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bismuthate
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Science bullcrap on TV
I,ve noticed many a time that TV shows just make up there own science. Won't this end up giving the general population an even more misinformed view
of science.
Heres an example.
So I was watching a show called sherlock. In this Sherlock claimed that strychnine shut down the muscles and paralized the victim. I imediately quit
watching and muttered angrily in my room.
Has anyone eles seen crap like this?
(I'm suprised that there's no thread on this or at least I couldn't find it)
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elementcollector1
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Heh. Don't voice your opinion on Sherlock's scientific accuracy... Tumblr will find you.
As to that, a lot of science is made up, misunderstood, or dumbed down. Part of this is because the full explanations would take up the entire
30-minute blocks, and be all boring. Another part is that education sucks in America.
I've yet to see stuff like that on my own - mainly because it's been years since I seriously watched TV.
Elements Collected:52/87
Latest Acquired: Cl
Next in Line: Nd
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mayko
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You might look into this show; the science is decent. You usually have to at least look into the literature to find problems with it. For example, an
early plot hinges on silent mutations, in which one codon is exchanged with a different one coding for the same amino acid. Theoretically, this should
result in the same protein, with the same functionality, and the show acts as though this is the case. In reality, it's not that simple, because
different codons are transcribed at different rates, which impacts the folding of the proteins as they form. Still, it's an engrossing tale they spin.
And, one sometimes encounters papers which eerily parallel some of the plot lines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReGenesis
[Edited on 29-12-2013 by mayko]
Attachment: Silent mutations affect in vivo protein folding in Escherichia coli - Cortazzo et al 2002.pdf (167kB)
This file has been downloaded 862 times
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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bismuthate
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I don't watch TV more than 1 episode a week yet I see plenty of crap.
And here is the list of strychnine poisoning symptoms from wiki
1.Severe nausea, including vomiting
2.Convulsions of all muscle groups, which become longer and more closely spaced with time
3.Spasms of the facial muscles, causing cyanosis of the face, dilated pupils, prominent eye balls, and frothing at the mouth
4.The body may be seen arch-shapes in following postures: 1.Opisthotonus: Hyperextension. The person may be resting on heels and occiput.
2.Emprosthotonos: The spasm of abdominal muscles may bend the body forward.
3.Pleurothotonus: The body may be flexed to one side.
5.Loss of consciousness and a clear mind
6.Immense reflex sensitivity (dramatic exaggeration of normal reflexes)
7.Death due to asphyxiation, caused by muscle spasms[
Sherlock practicaly described the opisite of this!
And don't worry plenty of tumblr hates moffat 
mayko It would be great to see some scientific acuracy!
[Edited on 29-12-2013 by bismuthate]
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quantumchromodynamics
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what about
when CSI reconstitutes a barcode from the reflection in someones eyeglasses on some public 256X400 interlaced outdoor survey-lance camera? (Invented
pixels)
when the BONES magic murder computer program figures out every angle of every joint and physical body part and compares that against every motor
vehicle from every possible direction and velocity and determines the cause of the accident? (Inverted Chaos)
when 2 ounces of magic material blows up an entire building and collapses the overpass, but the hero escapes without having to brush his hair. (No
experience with EM)
when Walter White makes mercury fulminate that looks exactly like meth. (Just bad Chem)
And on, and on, and on...
I have a theory. The media is encouraged to coddle the public with false feelings of hope, as though there were some real competence out there.
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Random
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Nothing good to see anyway, TV is lately becoming a nice way to massively control people. It makes brainless zombies out of them, looking to buy
another worthless product on the market. This, limited science like above and pseudoscience, few reality and fantasy shows.
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Zyklon-A
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Sherlock is one of my favorite shows, it's not perfect, but it's mostly accurate, scientifically and otherwise.
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Fantasma4500
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the more you know the higher the chances are that you will find something offensively wrong in an average movie.. top that with i cant sit around
doing nothing, then get forced to watch movies
but hey lets just for instance take the scene from breaking bad where the guy says 'this isnt meth' and then throws (at max) 15g mercury fulminate
into the ground where the entire house blows up and gasoline flame and all of that
i dare you to find a video on youtube regarding mercury fulminate where there is no comments with the slightest hint towards breaking bad, ive seen
people call real mercury fulminate FAKE
sometimes you just gotta shut off man...
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Pyro
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I hate the way that the people (people on tv that is) act when presented with science.
they:
a)they act like dumb shits
b)they ''know everything''
examples:
a)WOW, that is so cool! that is like *dumb reference**
b)that happens because of *science ''mumbo jumbo'' that ordinary people don't understand*
(I actually caught mythbusters explaining something in chemistry horribly wrong, and the average person wouldn't know)
all above information is intellectual property of Pyro. |
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TheChemiKid
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Have you noticed in The Big Bang Theory that almost all of the whiteboards with "revolutionary ideas" are just random scientific variables or complete
nonsense.
