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Worst epic science fail you have seen in sci-fi?
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Ooohh - so much potential crunchy goodness hereBig Grin

Let's see....

1) The movie The Core in which Earth's core stops spinning for some unexplained reason, all that rotational energy just disappears for some unexplained reason, and the loss of the Earth's magnetic field allows 'microwaves' from space to start striking Earth, resulting in the Golden Gate Bridge dissolving and collapsing. Oh, and before that, the failure of Earth's magnetic field results in some kind of giant lightning storm that knocks down a bunch of stone structures. And they are supposed to restart the core by detonating a nuke deep underground.

Any mechanism that could stop Earth's core from spinning (assuming it even spins at a rate different from the rest of the planet - not sure of the top of my head) would likely turn the planet molten in the process. If the core did stop spinning all that rotational energy wouldn't just vanish without a trace, but would go somewhere, likely also doing Very Bad Things ™ to the planet. The planetary magnetic field has no effect on any form of EM radiation and so couldn't stop microwaves from space even if such were a common occurrence (which I'm pretty sure they're not since Sol doesn't radiate much of its energy as microwaves). Any microwaves that do hit the planet from the Sun (if any) would be absorbed by the 100+km of atmosphere and certainly aren't going to dissolve a steel bridge while having no effect on the people sitting on said structure. Lightening is a common destructive force in movies, but in reality tends to just either pass through or ground out into the Earth in most strikes and certainly isn't going to knock down the Acropolis or the Roman Coliseum or the like. Any nuclear bomb we could build with anything like our current tech would be insignificant compared to the mass of Earth's core or the energy needed to get it to move in any significant fashion, rotating or otherwise. Expecting such a bomb to boost the planetary core up to speed from a dead stop is totally beyond the pale.

All this before all the other issues this stinker of a film has.

2) Any movie or TV show (the original V mini-series, Battle: Los Angeles, probably others) in which aliens arrive to steal our water. Water is one of the most abundant items in our solar system and most of it isn't sitting at the bottom of Earth's gravity well. They could just go to Ceres or the various moons of the gas giants and tank up as much as they want for much less effort and without anyone being able to shoot at them in any way, at least with our current tech.

3) The film Armageddon in which a set of nuclear bombs that humans can practically carry around single-handedly are able to split an asteroid 'the size of Texas' in half and propel the chunks to pass on either side of the Earth. Um. No.

All I got for now. Probably more later as they come to me.

ToddSmile
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RE: Worst epic science fail you have seen in sci-fi? - by Drashner1 - 06-12-2017, 03:16 AM

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