telekinetic

Temeraire is a semi-decent series of fantasy books--I've read the first two, and am debating reading more. Additionally, Peter Jackson has optioned them for a miniseries.

They have dragons in them. Huge ones. The largest ones are said to be 120' long, weigh 50 tons, and have 180' wingspans. Here's some clipart I found that depicts approximately how they seem to be described and illustrated on the covers of the books. I also straightened it out (crapily) so we could 'measure' it. We'll come back to that part.


Now, if the author had just left it at that, I could suspend my disbelief (yeah ok, big dragons, somehow fly, got it.)

Unfortunately for the engineer in me, she eventually gets fairly specific about the scientific reasons that the dragons can fly: lighter-than-air gas pockets that decrease their "weight".

Why is this unfortunate? Because they also state that a 50 ton (I'm assuming a long ton, since it's based in the UK), 120-foot long dragon has so much lighter-than-air gas that it only "really" weighs 10 ton.

That means that there is 40 tons of 'buoyancy' stuffed into that 120' dragon...this is quite a jaw-dropping feat!

For it to have a 40 ton weight loss due to lightweight gas, it needs to displace air with a lighter-than-air substance. Since they're not specific, let's look at the absolute best case scenario: displacing the air with nothing! Hard vacuum would give the maximum theoretical 'lift' per cubic foot of 1.26 ounces. If the dragon was 'filled' with hard vacuum (somehow...with no internal supports...do not question!), it would just (!!!) need a 'vacuum sac' the size of 40 tons of air.

According to our good friend Wolfram Alpha, the volume of 40 tons of air is 1.13x10^6 cubic feet. It helpfully provides that this would fill a sphere of radius 65'...which would be 10' longer than our dragon's 120'. We can correct for this, since dragons are generally cylindrical. A 120' long cylinder with that volume has a diameter of 110'. Due note that this is just the size of the 'vacuum sac'...for the sake of this 'best' case, I'll ignore the fact that the sac is surrounded by 50 tons of dragon:

(I also assumed in this illustration arbitrarily smaller wings, since the body is so much larger and the wingspan is fixed)

Now, since they did say it was a lightweight gas, it actually gets worse, although not by much--pure hydrogen lifts 1.18 ounces per cubic foot, so it would only increase the volume by about 7%...length is fixed, though, so this 7% (well, square root of it) would all go into the diameter.

There are a hundred other things about this blimp-dragon model I could analyze, but I think I'll stop here. It's silly, but this ridiculousness really spoiled my enjoyment of otherwise-decent novels....I'm going to have to try hard to get over it to read the remaining 4 or 5 books.

tl;dnr: If you're going to write a novel about flying giant dragons, don't try to justify it with Bad Science.

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Daniel_

If the Dragon is a perfect cylinder, and 120' long (about 40m), if the 50 ton mass (50,000,000g) would give a linear weight requirement of 50,000,000g/4,000cm, or 12,500g/cm.

If we assign dragon and arbitrary density of water, this would give each 1cm thick dragon slice a mass of 12.5kg - which would equate to a cross sectional area of 12,500cm^2.

Using simple geometry, we know that area of a circle is pi*r^2, so r^2=a/pi. r^2 = 3979cm^2, so r = 63cm.

Somehow, I don't think "lifting gas" is the answer.

Maybe they're like helicopters? They're just so damned ugly that the ground repels them.

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╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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Hektore

Does the series take place on earth? Perhaps the air is denser where they are.

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Lasereth

I don't understand trying to disprove something in a book about...dragons. Dragons are fake, so maybe the gas that keeps them in the air is something that doesn't exist in our world? It could be explained by anything since the books are fiction. If the author named the gas then it would be sorta annoying but since they just left it as a light gas it wouldn't bother me at all.

Are you one of those people that point out continuity errors in TV shows and movies and have the experienced ruined by them? Just curious.

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Baraka_Guru

First of all, dragons aren't fake; they're mythological. A fake is something attempted to be passed off as real. Mythology, however, is a collection of stories largely symbolic, and it is diversified by culture but it usually maintains similar trappings: it often explains the unexplainable. Whether these explanations are true or not no longer seems to be the point. Maybe they never did.

Creation myths explain how the world came to be, and they did so long before humanity had the means to measure the universe. Mythological creatures are largely symbolic of our greatest fears and how we must overcome them. This is where dragons fit in.

Even within the American milieu there are running mythologies, one being the glorification of war. But then you have a great American writer such as Hemingway writing such things as, "They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." Even now we have this disparity between what is real and what is hoped.

Modern fantasy isn't the same as what is known as "mythology," but it finds its roots in it, and so we still find many references to dragons. The difference now is that we have scientific knowledge.

I don't know anything about the Temeraire series, or the work of Naomi Novik in general, but there are a few questions that arise out of this exercise. First, I should note that I found this quite amusing when we apply the science to the parameters given. However, I'm wondering about the characteristics of Novik's storytelling: Is the information about dragons given in the narrative? Is the narrator reliable? Is the narrator omniscient (which is rather old-fashioned now)?

Either a) there are interpretations of text that can explain why the earthly science doesn't seem to work, or b) the author has made grievous errors, for which we can blame both the author and her editor(s).

Either way, this is all rather fascinating.

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—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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telekinetic

It very much takes place on earth. In the early 1800's, during the Napoleonic wars, to be specific.

There is NO GAS that can be lighter than a vacuum, as that's how buoyancy works, which is why I worked it out with vacuum. The fact that her dragons don't 'work' when they are full of NOTHING makes it impossible for them to work when they are full of anything, regardless of how 'light' it was.

