Revolution TV show premiere September 17

[Fredrik]

So, why do some people have electricity?

They don't "have electricity". They have devices that can temporarily reverse the effect of the technology that's causing the blackout.

I was disappointed the moment they showed the airliner going down in a flat-spin. Basic aerodynamics failed, too?

This sort of thing doesn't bother me much.

The teacher, in his mini-rant to his students stated that even batteries don't work. So it's not just electrical devices, but specific chemical reactions?

He didn't say anything about chemistry. He just said that batteries don't work. Maybe it's just the metal parts that no longer conduct the current.

Tap-dancing past the fact that "nanites" are the modern day folk-law equivalent of spells, demons and djinn it seems a stretch that would be so restricted to draining power from human technology only and still be so successful.

Totally. But compared to the alternatives...

As for changing the properties of metals that sounds like something that would instantly kill most life. Hard to get your metalloproteins to work when their cofactor's properties have significantly changed.

This is something I don't even understand. My knowledge of chemistry is unfortunately negligible. But I'll take your word for it.

My bet is that the answer to this show (if it could be called one) is going to be:

Spoiler

WILLING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

I bet that whatever the explanation is, by the time we learn it, we will already have seen at least one episode that contradicts it.

 

[Fredrik]

Hi, I'm new here. Just watched the premiere and was looking online for some discussion of the physics. After watching the show, I tried to come up with a plausible explanation. I had an idea and wanted others to poke holes in it to see if it was any good.

My hypothesis is that all the electrons and protons have become their antimatter counterparts, positrons and antiprotons. This means that current would still flow, which would allow for chemical reactions, but the charges would be reversed.

Now that I think about it some more, there are some electricity based things that should continue to work even if that were the case.

Thoughts? Any feedback is welcome.

Welcome to the forum.

If every particle in the entire universe was replaced by its antiparticle, I think things would be pretty much the same. I could be wrong, but at least I don't immediately see a problem. If only some particles are replaced this way, e.g. every particle on Earth, but not the rest of the universe, then there would be problems. For example, every meteor would cause a huge explosion. I think they would blow up as the enter the atmosphere, and the radiation from these explosions would wipe out all life on Earth, except maybe deep under ground.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Totally. But compared to the alternatives...

Lol true.

This is something I don't even understand. My knowledge of chemistry is unfortunately negligible. But I'll take your word for it.

Metalloproteins are proteins that have a metal ion cofactor, a cofactor is a chemical compound bound to a protein necessary for it to work (that is not itself a protein). So if the properties of metals changed significantly I guess metalloproteins would alter their behaviour and as the most famous metalloprotein is an oxygen transporter...not looking good for life

I bet that whatever the explanation is, by the time we learn it, we will already have seen at least one episode that contradicts it.

Yup. I'm sure it won't be internally consistent.

Hi, I'm new here. Just watched the premiere and was looking online for some discussion of the physics. After watching the show, I tried to come up with a plausible explanation. I had an idea and wanted others to poke holes in it to see if it was any good.

My hypothesis is that all the electrons and protons have become their antimatter counterparts, positrons and antiprotons. This means that current would still flow, which would allow for chemical reactions, but the charges would be reversed.

Now that I think about it some more, there are some electricity based things that should continue to work even if that were the case.

Thoughts? Any feedback is welcome.

Welcome to the forums! With the exception of an odd difference in decay I think it's still unknown how different antimatter is to matter exactly. Conventionally it's thought to be pretty much identical in the way it behaves. But even if there were a substantial difference enough to radically effect the way machines work I'm willing to bet that most other chemistry (and therefore biochem) will be affected in some way too.

 

[Janus]

Why does everyone walk? Bicycles, peddle cars, steam engines, etc.. don't work anymore? Even little hand cars on railroad tracks would work for getting around. What happened to the horse and carriage?

Or for that fact, the old fashioned steam engine? Or as mentioned in the last post, the diesel engine (which ignites combustion through compression and not a spark.)

 

[Mentalist]

I'm more concerned if electricity is out completely as in zero electricity on Earth, how does it affect the atmosphere and magnetic field? And, doesn't the gravitational ability of Earth allow for more electrical particles to move downward towards Earth from space to the surface? Is it possible to produce some sort of electricity from a wire and movement because of the magnetic field? (physics background is mediocre at best so I may be misguided in my questioning)

... In any case, this may just be a devastating black out. (I am about to watch the first episode).

 

[Fredrik]

I'm more concerned if electricity is out completely as in zero electricity on Earth,

Zero electricity on Earth would instantly end all life, since some of the processes that keep us alive involve electricity.

 

[mheslep]

...I personally don't need shows in the sci-fi/fantasy genre to be scientifically accurate, but I wish they could at least make an effort to get the simplest stuff right.

I recall one of the old and great sci-fi authors, maybe Azimov(?), said the trick to good sci-fi was to the limit the break-the-rules changes, one or two items and no more. Everything else stays the same or follows logically from the change made by the author.

