The Day the Earth Stood Still

[Dana Gold]

For anybody that enjoys viewing classic Sci-Fi films, I found this on Google video....the whole movie!:happydanc ...and one of my favorites, too!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3232643887050775784

:ARMS1:

[Dana Gold]

Oh wow!....found another .....:bounce:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5114132944204810486&q=forbidden+planet&hl=en

[Priestess]

Just the mere mention of those brings back fond memories of saturday afternoons spent watching "Creature Double Feature" on channel 56. The intro was good too, with godzilla's head looking like it was going to smash it's way through your tv screen while they played Emerson Lake and Palmer as theme music 8-)

[Meresa]

Already have it on DVD. :pat: But I've got a lot of cool extras, including a nice featurette. :D

Great Flick. Robert Wise was one of the best. Much better than Spielberg IMO

[Priestess]

I wonder sometimes, if those who're intersexed are generally any more attracted to classic science-fiction as children than the usual kid is? Or less? I know I was, because I desperately wanted to take a one-way voyage to any other planet besides the one I was living on. Even if it involved giant monsters. You could always see that when giant monsters were running around that people were usually nicer to each other. Except for the villains of course :shock:

[short311fan]

i got one word for all of ya.......



Svengoolie! lol!

[Priestess]

i got one word for all of ya.......



Svengoolie! lol!

Look like fun.
According to their web site, next up is "Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man". That's a good one :happy68: I think for some stories the old filmmaking techniques worked better. B&W, and slightly hazy imaging, and you don't always need the very expensive special effects. Not like the crystal-sharp shots when modern directors just turn their cutting edge equipment to greyscale.

[short311fan]

... and add image dithering to get that old-school grainyness to their films, and so on and so forth, i took a course in high school in television production that taught us a lot on how to do that with today's technology, though i never did understand why we didn't just break out some old equipment and go for it tht way, would have been a lot more "real".....

as far as Svengoolie, he was the host of an old horror movie show on saturdays, based in Chicago, but i do believe he was nationally syndicated, he showed the ultra-cheesy movies like "White Zombie", "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes", "Return of the Killer Tomatoes", and so forth, great stuff :) fond memories.....

[Priestess]

I'm not sure, but I think it's more than what sort of equipment they used. It seems like hollywood has lost the art of storytelling. Originality has disappeared so much that there's a wave of bland remakes to the classics. Sometimes not even classics- they're currently releasing the third or fourth remake of the "The Hitcher".

And then, I hate digital video. You can always see the picture breaking up when there's too much action in a scene. When I saw Lord of the Rings in the theater, every time they did a nifty quick pan of the landscape, the chunky scrolling of the background was easily visible. It hardly seems like a technical advance over what analog could be.

[Dana Gold]

wanted to take a one-way voyage to any other planet besides the one I was living on.

Hmmmm, been, there done that.....still do at times. So...let's take a little "cyber-trip" away from "here", eh?:

Here's a nice place...not much of a country-side, though:

http://fantasyartdesign.com/3dgallery/a-digital/3D-images/x0611seifer/sci-fi-fantasy-scapes1.htm

And, a place I would like, when solitude is needed:

http://fantasyartdesign.com/3dgallery/a-digital/3D-images/xdigital-art-WeiHua/sci-fi-wallpaper01.htm

How about this?.......looks a bit like some space-port; as in ready to take another trip to even another world......a trip around the galaxy would be really cool.....in a heavily shielded spacecraft, of course, as protection from all the cosmic radiation that abounds in this universe.

http://fantasyartdesign.com/3dgallery/a-digital/3D-images/xfantasy-ArminSchieb/free3d-wallpapers04.htm

And away we go! :bounce:

[Priestess]

Oh, it's been a long time since those childhood fantasies. Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein could weave a story that put colonists on mars by the year 2000, but then the real-world space program was mostly cancelled after apollo and they have a nearly impossble time even sending up shuttles on a reliable basis. And they stopped selling "space bars", darnit. Those were good, but there's never been a snack quite like that since.

