And then, of course, there's Ornithopters. The first onscreen version of Dune cut them out, as with suspensors they weren't necessary and not within the special effects tech of the time to pull of without looking like toys. "Sky Captain and the World off Tomorrow" had some, I've only seen clips but it doesn't look like they were any more realistic-looking.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I think it changed in Logopolis, and I think there was one other time it changed, but I don't remember the name of the show. No original shape shown, just different shapes. I have no idea what they might have done in novelizations.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

The entire movie isn't realistic looking, but that's part of the idea. Regarding Dune: Why do they have ornithopters when they have anti-gravity? Is there an energy efficiency issue, or some other explained trade-off?

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Not sure, I think the idea is that suspensors can only provide lift or bouyancy, for actual thrust you need a mechanism of some kind.

(I think IMO it was in the original novel just becuase it "sounded cool", the rationale-- assuming I remember right and there is one-- came later.)

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Well, I found nothing concerning the Tardis's original shape, but plenty of other interesting information on the history of the Tardis. Interesting that each new Tardis was actually grown by the Time Lords, not built. Here is a rather long, but nice Wiki entry on the Tardis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS

Didn't the Holtzmann effect have a rather unfortunate effect on the sandworms? One reason the Fremen didn't use shields.

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If our brains were simple enough for us to understand, we'd be so simple we couldn't

QQR

If I recall correctly, the shields would attract sandworms from miles and miles away. Something that you wouldn't want happening out in the desert.

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Sheilds, machines, walking... is there anything that doesn't attract sandworms?

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Water.

Shields also provoked them to a berserk fury IIRC, although how this was differentiated from the normal behaviour of sandworms wasn't made entirely clear.

__________________
If our brains were simple enough for us to understand, we'd be so simple we couldn't

QQR

If they eat people, it clearly takes more than a splash to drive them off. And on a planet where water is so valuable it's used as money, who can afford to use it for pest control?

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

What about that rain at the end of the movie? That must have really made the worms angry!

The movie wasn't canon. Besides, it wasn't in the original script, IIRC.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

It's been a long time since I read the book. But I recall the drowning of baby worms to create the "elixer of love" or whatever. So maybe water doesn't hurt them at all.

It does, water is poisonous to them, but not deadly except in large doses. "Drowning" was not technically accurate, as killing baby worms by suffocation --assuming their metabolism even allows that-- does not make them produce the "Water-of-life" chemical. It has to be through total immersion in water.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Why doesn't it surprise me that you know that?

If it's trivial and useless, odds are I know it.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

One of the few things I remember from the "Dune" novel, was that the Ornithopters used JATOs for takeoff.

David.

In Heretics of Dune, one village out on the open desert used a saturated sand ring supplied from a local well to keep the worms at bay.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

That makes sense, as the few successful real-life ornithopters worked better once in the air that they did trying to get off the ground. They seem to need that extra push to get airborne.

Read an article that said one of the few places in the Solar System where an ornithopter might be practical is Titan; dense atmosphere, low gravity; but the problem of making a flexing wing system that would work in that kind of cold might be insurmountable.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

"with a big enough engine, you can fly a barn"

...And need a fuel tank the size of a skyscraper.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Fine with me!

Cool image
http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/lp/lasdiag/enterp.php

"A crucial design point is the avoidance of "shock-shock" interactions where one shock wave hits another directly in front of the body. If this were to occur there would be catastrophic consequences for space-time in these regions. The image shows that the designers certainly knew their stuff - at this speed, the bow shocks pass comfortably outside the other sections of the vehicle. However at Warp 10, this may not be the case!"

So they figured out the airflow around a craft that wasn't designed to fly in an atmosphere?

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

From the link

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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.

(bold mine)

So they came up with a completely arbitrary comparison so they'd have an excuse to do something cool. Got it.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Talking about things that doesn't look like it should be able to fly and RC models reminded me of those hydrofoam and stormlaucher flying boats, those really do not look like they would fly, but they apperantly do...

Then there is that dragonfly, but at least that has wings...

Of course, I can't say anything about how well they would scale up...

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Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

Spiders flying on threads doesn't scale up at all--as I learned at age eight when I tried to use a rope for 'streamer recovery'

I still work for Oscar Goldman--until OJ offed him. Wait...

This is kind of what bugs me about scifi movies and tv, if it takes flight in Earth atmosphere they should either make it sleek and aerodynamic or just not bother at all.
state that it lifts off by techno-babble (anti-gravity, anti-matter whatever) and it doesnt need wings

This is why the StarTrek Borg Cube is so great, they dont give a dmn about flying. I think that Doctor Who police box is cool because it is the most non aerodynamic looking, more resembling a brick than a spacecraft.

What me always bugged most was not non aerodynamic stuff flying in the air. This can always be explained by techno babble.
What I really hate if they make things unlogic and stupid by ignoring facts that are known today!

The dog fights shown in SW and many other SciFi movies and shows are histerically unlogic. (the first show that got it right was B5).

Got a bandit at your tail? Make a 180° flip and fire right into his face! There is no gravity and no atmosphere!

Also the way the laser beams are always flying obviously pretty much under the speed of light. Just to make them look like good old machine gun fire.

Also here B5 got it right.

One of the worst movies of modern SciFi (post SW) was Battlestar Galactica.
It was full of this type of mistakes.

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain