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ninamazing November 16 2009, 17:35:17 UTC
Nah, I'd say I'm with you - this is a pretty common mistake. They aallllllways want the pretty space explosions. That have sound and endless fuel.

I haven't watched it yet, though! I realized that I never even finished the Easter special, and uh, watched Seeker instead. :D

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intrikate88 November 16 2009, 21:47:21 UTC
The easter one is mostly fun and he saves everyone so that is happy, but make sure your happy pills are working before watching this one. It's a great, really deep and questioning episode, very worth your time, but man.

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mrv3000 November 16 2009, 17:36:31 UTC
Shh! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Or the curtain!

But really, I have no idea if you could get fire using something other than oxygen. I'd almost think so, but I don't know.

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principia November 16 2009, 18:38:01 UTC
See below. :)

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principia November 16 2009, 18:26:20 UTC
If the substances were coated in self-oxygenating fuel from the rocket, that could lead to them continuing to burn for a bit because with such a substance the process of burning would create the necessary oxygen for further burning by releasing it from the fuel.

Which is complete handwavey crap, because I don't know of anything that man's discovered or invented that does such a thing, but I imagine it'd be something we'd have to work on for serious longterm space travel projects.

And here we go: among the other known oxidizing elements, at least fluorine is capable of sustaining fire, and would pretty much only be used as a fuel element in longterm/deep space projects because there is currently no method known to man of putting out a fluorine fire!

http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/fuels/fluorine.html

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intrikate88 November 16 2009, 21:45:42 UTC
Huh! That is really interesting about the flourine being viable, and I do like your logic about the need for some kind of fuel that would generate more oxygen. As far as I remember, rechargeable batteries are like that- the chemicals made from the first chemical reaction create another chemical reaction from the introduction of electrical current and bring it back to the start. I suppose it would have to be like that, except on a really enormous scale.

(Forgive any glaring ignorance I display. It has been about seven years since my last serious foray into chemistry.)

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goldy_dollar November 16 2009, 23:25:13 UTC
They probably just went DAVID TENNANT LOOKS SEXY AND DANGEROUS IN FLAMES: PRODUCTION TEAM, GET ON THAT! and that was it. But still.

I think that was entirely the reasoning, and I was so busy agreeing that I totally missed the science. WELL PLAYED, DW TEAM.

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intrikate88 November 17 2009, 21:32:58 UTC
It is not bad reasoning!

...though in terms of imagry I was mostly searchign for Rose's lip prints on his helmet. *ducks*

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tsukara November 16 2009, 23:29:54 UTC
Yeah, I pretty much yelled that at the screen. Physics doesn't work like that!

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intrikate88 November 17 2009, 21:34:25 UTC
I knoooow. Usually DW doesn't take its skience seriously so I can deal with it but this wasn't even reversing the polarity, it was just THERE.

...I have a proven track record of not seeing the forest for the trees.

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