Those are pretty good artwork that you linked, Dana. Though they have one thing in common, an aloneness, a lack of people. Which makes it slightly different from my fantasies of long ago. I didn't imagine for the sake of being alone in my imaginations, but to have people when in reality no one enjoyed my company except for those who wished me bodily harm. Maybe it's why I mostly stopped needing escape. Not because my dreams died (they didn't)

[Dana Gold]

Though they have one thing in common, an aloneness, a lack of people. Which makes it slightly different from my fantasies of long ago.
'One person's floor may be another person's ceiling', as the saying goes. You see aloneness; I see peace and tranquility.

One of my favorite digital art illustrations, one I keep as 'background' for my computer monitor screen:

http://www.rama3d.com/images/guest/dawid-michalczyk/they_came_from_the_sky-1024x615.jpg

Website of the artist:

http://www.art.eonworks.com/gallery/sci-fi/sci-fi_posters-199911.html

Dana :pizza:

[Priestess]

That's fantastic art, and that moon is really huge on the horizon :interesti

I wonder if you or someone else here might be able to answer a question about science-fiction physics?

[Dana Gold]

Melissa, you're probably wondering about the "moon" in such close proximity to the shown inhabitant's planet. Two things inre physics: First the "moon" might actually be the parent planet and be the larger of the two....or both may be of relative same size. Second, either way would be a disaster, as the gravitational forces of the hugely larger one would “lock” in the smaller and pull it towards it, causing a break-up and showering/impacting the larger with its “chunks”. Before that would occur. the resultant tidal effects would wreak havoc on both the parent planet's and "moon's" internal (core) make-up, oceans (if any) and weather systems (if any) depending upon atmosphere characteristics.

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/moon/tidal.html

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

The final analysis: The picture shown is sci-fi, fascinating, but not possible without the above happening.

Dana

[Dana Gold]

I read this book, which was actually a sci-fi movie and was based upon actual feasibility of space travel through our solar system....good illustrations, too!:

The Book
BBC Books published a book with the same title as the UK version of Space Odyssey which included the fictional diary entries of the crew on Pegasus, information on the planets they visited and screenshots taken from the drama.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Odyssey:_Voyage_To_The_Planets

Dana

[Priestess]

Well, that was close to the question I was going to ask. I'd already read that tidal forces would destroy things if a moon is too close, but here's the question ...

Two scenarios
1) The earth orbiting a gas-giant
2) A rocklike moon orbiting the earth

The question, what's the greatest apparent size (degrees of angle in the sky) the other body can be without tidal forces wrecking everything? The absolute diameter of the other body doesn't matter; neither does the distance between the two, except that it has to be at least 300 miles to keep it outside the atmosphere.

[Dana Gold]

You've not given the mass and density of the objects (gas giant and rock-like object) of either scenario; therefore it cannot be determined...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

Unless you would perhaps know of a solution, in which case, please enlighten me.

Dana

[Priestess]

You've not given the mass and density of the objects (gas giant and rock-like object) of either scenario; therefore it cannot be determined...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

Unless you would perhaps know of a solution, in which case, please enlighten me.

Dana

For a rocklike moon, just using the density of our moon, and for the gas giant using the density of jupiter or saturn. The actual mass for either would be that density times it's volume, volume being (4/3)pi*r^3 based on the other body's diameter. The diameter would be based on the distance from the earth, as big as it can be such that the mass isn't too great for the distance. Then out of all possible distances, choosing the distance that results in the maximum value of (diameter/distance). My calculus is really way rusty, otherwise I might have an answer to my question.

The question mattered to me on artistic grounds, I wanted to know exactly how big I could draw something in the sky without it being impossible, when I didn't care how big it really was, or how far away.

[Dana Gold]

Hey, wait a minute! You are now saying the gas giant and rock-like object (asteroid?) are equivalent to the density and mass (respectively) of our moon (which is not a "rock-like object) and Jupiter! ....I wanted to know exactly how big The actual mass for either
Your calculus professore and especially Mr. Spock, would not like that assumption :wink_smil
According to the Roche Limit the following would definitely matter: when I didn't care how big it really was, or how far away.

