io9 
Enter your username and password.
San Francisco, 9:37 AM
Sun Nov 8
10 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors: tips@io9.com
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz | Email
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders | Email
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner | Email
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis | Email
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan | Email
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier | Email
Ed Grabianowski | Email
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan | Email
Lauren Davis | Email
Chris Hsiang | Email
Lynn Peril | Email
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins | Email
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox | Email
Interns:
Tim Barribeau | Email
Julia Carusillo | Email
Alex Eichler | Email
Cyriaque Lamar | Email
Caitlin Petrakovitz | Email
Mary Ratliff | Email
Josh Snyder | Email
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/05/09
11/05/09
"I made this device that can fix everything! I found it in my closet, turns out I made it for a science fair project when I was fifteen. Want me to play my Captain Picard voice synthesizer?"
11/05/09
11/05/09
You have a great plot device right there. I would pay to see that.
Although not the Uhura part. Save that for the extras on the next DVD. #startrek
11/05/09
On another note, horay for Will Wheaton! #startrek
11/05/09
I hated the character Weasely Crusher but I like Wil the actor and he seems like a pretty likable guy. #startrek
11/05/09
The truth of the matter is, he's mean to be a real nice guy and also a huge sci-fi and computer geek - he needs more love! #startrek
11/05/09
11/05/09
11/05/09
11/05/09
10/11/09
10/10/09
10/10/09
and no bell and peter are not teh same people. the earth 1 peter died so walter found a way to steal earth 2's. william used a bell as a trigger because he knew walter had the same one on earth 1, who used it was not relavant.
also i guess LSD experiments help older women stay hot because that woman was seriously gorgeous for someone who would have to be near 50.
10/09/09
10/10/09
That, I believe, is our good friend from Odyssey 5, Sebastian Roche. My eyes lit up when I saw his name in the credits, along with Theresa Russell, and at the end I realized I hadn't seen him, so I went back to that scene and decided it was a bald CGIed Sebastian.
10/10/09
10/09/09
I'll be sad if I don't see Kirk Acevedo again. (There's the mirror universe one with a scar.) Like a few other scifi characters who died ignominious deaths that were stretched out, his double-fate was hard to watch.
Would've been more interesting if, as a shapeshifter, Olivia convinced him to rebel. But parallels on that front of the alien rebels in X-Files, perhaps.
I wonder if the mercury (actual mercury, not mercury-looking "polymimetic alloy") was a nod to T-1000.
10/09/09
How many places can there be that freeze heads!?
10/09/09
10/09/09
So, I assume Walter shocked the worms and rung the bell at the same time. After the worms would cringe expecting a shock from just the bell, he blended them and fed them to Olivia. So the bell would tell Olivia that she was going to be shocked, which magically triggered the memories. If this is correct, they could have just shocked Olivia and skipped all those steps.
But I guess it wouldn't be Fringe if the solutions were reasonable.
10/12/09
10/09/09
10/09/09
You're right about Van Gogh's Self Portrait, though.
10/09/09
10/12/09
10/09/09
Very intriguing idea but, if true, then Peter/Bell never finds/found out that he's not actually from this universe, since Bell told Olivia that he's from ours. Unless he was lying to her.
"But, why everyone doesn't immediately suspect Charlie, who supposedly shot and killed the nurse, of being the shapeshifter is beyond me. "
True, also because he's been acting a little weird lately and, presumably, also around his co-workers and wife, at least a bit.
10/09/09
Very intriguing idea but, if true, then Peter/Bell never finds/found out that he's not actually from this universe, since Bell told Olivia that he's from ours. Unless he was lying to her.
I was born in Minneapolis. When I was 6, my parents moved us to central Maryland. I've been moving all around the country chasing a futile academic career, and I tell people I'm from Maryland. "From" isn't just where you were born.
10/09/09
I was truly enjoying the episode up until Nina mentioned the Pauli exclusion principle (PEP) and claimed that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time because of it.
Sorry, Nina, but you fail elementary quantum mechanics.
The PEP says that *identical* *fermions* [particles of half-integer spin (1/2, 3/2, 5/2, etc)] cannot occupy the same *quantum state*. Identical bosons [particles of integer spin (0, 1, 2, etc)] *can* - and they like to - occupy the same quantum state.
Note the three important aspects of the PEP:
1. It applies only to *fermions*. Protons, neutrons, and electrons are fermions. Photons, pions and other particles are not (they're bosons). So there are plenty of quantum-level things that *can* occupy the same quantum state at the same time. Lasers, superfluidity, and superconductivity are nothing but applications in which identical bosons lump together in the same quantum state, with macroscopic effects.
2. It applies only to *identical* fermions. A proton and an electron, though both fermions, don't have any trouble occupying the same quantum state at the same time. Only protons among themselves and electrons among themselves cannot.
3. It applies to *quantum states*, not to position in space. A quantum state is described by more than just position in space. Thus, even two identical fermions (say, two electrons) *can* occupy the same position in space at the same time (as far as quantum mechanics will allow you to make that statement) provided that their quantum states differ in some other aspect.
I know that expecting Fringe to abide to real science is too much, but mentioning the PEP by name only to butcher it is too much of an insult.
Bad Fringe writers.
10/10/09
10/10/09
Dumbing down an explanation that does not apply to the situation at hand does not change the fact that the explanation does not apply to the situation at hand, no matter how anyone slices it.
The PEP is NOT the explanation for the supposed "collision of alternate universes", no matter how (in)accurately one explains the PEP. The universe is NOT a fermion and, even if it were, two alternate universes wouldn't be identical. So, even if one stretches one's imagination to think of alternate universes as fermions, the PEP would still not apply to them.
Moreover, I seriously doubt that any of the writers thought that they needed to dumb things down for the benefit of Olivia or the audience, or to make Nina more believable as a corporate officer. More likely, they really think that the PEP means that two things can't occupy the same space at the same time.
I'd have been fine with Nina claiming that two universes can't exist simultaneously in the same space, if she had not mentioned the PEP by name.
The fact that she did tells me that the writers wanted to give some semblance of scientific legitimacy to that idea. In reality, it only made them look stupider and helped to perpetuate an idea that is provably wrong (that no two "things" can occupy the same space at the same time).
10/10/09
Word.
This was bugging me too, especially (as you later mention) I would have no problem with it if they hadn't used the term "pauli exclusion principle"
I have no problem suspending my disbelief over fake science, but it kinda bugs me when they use the real stuff incorrectly.
Also, mercury is much denser than blood, so shouldn't all the FirstWavers be a bit on the hefty side?
A quite bit of (admittedly hasty) math sez that assuming Charlie was originally about 200 lbs, Mercurial Charlie would weigh in at about 275.
Maybe not really noticeable, but then again maybe that could explain why he could kick Livvy's arse--he would effectively always have a roll of quarters in his fist.
10/10/09
I think you managed to put in just a few words what has been annoying me for the longest time in many TV shows. It's not the fake science, but using real science incorrectly, that upsets me.
Excellent point about the mercury being denser than blood.
10/12/09
10/12/09
Him being very dense would be a better explaination (more like a horse and less like a zebra)
10/09/09
10/09/09
10/09/09