric fence energisers at Jurrasic Park tho... oh and there is mesh made especially for electric fences that appear to be standard wire mesh, but are electically insulated at each crossover point- the ones I've worked with are chicken wire sized mesh for rodent control)

So in this case they were actually using good physics- just some peoples expectations/knowledge are incorrect.

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No, I'm being ordinarily sarcastic. Don't make me get very sarcastic. You wouldn't like me when I'm very sarcastic. - JayUtah



Surely if you are going to start a conspiracy theory it is best to start with something that might have a grain of truth or reality in it. To start with the preposterous and go downhill from there is just stupid. steve(primus) (Avatar)

You can have realistic physics (and other things) without making the movie or show be about physics.

I mean, soap operas generally have very realistic physics, but nobody complains they are akin to a physics lecture. Scifi, whatever it is about, need not be about physics either.

Very well said.

It really annoys me when people use the "we don't want a physics lesson" line to defend what is really bad drama.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

In moderately related news, the UK is planning to use its celebrities to try to remove the perception of science as "elitist." Note the person they've chosen to highlight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...erry-pratchett

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

They also list Bill Bryson. I thought his short history of almost everything was a brilliant science primer - Perhaps required reading for all directors?

Short History of almost everything

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Gone Sailing

Totally! As Mark Twain said:

Quote:

<H3>FICTION

</H3>

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I don't ask stupid questions. I just make stupid statements!!!
DETAILS: Where the Devil waits to ensnare the unprepared!
Remember. Just because I'm sure doesn't mean I'm right.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it again.

Not to mention, "people have to come to expect this, so my film would suffer without it".

Somehow I doubt people would boycott something like Lord of the Rings, just because the swords didn't ring while sliding out of leather scabbards.

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There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

I dunno. I still think they need to have electrical arcs, clearly defined tornadoes and atomic zoom ins. Just like our forum for photography. Aren't those pictures modified to bring out more contrast in colors and shapes? definitely, on some level, fiction needs to show something a little more entertaining.

there is one thing that bothers me though. drinking empty cups and never eating a full blown meal that was just laid in front of you.

I think most people accept that fiction has to be edited. In real life, people say "um" a lot, and they mishear things so it has to be repeated, and the exciting highlights usually occur amidst a ton of paperwork and visits to the toilet.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

Just had the `pleasure' of watching the new(ish) version of War of the Worlds last night. The EMP pulse that fried every car- but he changes the starter solenoid and bingo its running again.
The list of things wrong with that, as a sparkie, is so long it would probably be bigger than bauts database....

A pulse big enough to fry those windings would have melted every wire in the car- and probably the car body into the bargain- and yet the ECU survived just fine
(and why did he bother to change the solenoid anyways- just push start it if thats all thats wrong)


and people hotwiring cars in movies always get it wrong as well (done plenty in my time as an auto sparkie) and just tapping/ sparking two wires together- no ways- where's the coil/coil packs/injector pump getting their power from? And they never have steering locks either...

(and final moan)
the terrorist bomb- cut the red wire- but dont cut the blue one...
(a `nasty' minded person like me building such a device would deliberately use red where blue was call for and vise versa hehe...)

Is there an `industry standard' for colour coding such devices- and who enforces it?
(Excuse me Sir, I'm afraid I cant allow you to detonate that device at the school until it's been properly rewired to `Terrorist Bomb Wiring Act of 1988, section 2, subparagraph 3)

Or why not just use a single roll of cable for the wiring job- no fat ones, no thin ones and no `cut the red wire' possible

;-)

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No, I'm being ordinarily sarcastic. Don't make me get very sarcastic. You wouldn't like me when I'm very sarcastic. - JayUtah



Surely if you are going to start a conspiracy theory it is best to start with something that might have a grain of truth or reality in it. To start with the preposterous and go downhill from there is just stupid. steve(primus) (Avatar)

I liked the take on that in one movie, where they knew the bomb and a guy reading the documentation telling the hero which wire to cut, but it was lit by a sodium flare underwater so in the monochromatic light the wires looked exactly the same

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

some films try to stay within the explainable; the best ones lose the plot and buckle to special effects after 3/4'th through the film, with a complementary head scratching experience of charictor loops.
Most films make a patsy out of everyone, except the hero, and give up at half time. I accidentally watched "space cowboys"
I could feel the implausability creaping all over me!
and as real as some of the executice producers tried, it died with that cold war pile of ploppy plot; that they made the whole film around.
My favorite sci-fi films are psychological.
"Brazil", "Fight Club" and "12 monkeys"
those got close. I suppose it's easier to write sci-fi as a theam of internal madness, rather than cumulative awareness.
I am surprised there are not more Gore Vidal films.

That's an opinion. Mine is that you're absolutely wrong. "Buckling to special effects" is generally, to me, a sign that the film doesn't have any imagination. As for "charictor [sic] loops," if I can't follow what a character's going through, why should I care? I follow most of the characters in David Lynch films just fine--fascinating, psychological movies that don't put special effects ahead of the intelligence of its viewers.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"