108
edits
Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Blink: Difference between revisions
From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference
Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Blink (edit)
Revision as of 00:34, 26 April 2010
, 26 April 2010no edit summary
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 105: | Line 105: | ||
::The Angels are only affected by being directly observed, as described by the doctor, observing their shadow is merely seeing the obstruction of light as they pass across a light source and is not a tangible part of the actual creature, so they are unaffected. | ::The Angels are only affected by being directly observed, as described by the doctor, observing their shadow is merely seeing the obstruction of light as they pass across a light source and is not a tangible part of the actual creature, so they are unaffected. | ||
:::But observing them is merely seeing the reflection of light as they pass across a light source that's behind you instead of on the other side. That's how vision works--it's all just photons hitting eyeballs. However, maybe there is a difference between photons (seeing them) and an unexpected absence of photons (seeing their shadow). This may sound silly, but it's actually something that real physicists argue about--see, for example, the various eraser experiments, or the quantum bomb detector (although most physicists who argue about this do so to argue that the Copenhagen Interpretation is nonsense, which would mean "quantum locking" is nonsense). | :::But observing them is merely seeing the reflection of light as they pass across a light source that's behind you instead of on the other side. That's how vision works--it's all just photons hitting eyeballs. However, maybe there is a difference between photons (seeing them) and an unexpected absence of photons (seeing their shadow). This may sound silly, but it's actually something that real physicists argue about--see, for example, the various eraser experiments, or the quantum bomb detector (although most physicists who argue about this do so to argue that the Copenhagen Interpretation is nonsense, which would mean "quantum locking" is nonsense). | ||
That's a very cute point. Search for "can shadows move faster than the speed of light" for more on this. Basically, shadows do not contain information, and while shadows can indeed move faster than the speed of light, you cannot use them to transmit information at that speed. In that sense, it makes perfect sense in the fiction of this episode that observing shadows does not count. (Never mind the details of "quantum locking" and the measurement problem of quantum mechanics and all that -- it's fiction and entertainment, and it works crazy well.) | : That's a very cute point. Search for "can shadows move faster than the speed of light" for more on this. Basically, shadows do not contain information, and while shadows can indeed move faster than the speed of light, you cannot use them to transmit information at that speed. In that sense, it makes perfect sense in the fiction of this episode that observing shadows does not count. (Never mind the details of "quantum locking" and the measurement problem of quantum mechanics and all that -- it's fiction and entertainment, and it works crazy well.) | ||
*When Larry turns around when he's staring at the angel, he turns back again and the angel is right in front of him but in the next shot it is about 6 inches away and it's hands were pointing at him''.'' | *When Larry turns around when he's staring at the angel, he turns back again and the angel is right in front of him but in the next shot it is about 6 inches away and it's hands were pointing at him''.'' | ||