When the police come
\( * O * )/ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿'̿'̵͇̿̿з=༼ ▀̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿▀̿ ̿ ༽
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bismuthate
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Pyro I think that on most shows they just make it up because almost nobody cares. Especialy lasers. I was watch agents of shield where there were
orange neodymium lasers that vaporized bullets mid-flight.
TheChemiKid, Yeah I noticed but back when I was younger I thought I was stupid because I didn't get TV science. (Facepalms younger self through portal
made by "gravaty fission".)
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gregxy
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I just watched the whole "Breaking Bad" series. Sure the chemistry isn't perfect, and the electrical engineering is worse, but I have never enjoyed a
TV show or movie more and its easy to see why it was chosen as the "best TV series of all time". I'm the same age as Walt, have gone through mid-life
crisis and even look like him so it was easy for me to identify with him and then sit there is dismay saying No! No! when he does the unforgivable
things.... Amazing writing and acting.
The bad science that I remember was:
1. HF won't dissolve bodies and there would not be gallon jugs of it in a HS chem lab or meth lab.
2. 2" long Hg(ONC)2 crystals would likely detonate spontaneously, and the explosion was all wrong.
3. The battery Walt makes could supply ~10mA, not the 500A needed to start a car. Maybe if he poured acid directly into the cells of the dead battery?
He did remove the spark plug from the generator to make it easier to hand crank (nice detail).
4. It would be quite difficult to burn the lock off a door with thermite and there's not much Al in an etch-a-sketch.
4. Methylamine is much easier to make/get than phenylacetic acid or other meth precursors. Plus its a gas at room temp, I guess it could have been
aqueous solution of CH3NH2HCl ??
5. Walt's blue P2P meth should be racemic, and the D isomer is nearly inactive. Meth from Pseudo should be mostly the active L isomer so meth from
Pseudo should be 2X more potent. (But I don't make or use meth, so who can say??)
It also does not seem like one would make crystals by meting into sheets and then cracking them.
6. Poison from lily of valley is easier for doctors to treat so less likely to be fatal.
5. Nice detail on use of icepacks to get NH4NO3 for 2nd bomb.
6. The electromagnet they built, while strong would have a very short range so it would not have worked.
7. Car bodies don't stop bullets and a pistol and shotgun are no match for full-auto assault rifles.
8. Garage door opener motor probably requires 120V not 12.
9. The details on money laundering and need to mix legitimate business with the drug business were interesting
9. BadFinger's "Baby blue" fits perfectly.
[Edited on 2-1-2014 by gregxy]
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GreenDao
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Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  |
5. Walt's blue P2P meth should be racemic, and the D isomer is nearly inactive. Meth from Pseudo should be mostly the active L isomer so meth from
Pseudo should be 2X more potent. (But I don't make or use meth, so who can say??)
It also does not seem like one would make crystals by meting into sheets and then cracking them.
[Edited on 2-1-2014 by gregxy] |
(Don't interpretate this as a condescending correction, I'm just sharing for sake of knowledge/interest. I love organic chemistry and all the
theoretics associated with it. Also, this is speaking strictly in terms of theoretical chemistry, of course not intended for production, usage, etc.
of methamphetamine)
The dextrorotary enantiomer ("D-enantiomer", "S-enantiomer", "D isomer", etc.) of methamphetamine has a higher affinity for stimulation of the central
nervous system and thus is considered the more psychoactive stereoisomer. The levorotary enantiomer ("L-enantiomer", "R-enantiomer", etc.) of
methamphetamine is/can be used as a nasal supressant and possesses a lesser effect on the CNS. In terms of the black market, the dextrorotary
enantiomer would certainly be the one sought after. (although I'm going to go out on a limb and say that isomerism isn't paid much attention to in the
black market, perhaps in "upper end" "laboratories", though) Interestingly enough, the reduction of (+)-pseudoephedrine (at least while using
pharmaceutical grade) yields only dextromethamphetamine, as opposed to the phenylacetone reduction which produces a racemic mixture. Walter actually
does refer to this by saying "And if our reduction is not stereospecific then how can our product be enantiomerically pure?"
[Edited on 3-1-2014 by GreenDao]
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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| Quote: Originally posted by TheChemiKid | | Have you noticed in The Big Bang Theory that almost all of the whiteboards with "revolutionary ideas" are just random scientific variables or complete
nonsense. |
They're usually physics equations, not revolutionary, but not complete nonsense. I suspect any that were nonsense were meant as inside jokes...that's
something the producers seemed to have bothered to take some care with.
Note: I'm speaking based on the first couple of seasons. Maybe they gave up on the rest?
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dontasker
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Anyone seen the episode of Brainiac where they demonstrate alkali metals in water? Including francium.
