Atlas Shrugged
The second Atlas Shrugged movie came out and since it was talked about during the election I was thinking about it again. It's an awful movie but not an awful novel and can be entertaining. However it has big logical problems in import areas.
During a dramatic climax something happens that could be a great scene except the science is all wrong. Because of a number of short-sighted and stupid and craven decisions by people it is decided to run a passenger train through a long tunnel with a coal fired steam locomotive. The problem is that the coal smoke will probably asphixiate the passengers, these passengers are not informed of this.
So they get a drunk and foolhardy engineer to drive it through the tunnel who things that they will be ok if he goes really fast, could work. Smoke builds up in the passenger compartments and some passenger pulls the emergency stop cord because of the smoke, the train stops and everyone dies of asphixiation.
Dramatic but stupid:
1. If you had to do this then any engineer would put the engine at the back of the train and push it through instead of pulling it. Trains were very commonplace back then so even Ayn Rand should know that engines as push as easily as they pull. This would have eliminated the problem entirely.
2. Pulling an emergency stop cord DOES NOT apply the breaks or stop the train. It rings a bell in the engineers cab telling him a passenger wants to stop. In the case of the story the engineer would know the stopping would kill them all and would know the reason for the pull was the smoke and would not stop the train.
Like I said, could be a good story except for this lazy writing.
During a dramatic climax something happens that could be a great scene except the science is all wrong. Because of a number of short-sighted and stupid and craven decisions by people it is decided to run a passenger train through a long tunnel with a coal fired steam locomotive. The problem is that the coal smoke will probably asphixiate the passengers, these passengers are not informed of this.
So they get a drunk and foolhardy engineer to drive it through the tunnel who things that they will be ok if he goes really fast, could work. Smoke builds up in the passenger compartments and some passenger pulls the emergency stop cord because of the smoke, the train stops and everyone dies of asphixiation.
Dramatic but stupid:
1. If you had to do this then any engineer would put the engine at the back of the train and push it through instead of pulling it. Trains were very commonplace back then so even Ayn Rand should know that engines as push as easily as they pull. This would have eliminated the problem entirely.
2. Pulling an emergency stop cord DOES NOT apply the breaks or stop the train. It rings a bell in the engineers cab telling him a passenger wants to stop. In the case of the story the engineer would know the stopping would kill them all and would know the reason for the pull was the smoke and would not stop the train.
Like I said, could be a good story except for this lazy writing.