Nope, generally not. I am, however, an engineer with an aerospace background. I would have gladly conceded the usual suspension of disbelief (re:dragons) for the purpose of the narrative, (that an extremely large dense creature could have the strength to fly with wing flapping, despite completely ridiculous mass to wing area ratio), and in fact did concede it, early in the book. It wasn't until she tried to get faux-scientific with the lifting gas that it grated on me.

The series is set in an alternate history in which dragons exist, and constitute a kind of air force, during the Napoleonic wars. There are no other major changes, and definitely no 'magic'--Dragons are presented as natural and corporeal.

All of the exposition is presented as dialog between the protagonist, a reluctant new recruit airman who doesn't know anything about dragons, and his more experienced comrades--in particular, a large chunk of dragony exposition happens during a lengthy "flight training school" section of the first book. The characters presenting the information have no motivation to be unreliable, and, as experienced aviators, they are in a position to know what they are talking about.

I believe it is the latter, however, I will pull up some quotes and passages when I get a chance, to give more context to the information I'm basing this off of, and you can decide for yourself!

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snowy

I laughed when I saw this thread this morning and made my SO look at it, because I know he would have done the exact same thing. Enginerds FTW.

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oliver9184

From what you say about how the stuff gets exposed it sounds more like bad science than an unreliable narrator.

As someone who's not an engineer and has no head for science whatever (and who didn't understand much of your workings but assumed it's all correct), if I read these books it would all just go over my head and whether or not it's 'bad science' wouldn't even occur to me.

Thinking about it more, those knowledgeable characters at the flying school would probably help to make the dragons seem MORE authentic, because I would, by then, trust those characters as (I guess) the main character does. Even if I knew, deep down, that the explanations are in fact BS - as I would if I now read these books - I expect could suspend my disbelief enough that it wouldn't bother me. I would have more trouble with other aspects, such as why history turned out the same as real life history if dragons were always a part of it, but that's not the issue here.

This really is a fascinating thread, and it made me remember something off the back of a book I bought but didn't actually read: it's called Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970). I wonder if telekinetic or anyone else with a scientific mind could check the physics here (though I suppose to make much sense of it you have to know what material it's made of...):

Daniel_

Ringworld checks out. And is a very good book.

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

Lasereth

Ahh, the book that Halo is based off of.

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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

oliver9184

I once asked astrophysicist and TV presenter (The Sky at Night) Chris Lintott if he could still enjoy popular science fiction like the Terminator films, Star Wars and The X-Files despite his extensive knowledge of real-life space-related science. He replied:

The short version is yes - actually, it's easier to
enjoy Star Wars than something pseudo-scientific like
Armageddon.

Just remember all spaceships travel at the speed of
plot!

Leto

Come again? Is that true? I may have to take a look at those games now, instead of being impatient with the kids for wasting their time and money on it. I'm a big time Ringworld & Known Space fan.

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http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_I

Lasereth

Oh yeah. But it's not a direct ripoff or anything. The plot is still very much sci-fi and spacey but the concept of the game (and the world it takes place on) is a gigantic ring world. All of the games have areas off of the halo though. You can see it in this screen shot of Halo 1 for Xbox.

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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

Leto

wow. Now only if the game could be more along the lines of exploring the Halo (ringworld) instead of battling soldiers which to me is tedious in that it is just typical FPS gaming.

Thanks for that!

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You held my hand and we walked home the long way
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http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_I

Halx

tk, I just wanna say that I love you.

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Plan9

Well, this thread makes me feel better about being all anal and pointing out all the crazy gun mistakes I see in every single goddamn teevee show and movie. Granted, my bullshit-calling hobby is a helluva lot easier than yours... as I don't have to do any math to prove it.

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Baraka_Guru

This goes to show the dangers of writing alternate histories vs. pure fantasy. With the former, you're often still stuck with earthly physics.

Where's the magic?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

God is dead. Punk rock is dead. Magic is dead.

/emo

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Baraka_Guru

I thought all you emo freaks were into vampires and lycans and shit.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

Ah, but horror punk combines all sorts of dead / mythological things.

Just take a look at the track list from the Misfits' Famous Monsters album.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Baraka_Guru

Have I ever told you that I used to worship at the altar of Danzig?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

Oh-ho! A little Twist of Cain, eh? I was not aware, sir.

...

I wonder if Tele has ever done any of that kinda whizbang math on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Baraka_Guru

Let's just say my mother either didn't heed or didn't hear his words.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

It's okay. My mother still thinks the Misfits are some kind of flying trapeze act.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

snowy

Oh no, you are so not alone. Pointing out anachronisms in historical movies is half the fun of watching them sometimes.

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Vizzini

I have nothing constructive to add besides saying that this post is awesome.
oh and I like how happy your cylinder dragon is (cylindraconus?)

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Ellamir

Reading the book, i got the idea that the descriptions of dragons used the dimensions of ships to relate them in size and importance (after all, laurence is a seaman...) i do not know how boats' dimensions were measured though, so im not certain.

For those who ask, book setting is historical fantasy, that is, napoleonic wars, but in this "Earth" dragons exist, and they are used as airforce (with crews and all).

BTW, i wouldnt really base any assumptions of how the author imagines the creatures on what is portrayed in the cover...

telekinetic

I agree with Chris Lintott, particularly with the bolded portion ;-) Claiming lightweight gasses launched it into the realm of pseudo-science.

<3

I tried to draw him looking sad, but he didn't look right. I think he looks like the caterpillar/butterfly from A Bug's Life.

Unless you remember portions I don't, their measurements are given in tons and feet...not exactly ship-specific, except to determine whether he means long or short tons (variation between the two is negligible for the purpose of these calculations.

None of the assumptions in this were based on the cover, other than the observation that the cover confirmed the pictures that the text painted, that is, these were of the genus Genericus Dragonus Maximus...I merely found a generic dragon clip art and went from there.

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