Otherwise I think the reader/audience feels jerked around in a kid's game. I imagine following Azimov's guidance is hard work, essentially creating and thinking about a new reality where the author can not simply conjure a new trick (the demon did it) to cut to the chase when reality grows too complex to fathom, as it always does.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I recall one of the old and great sci-fi authors, maybe Azimov(?), said the trick to good sci-fi was to the limit the break-the-rules changes, one or two items and no more. Everything else stays the same or follows logically from the change made by the author.

Otherwise I think the reader/audience feels jerked around in a kid's game. I imagine following Azimov's guidance is hard work, essentially creating and thinking about a new reality where the author can not simply conjure a new trick (the demon did it) to cut to the chase when reality grows too complex to fathom, as it always does.

I think it's done a lot better in literature. TV and film tends to be far less experimental and go for spectacle.

 

[mheslep]

I think it's done a lot better in literature. TV and film tends to be far less experimental and go for spectacle.

Agreed, with some exceptions. The Matrix, Blade Runner, Star Trek TV come to mind. They managed to get by with inventing demons or other new tricks w/ every plot twist.

 

[lord_beavis]

I refuse to watch this show for this exact reason. All electronics stopping working is one thing (giant space-born EMP blast, tiny engineered nano bacteria that prevent it, whatever), but gunpowder and combustion engines not working is to say the fundamental laws of chemistry have been upended, yet they're able to have camp fires...

Dumb.

Now think; what do cars (that use gasoline) need to run? An electric spark. You read to much into the trailer or went off of someone else post.

 

[Katrex]

Well steam engines and guns still work but combustion and electronics doesn't. Combustion engines rely on an electrical ignition system. So cars not working does actually follow the logic.

However if even light bulbs don't work then it means one thing. Rotating magnets do not induce a current in nearby wire. But if that's the case why does the Earth still have a magnetic field? Clearly in this case we have to make Magnets unable to work while a molten core spinning still work.

Therefore it must be that Iron's dipole alignments had to be reset somehow(the Earth's magnetic field is caused by nickel I beleive)

What about batteries? Thats where the real problems comes in for me.

What i suspect the answer will be is some terrible ad hoc manipulation of the Earth's magnetic field to do whatever

 

[ImaLooser]

But I suspect that most people don't care at all about these details.

Nah. Most SF readers aren't really interested in science.

 

[Fredrik]

Nah. Most SF readers aren't really interested in science.

Is that sarcasm? I can't tell. What I said (that most viewers of sci-fi TV shows don't seem to care if the writers get the simple stuff right) is based on discussions I've had with people at other web sites. When I point out that some specific detail doesn't make any sense (for example that the superpower that we've been told that a character has wouldn't enable him to do what we just saw him do), I'm usually told that I'm a fool for thinking that anything should make sense in a sci-fi show.

 

[ImaLooser]

Is that sarcasm? I can't tell. What I said (that most viewers of sci-fi TV shows don't seem to care if the writers get the simple stuff right) is based on discussions I've had with people at other web sites. When I point out that some specific detail doesn't make any sense (for example that the superpower that we've been told that a character has wouldn't enable him to do what we just saw him do), I'm usually told that I'm a fool for thinking that anything should make sense in a sci-fi show.

Yeah. Just like I said.

 

[Avodyne]

Well, it's now been "explained". Scientists were working on a way to generate cheap electricity, but, whoops! Instead they built a device that suppresses it.

Very disappointing. In this article in the Hollywood Reporter last July, we read that

[Series creator Eric] Kripke says a physicist was brought into the writers room early in the story breaking process to verify the series' plausibility. "We did our homework, and we came up with something that actually is quite possible," said Kripke. "We pitched him the secret as to why all of the power went out, and his face just lit up. He said, 'That's absolutely possible'."

Hard to believe a real physicist bought into what's been said onscreen so far, so maybe there's more to come. But I doubt it.

 

[Fredrik]

I don't consider that an explanation, so I hope that's not what Kripke was talking about. But I very much doubt that he found a physicist that said that his explanation (whatever it is) is "absolutely possible". Kripke is probably bending the truth there. Maybe he was able to find one that said that the explanation isn't any crazier than the science of Fringe. Maybe he was even able to find one that said that it's not crazier than the science of Star Trek. But "absolutely possible"...I don't think so.

 

[Fredrik]

The explanation was included in this week's episode.

Spoiler

If you said "power-draining nanites", you win. Apparently there are quadrillions of nanites/nanobots/nanoprobes all over the place, that are programmed to replicate and to absorb electricity.

 

[DHF]

Along the lines of coincidences that hold the show together like so much glue: When the blackout first hits, all cars on the freeway slow down all gentle like and come to a smooth stop, all at the same time. this is fortunate because if Newton's first law stayed in effect then there would have been a massive pile up that would have flattened the main antagonist and protagonist in the first episode.