Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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The Science in Science Fiction: Batman Gotham Knight
December 30th, 2011
Yesterday I watched the animated Batman movie, Gotham Knight:
It’s a collection of interrelated short pieces by different creative teams, which isn’t bad, but the different styles is a little jarring. I mean, Bruce Wayne looks different in different sequences and it was a little hard to follow. I can recommend the movie, but not strongly (see Batman: Year One instead.)
One of the segments called “Crossfire” featured an electromagnet that could repulse bullets. Bullet proof Batman! (Let’s ignore the other stories in the same movie where Batman’s outfit is bulletproof except for at short range, ouch!). Now, it’s perhaps plausible to have a technology that could repel bullets, although we don’t know how to make a small portable version. The complications of this idea is not the focus of my scientific criticism today, however.
Batman and Fox couldn’t run the device continuously due to power issues and/or issues of disruption of the environment, so they came up with the clever idea to trigger it when there’s a loud noise, like a gun shot. Ignoring the problem that Batman’s weakness would then become silencers, which criminals would figure out sooner or later, this is a ludicrously stupid idea and Batman should be DEAD due to his poor scientific understanding! Well, his writers, anyway.
Sound travels at the speed of sound, or about 340 meters per second in air (give or take a little, depending on the altitude, temperature, etc.).
How fast do bullets travel? Well, it depends on the details of the weapon and the ammunition, but I found some numbers on a page interested in seeing how fast Superman can go (“faster than a speeding bullet”). The numbers vary from lows of about 200 m/s to about 1500 m/s. I found out that generally bullets are supersonic, and that silencers work with subsonic bullets.
So, the point of this is that under most circumstances, the bullet will reach its target before the sound of the gunshot! The superduper bullet shield, even if infinitely fast to turn on, won’t activate in time! Dead Batman.
So, the moral of the story is train in physics as well as martial arts. Failure on either side will get the Batman killed. Or at least the writer of Batman’s exploits teased for bad science.
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