When Things Spin, Science Happens: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"[...]and if science has taught me anything, it's that if something is spinning, it's important."''|'''Gordon Frohman''', ''[[Concerned]]: The [[Half-Life]] and Death of Gordon Frohman''}}

 

 

In [[Real Life]] rotation has many interesting and perplexing properties: precession, gyroscopic stabilization, and the generation of electric/magnetic fields just to name a few. Writers often use the intrinsic mystery of such phenomena to increase the plausibility of their devices functioning by making them rotate. This is especially true when the device involved needs to generate a field or zone of fictional type, being directly analogous to electric field generation.

*** Although considering which [[Anime]] we're talking about perhaps it might be more like "When Things Spin Science Collapses."

* In ''[[Shinkon Gattai Godannar]]'' the titular robot's plasma drive does this whenever it powers up.

* In ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'', ships have rotating sections which appear to be gravity generators. (Note that this is a concept that has been seriously proposed in [[Real Life]]; for example see the [[wikipedia:Island Three|O'Neill Cylinder]].)

 

* In the movie ''[[The Lawnmower Man]]'' the insane protagonist strapped himself into one of those gyroscope contraptions with the hoops, and after much spinning, his mind was projected into virtual reality. Don't ask.

** The idea being to allow his body to move and reorient freely in all directions to match appearances inside the [[Cyberspace|virtual space]].

** Known in the novel as "Benzels", after the inventor of the merry-go-round.

** Also, the particle accelerator in the third film.

* C-3PO's skeletal form in ''[[Star Wars]] Episode I'' had a silver spinning thing inside his head.

** That would be his brain, according to the novels.

** Also, everything in the room was covered with [[Spikes of Doom|spikes]] for [[Mundane Made Awesome|no apparent reason]]. They were originally supposed to interact with the gravity drive, with the spikes acting as conducting points for excess energy, but they didn't have the budget to put those kind of special effects into the movie, so they left them in for [[Rule of Scary]].

* Examples from the 2009 ''[[Star Trek]]'' film: Ambassador Spock's ship, with three separately-rotating... things which are obviously scientific and important because they have a [[Power Glows|glowy thing]] in the middle.

* Aughra's gigantic orrery in ''[[The Dark Crystal]]''.

** Justified, because spinning things around other things is what orreries ''do''.

 

== Literature ==

** Also Bloody Stupid Johnson's spinning wheel on which pi equals exactly three, which was used to punch a different hole through the universe in order to sort letters.

*** Well it was made as part of an organ. It just turned out to work better for sorting letters.

* The titular craft from the ''[[Rama]]'' series generates gravity from spinning (see "centrifugal force" under {{smallcaps|Truth In Television}} below) and odd effects arise from Coriolis forces that the characters use to their advantage.

* The ''[[Ring World]]'' not only spins for gravity, its spin also allows it to act magnetically on its sun to produce [[Wave Motion Gun|solar-flare megalasers]], fuel its stabilizing jets with ramscoops, and even {{spoiler|turn the whole Ringworld system mobile}}.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

** According to the director, the engine is a gravity drive, which still doesn't explain why it has to spin.

{{quote| "I'm the general and I want it to spin!"}}

** The Stargate itself is an aversion to this. Yes, the Earth gate spins, but this is a function of the backup interface which the Tau'ri use, and has no relation to the actual workings of the gate. Gates never spin under normal circumstances.

* The TARDIS, from ''[[Doctor Who]]'' spins while it's in flight or travelling through the time vortex.

** Professor Lazarus' machine in "The Lazarus Experiment".

** Lampshaded in ''Planet of the Dead'' with one of the Doctor's little science-detecting gadgets.

{{quote| The Doctor: "This little dish should go round. That little dish, there." (About thirty seconds pass.) "Oooh, the little dish is going round!"}}

{{quote| This is my [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Time-y Wime-y]] Detector. It goes "ding" when there's stuff.}}

** And the "jammer" concocted by the Doctor in ''The Time Monster'', made of all sorts of household junk and a nice cup of tea.