So, you could draw the planet, whatever, as big as you like; because on "artistic grounds" the whole equation wouldn't matter.....that's what's so cool about science fiction....one is not limited to the quantum/physics laws of this particular universe......nor bound by the socio-religious dogma of misleading pseudo-normalcies from the self-appointed "dominionists" called Homo Sapiens.

Dana

[Priestess]

The idea was to figure out how large it could be drawn without ignoring reality. You said it yourself, the picture you linked had a planet/moon that appeared too large in the sky to be physically possible. So there must be an limit of how large it can be drawn and still remain possible. I didn't say to use the mass of the moon, only the density. The same with using the density of a jupiter, not necessarily it's mass. Nevermind ...

[Dana Gold]

Sorry, Melissa; I didn't mean to cause you any frustration :interesti

Dana :confused6

[Meresa]

You've not given the mass and density of the objects (gas giant and rock-like object) of either scenario; therefore it cannot be determined...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

Unless you would perhaps know of a solution, in which case, please enlighten me.

Dana

I have imagined two extreme situations involving tidal forces.

One:
A planet orbiting a gas giant just outside its Roche Limit, (but far enough out to keep its atmosphere from spilling out of the LaGrange points). It was further away when it formed, so it is a bit rounder than tidal forces allow in its current orbit. So the tides stretch the atmosphere more than the planet, such that the planets atmosphere and oceans are split in two. There is air and an ocean on both the near and farside end, with a band of vaccuum around the "waist". Between the oceans and the vaccuum are regions analogous to various elevations on earth. Near the vaccum there will be permafrost and glaciers. Near the oceans there will be tropical marshes, savannas, and maybe even a desert or two. Midway there will be climate similar to the forests in the foothills of mountain ranges. From space, the planet will resemble a giant easter egg. What is interesting is that there are two separate bioszones, each with potential for wildly divergent evolution. With a little luck, the system might remain stable for hundreds of million years before the tides shift the planet out of its current orbit.

(for a similar but inverse situation, read about the planet Jinx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinx_%28Known_Space%29) in Larry Niven's Known Space.)

Two:
A terrestrial planet with a large rocky moon in close orbit. The moon raises tides so large that the main ocean is mobile, moving around the planet every few days. Above a certain latitude there will be normal dry land, but in the "ocean" zone there will be an enteresting ecology. Not unlike tidepools, but much more extreme.

If the moon's orbit is longer than the day, then tidal friction will push the moon outward and the tides will weaken with time.

It the moon's orbit is shorter then the day, then it will spiral inward towards its Roche limit until it breaks up and forms a pretty ring like Saturn's. Of course prior to this, volcanism and earthquakes will increase along with the tidal ocean movement to likely make the primary planet uninhabitable....

If humans can imagine such worlds, I am sure that nature will come up with even more interesting ones....

[Meresa]

The question mattered to me on artistic grounds, I wanted to know exactly how big I could draw something in the sky without it being impossible, when I didn't care how big it really was, or how far away.

If two bodies are tidally locked and dense enough they could be quite close so I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.

For more info see Robert Forward's Flight of the Dragonfly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld).

[Dana Gold]

Yes! , an oblong planet :thumbs_up ; thanks, Meresa. I :clown: hadn't thought of that ; got stuck in the mode of thinking of the "normal" planet :rolleyes2 . What would be intriguing is that the spin of this hypothetical planet would be so great that a day might be only a few hours.......daylight savings would be s/w useless, there....:rolleye11

Thanks again :wink:

[Priestess]

Sorry, Melissa; I didn't mean to cause you any frustration :interesti

Dana :confused6

That's alright. Not too very frustrated. But your alien avatar has inspired me, I just needed to find an image that reflects my general physical health and state of emotional well-being.

[short311fan]

beginning to think i'm way outta my league on this thread, gonna go back to playing cheesy horror-movie and spagheti-western music on my guitar! lol