Science and mistakes in Firefly: Ask your questions.

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Thursday, September 8, 2005 08:45
VIEWED: 13068
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CITIZEN

Monday, August 29, 2005 1:07 AM

Ahh!
But the correct responce is:
don't matter where you are, there you be...

Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.

R1Z

Monday, August 29, 2005 1:25 AM

Quote:
Quote:

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Originally posted by R1Z:

The suit supply would replenish the oxygen. We hope the suit has a sensor and adds 02 at the rate it's used up. 'Course, with it leaking out the bullet holes, it's gonna go through the supply pretty fast, but Jayne only needs about 5 seconds.
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Sorry, the O2 would be gone instantly, and the suit would pump it out just as fast. Less than a second all around.

Chrisisall

Nonsense. "Instantly" is a null concept. All events have a duration, no matter how small.

The rate of dispersion of the oxygen from the suit's supply is a function of the pressure differential inside and outside the suit.

The suit's oxygen supply bleeds oxygen into the suit very near Vera's firing chamber. Since the suit is not pressurized, it moves relatively slowly toward the holes in the faceplate. Oxygen that leaks out is continuously replenished until the supply is exhausted.

Since explosives/propellants 500 years hence are much more efficient than those today, there is enough oxygen proximate to the firing chamber to allow Jayne to fire off the requisite shots.

To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein

GUNRUNNER

Monday, August 29, 2005 1:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
a 54R sniper rifle w/out laser sights would invariably be locked on auto-fire to nail victims from a distance. He had one single hole in him; therefore the laser sight assumption.
Duh.

Weapons master Chrisisall

No a sniper rifle doesn’t usually include an automatic fire mode except maybe some versions of the US M-21 (Which is based on the M-14 Rifle). A sniper wouldn’t use an Auto Fire option since the point of a sniper is to score a kill with one shot.

EV Nova Firefly mod Message Board:
http://s4.invisionfree.com/GunRunner/index.php?act=idx

GEEZER

Monday, August 29, 2005 1:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by lexigeek:
What about Jayne firing Vera through the EVA suit in Our Mrs. Reynolds? I can accept that the air in the suit allowed for enough oxygen to fire once, but once the visor's glass was breached, wouldn't that be it? Wouldn't all the oxygen evacuate the suit at that point? He fires a bunch of shots after that first one.

Actually, the having to put Vera in the EVA suit in the first place was an error. Firearms should work perfectly well in vacuum, given proper prep of the ammo.

Consider a present-day firearm. The cartridge is for all practical purposes a sealed unit containing both air and gunpowder(in fact, most military rounds are sealed with lacquer to make them entirely waterproof for extended periods of time). When it is chambered it is still sealed. When the primer is ignited by the impact of the firing pin it is still sealed. When the powder ignites, begins to burn, and starts to push the bullet down the barrel, there is still no connection with the outside atmosphere (or lack of) until the bullet exits the barrel, by which time it has gained its maximum velocity. Perhaps if a cartridge were exposed to vacuum for a while it wouldn't fire, due to the air captured when it was loaded leaking out, but a couple of minutes shouldn't matter.

Edit:

As a proof, consider the "bang sticks" that divers use to dispatch pesky sharks. They fire a conventional shotgun shell, waterproofed, which works perfectly well underwater.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

R1Z

Monday, August 29, 2005 2:08 AM

Quote:
Actually, the having to put Vera in the EVA suit in the first place was an error. Firearms should work perfectly well in vacuum, given proper prep of the ammo.

Consider a present-day firearm. The cartridge is for all practical purposes a sealed unit containing both air and gunpowder(in fact, most military rounds are sealed with lacquer to make them entirely waterproof for extended periods of time). When it is chambered it is still sealed. When the primer is ignited by the impact of the firing pin it is still sealed. When the powder ignites, begins to burn, and starts to push the bullet down the barrel, there is still no connection with the outside atmosphere (or lack of) until the bullet exits the barrel, by which time it has gained its maximum velocity. Perhaps if a cartridge were exposed to vacuum for a while it wouldn't fire, due to the air captured when it was loaded leaking out, but a couple of minutes shouldn't matter.

Sure, that's the case for present-day firearms.

Jayne clearly says, "She needs oxygen around her to fire, and we don't have a case." Are you implying that Jayne doesn't know his very favorite gun, the Callahan Full Bore Auto-Lock?

Jayne wouldn't lie to us about something like that.

To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein

GEEZER

Monday, August 29, 2005 2:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
It set 500 years in the future, but 500 years isn't long enough to reach another solar system using sub-light drives...
We know theres no FTL in FireFly...
so how could they get to another system, let alone one as improbabal as that of the FireFly 'verse in 500 years?

The whole, carefully undefined, locale of Firefly is kind of improbable, but lets stick with the timeframe issue.

Assume that Earth-that-was is used up about 2100 A.D. FTL is still impossible, but say you have artificial gravity (A given. We've seen it in the Firefly universe) and can accelerate to .99 C relatively quickly. Also assume that the Firefly locale has been populated for 100 years (plenty of time to terraform and build some civilization). This gives us a slightly less than 300 light year globe that could be reached. Plenty of stars within a that space from here.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

R1Z

Monday, August 29, 2005 2:18 AM

Quote:
Consider a present-day firearm. The cartridge is for all practical purposes a sealed unit containing both air and gunpowder

Actually, it seems that there's almost no air in a bullet. The oxygen for combustion is provided by the potassium nitrate in the gunpowder, which is an oxidizer.

See http://1.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GU/GUNPOWDER.htm

To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein

GUNRUNNER

Monday, August 29, 2005 2:20 AM

I still thing the Suit thing was because of some Government Regulation on the manufacture of firearms. A gun like Vera was probably built in a factory in the Core or on another Civilized world so it would be subject to government regulations. The Alliance wouldn’t want people owning weapons that can fire in vacuum since they could be used by pirates and outlaws when boarding ships.

EV Nova Firefly mod Message Board:
http://s4.invisionfree.com/GunRunner/index.php?act=idx

GEEZER

Monday, August 29, 2005 2:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by R1Z:
Sure, that's the case for present-day firearms.

Jayne clearly says, "She needs oxygen around her to fire, and we don't have a case." Are you implying that Jayne doesn't know his very favorite gun, the Callahan Full Bore Auto-Lock?

Jayne wouldn't lie to us about something like that.

Jayne wouldn't lie (about that

), but I'm afraid the writers who forced him to say it know less about firearms than he does (or should). If Vera actually needed "oxygen" around her to fire, she'd never work in an earthlike planet's atmosphere, which contains only about 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen and 1% other stuff. I find it hard to believe that Jayne would have any regard for a weapon that could only be fired in massively artificial conditions. This is a major factual error.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

R1Z

Monday, August 29, 2005 2:31 AM

Quote:
I still thing the Suit thing was because of some Government Regulation on the manufacture of firearms. A gun like Vera was probably built in a factory in the Core or on another Civilized world so it would be subject to government regulations. The Alliance wouldn’t want people owning weapons that can fire in vacuum since they could be used by pirates and outlaws when boarding ships.

Good point, although I imagine the Alliance wouldn't want common citizens to to have offensive weapons at all, and it's a little hard to imagine construing the Callahan Full Bore Auto Lock as a purely defensive weapon.

Jayne got it from the (late) best of the men who came to kill him.

Do you suppose it was originally military hardware that was diverted?

To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein

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