I nearly lost all hope for this world.
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TheChemiKid
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They sometimes use simple physics equations, but all of the "Discoveries" are nothing at all.
When the police come
\( * O * )/ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿'̿'̵͇̿̿з=༼ ▀̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿▀̿ ̿ ༽
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GreenDao
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I'm just curious what you expect... Do you think they're going to beg at research institutions for discoveries or something to that extent for sake of
realism?
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gregxy
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| Quote: Originally posted by GreenDao |
The dextrorotary enantiomer ("D-enantiomer", "S-enantiomer", "D isomer", etc.) of methamphetamine has a higher affinity for stimulation of the central
nervous system and thus is considered the more psychoactive stereoisomer. The levorotary enantiomer ("L-enantiomer", "R-enantiomer", etc.) of
methamphetamine is/can be used as a nasal supressant and possesses a lesser effect on the CNS.
...
the phenylacetone reduction which produces a racemic mixture. Walter actually does refer to this by saying "And if our reduction is not stereospecific
then how can our product be enantiomerically pure?"
[Edited on 3-1-2014 by GreenDao] |
Thanks, I had the D and L enantiomers reversed. There is something on Erowid where they convert the "L" nasal spray to the racemic version to
increase it's effect. Walter did mention stereo isomers in his techno-babel. As long as the impurities aren't toxic or meth-antagonists its probably
not worth doing a lot of purification, buyers are probably not as picky as Breaking Bad makes them out to be.
It's kind of fun to try and read the blackboards in Big-Bang theory, most of which looks like undergrad physics. If they used actual string-theory (or
what ever Sheldon is working on) equations almost no one would recognize them so fewer people could have this fun.
CSI is also full of bad science, but the show went a long way towards making science "sexy".
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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The "discoveries" are things people worked out already, but hardly nothing at all. I'm not certain why it's assumed the equations are meant as the
discoveries, either. I have a notebook riddled with "simple math equations" which taken on their own say nothing about what I'm actually designing.
Most of the whiteboard collections are far more than "simple physics equations," and are pulled from important theories in the field. They don't use
current cutting-edge research because it would be a jerk move to attribute that to a fictional character.
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MrHomeScientist
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Not really TV, but did anyone see Pacific Rim?
MINOR SPOILER ALERT
The part where most of the giant robots get disabled by an EMP, but one survives because it's "analog." I laughed out loud in the theater. Are they
really saying that the entire robot is made of vacuum tubes? Powered by hamsters running on wheels? In the age where they have technology to build
gigantic robots piloted using brain-interface and mind-sharing technology, then just went what the hell let's build one out of vacuum tubes and see
how that goes.
They could have just as easily made up that it had some sort of high-grade experimental EM-hardening or something, and that would have been way more
believable in the context.
[Edited on 1-7-2014 by MrHomeScientist]
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gregxy
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What bothers me most in movies are flaws in basic physics that "simply look stupid".
The "river battle" scene in the latest Hobbit move is a good example. (for some analysis see http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/should-dwarves-sta...)
"Gravity" started out well but became ridiculous at the end.
(You launch the space ship just by pushing the big red button, The Chinese, Russian and American stations are so close together).
Although I like Ironman and the "Tony Stark" character the self assembling flying parts suit and exploding villians in the last film were too much.
Car chases and fight scenes in older movies were fun because they used actual cars and you would wonder "how did they do that". No you know its all
CGI and about as interesting as watching someone play a computer game in "god mode".
Some people watch movies and think real cops should actually be able to shoot guns out of the bad guys hands or shoot them in the foot etc. Difficult
shots if you are calm, impossible if pumped with adrenaline and shaking like a leaf.
And of course we all know that bombs that have giant digital timers and curly red and blue wires and teaspoon of XXX that can blow up a city
block....
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gravityzero
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I remember seeing a Breaking Bad out-take that made me crack up.
There was a part in the series where Walt hides his money in a vacuum cleaner, which happens to get sold by his wife in Walt's abscence.
Upon discovery, Walter and badger decide to pay a visit to the old lady that purchased the vacuum cleaner.
While outside the ladies house, Walt and Badger are contemplating ways to take back the vacuum and recoup the cash.
Badger makes a suggestion, "Can't you just make chloroform out of something, like maybe bleach?!? Then we could make her pass out and steal the
vacuum."
Walter responds, "No. It does not work that way.", or something to that effect.
I thought it was interesting when it turns out that you actually can make chloroform this way.
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unionised
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief
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mkurek
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Whatever you do don't become brainwashed by television.
And definitely DO NOT watch MTV. Your brain will enter a state of possibly irreversible atrophy.
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Fenir
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In an episode of Dr. Who, there was an acid being mined from the earth that could melt bodies in seconds and disolve stone equally fast. The crystal
of mercury fulminate that was close to 2 cm was also amusing.
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