* The Xindi superweapon in ''[[Star Trek|Enterprise]]''.

** And in [[Star Trek|The Original Series]], a duplicate robot Kirk was made by a spinning alien doohickey. Lampshaded by Doctor Ira Graves when he encounters it in the spinoff novel ''Immortal Coil'': "Why in the world would the platform need to spin? It doesn't make any sense. It's almost like...a lot of hand waving. Idle motion."

* We don't actually get to see them doing their thing until very near the end of the series, but jump drives in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' must "spin up" before being activated.

* Surely every [[CSI]] *ever* deserves a mention here? Centrifuges are some of the most visually impressive pieces of equipment in many laboratories, especially biological ones, but they don't really give you all the answers..

 

** Not to mention the Combine Interdimensional Portal, the subject of the second page quote. The final portion has spinning shields which Gordon has to destroy.

** Every advanced technology ever really just has to have spinning parts, including the Black Mesa/Resistance/Nova Prospekt teleporters, the displacer gun, the Citadel's core containment system, Black Mesa's generators and reactors, Xen rocks, and even parts of GLaDOS. Don't forget the spinning blade contraptions of Ravenholm as well.

* In ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' ''2: Echoes'', there's a room with a couple of large rings spinning around a giant ball of energy in the center because the spinning has made so much science that it has gone mad and you must stop it by making the rings not spinning and the scary energy ball goes away.

* When ''[[Persona 3]]'''s [[Robot Girl|Aigis]] activates her [[Overdrive|Orgia Mode]], the headphone-like disks on the side of her head spin with a loud whirring sound and emit a thin wisp of smoke.

** Discussed and Averted in the sequal, ''[[Persona 4]]'', in which Kanji is upset that the medical tests the party undergoes did not include being placed in a centrifuge.

* The Cyclotron stage in ''[[Dead or Alive]] 2 Ultimate''.

* Science cruisers, AWACS, subspace portals, and even nebula gas miners in ''[[Free Space]]'' all have very prominent spinning widgets.

 

 

== Webcomics ==

** And [http://xkcd.com/162/ this] one uses spinning with real science.

* Lampshaded in [http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-10-05 this] episode of [[Concerned]]:

{{quote| "...and if science has taught me anything, it's that if something is '''spinning''', it's '''important'''.}}

 

 

== Web Original ==

{{quote| "My whole deal's backed up with actual scientific findings and rotating computer graphics, so you ''know'' it's legit!"}}

* From the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]:'' Herr Doktor Archeville possessed a machine that his teammates called "the spinny gizmo". No one was sure what it did, really, but it sure looked fancy, and it had that spinny part on the front of it.

** In "Legends", exploding [[Humongous Mecha]] + the Flash running in a circle = teleportation to an alternate universe.

** In "Divided We Fall", Lex Luthor and Brainiac use [[Nanomachines|nanobots]] to fuse their mind and body into one entity. Then the Flash separates them by making his arms two whirling blurs of motion and shoving them into Brainithors chest.

* In ''[[Futurama]]'', the heads of jurists spin when deciding on a verdict in court.

 

** [[wikipedia:Centrifugal governor|Centrifugal governors]] consist of two weights on hinges on an axle. When the engine starts up, the axle spins around and centrifugal forces cause the weights to swing in and out, regulating the speed of the engine. The net effect to the bystander, though, is to have a little propeller-looking doohicky that has no obvious function.

*** This is where the term "Going balls out" comes from. Not from [[Going Commando|not wearing undies]], but from operating at maximum speed.

{{quote| "some sort of governor device. I feel I could do something with a pair of revolving balls."<br />

"Funnily enough, when that lightning bolt hit, the thing started glowing, and we went scudding across the water, I distinctly felt ''my''-" }}