How does the Sonic Screwdriver work?

[Captain Pike]

It does sort of stick in my craw that they turned the sonic screwdriver into the Doctor's magic wand.

Yeah.

In the old days, the sonic screwdriver seemed like something that was scientifically plausible - it mainly only ever fastened/loosened screws and opened locks and that kind of thing. You could imagine something like that being not too far away on the real-world technological horizon.

That was part of it's appeal to me. It was advanced tech, but it was kind of ordinary, and as I said, plausible..

Now it's this do-everything magic wand thing..

Perhaps the just released Doctor Who Tardis Handbook will have a section on how the Sonic Screwdriver operations. The Visual Dictionary's have had diagrams on it as well.

The old Technical Manual had a schematic of it with a very basic explanation of how it works. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/18644/The-Doctor-Who-Technical-Manual

Sonic Screwdriver
This is one of the more useful items from the TARDIS Tool Kit. It is a multi-functional tool wich generates and gives out ultra-sonic impulses.
These pulses cause vibrations in anything to which the tool is applied. The kinetic energy of these vibrations can activate any simple mechanical apparatus. This device is particularly useful for taking out screws and opening locks.
The Doctor usually kept this tool about his person, until it was unfortunately destroyed during his battle with the Terileptils on seventeenth century Earth.

 

[Stevil2001]

^ I think you need to watch The Dominators again.

 

[diankra]

The Sonic Screwdriver starts out as a very bright pen torch that the first Doctor uses.
The second Doctor adds a 'screwdriver' function to it and first refers to it as his 'Sonic Screwdriver' in Fury from the Deep (it's the same prop as the first Doctor used, so...). Next season, he's added a few more functions to it.
The third Doctor keeps on adapting it, adding extra functions, and putting it into new casings.
By the fourth Doctor's time the Screwdriver had settled down into one look, a bit like a torque wrench or a tyre pressure gauge (as nicked by lots of kids from their dads while playing Doctor Who). That flowed through to the fifth Doctor.
Then the seventh & eighth has a variant on that screwdriver in the TV movie.
Then there's the 9th/10th Doctor version, and now the new one for Matt...

 

[Captain Pike]

^ I think you need to watch The Dominators again.

Note the use of the word 'mainly' in my post.

It's true that, very occaisonally in the old show it had been used for things which would seem marginally outside it's typical job description.

 

[Bones2]

It works however the plot requires it to work.

 

[Captain Pike]

True. It often becomes a crutch though.

 

[Checkmate]

It'd probably be better described as a Psychic Screwdriver, relying on the user's intent rather than... well, anything sonic. Other than making its trademark sound effect.

It gets even weirder when you consider the Master's more advanced Laser Screwdriver.

 

[The Wormhole]

It gets even weirder when you consider the Master's more advanced Laser Screwdriver.

Really, I don't even understand how that is in anyway a "screwdriver" since it was always used as a weapon to kill people.

Maybe the Master just liked the word screwdriver and used it despite being inaccurate.

 

[Captain Pike]

I was very saddened to see the Master in the new series not using his trademark Tissue Compression Eliminator..

 

[Bones2]

I was very saddened to see the Master in the new series

Just that bit for me.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Really, I don't even understand how that is in anyway a "screwdriver" since it was always used as a weapon to kill people.

When people hear the word "screwdriver", they usually think of the tool, whereas the Doctor and the Master are clearly referring to the cocktail. It's lethal.

 

[FrankR]

I just look at it as simply so far advanced beyond us that we cannot begin to comprehend how it could work.
Or put anther way it's an example of Clarke's 3rd "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

 

[SeerSGB]

I also find the "magic wand" approach rather annoying.

I'm just going with the telepathic approach for now, though he do often look at it as if it should have some display.

Another take on the telepathic angle: The screwdriver is jut a peripheral of the TARDIS. The screwdriver acts as a scanner and the TARDIS takes in the data, and relays it telepathically to the Doctor.

It'd probably be better described as a Psychic Screwdriver, relying on the user's intent rather than... well, anything sonic. Other than making its trademark sound effect.

It gets even weirder when you consider the Master's more advanced Laser Screwdriver.

Maybe he's using Screwdriver in a sort of "multitool" sense of the word.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It works however the plot requires it to work.

True. It often becomes a crutch though.

I recall in an early Sylvester McCoy interview in which he wasn't particularly fond of the sonic screwdriver for that very reason. He thought it made things too easy for the writers (if the Doctor gets in trouble, he whips out the sonic screwdriver and problem solved).

I don't think his Doctor used a sonic screwdriver until his final appearance in the McGann movie...

 

[Bones2]

Didn't the original screwdriver get destroyed in The Visitation (I think it was) to stop it being silly? The new show ought to do the same, frankly.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't know if it was destroyed to stop it from being silly, but it was never used again during the original run of the program.

But I do like that it's back in the new run though, and I really love the Eleventh Doctor's version. It's about as big as the original version when fully deployed, IMO...

 

[diankra]

I don't know if it was destroyed to stop it from being silly, but it was never used again during the original run of the program.

The writer of The Vistation destroyed it because he needed to keep the Doctor locked up for another half episode - he'd assumed that the Doctor had spares in the TARDIS, so it wouldn't be permanent.
The producer of the time thought that the screwdriver made things too easy for the Doctor, and decided that the scripted scene was the end for THE sonic screwdriver, not A sonic screwdriver.

 

[Checkmate]

I like the idea behind the Sonic Screwdriver. A race as advanced as the Time Lords should have tools to make their job as... whatever they defined it as... easier. And it makes perfect sense that it would be linked to their TARDIS in some fashion. The problem is the name of it, it's execution (in that it has no defined limits), and how reliant the writers seem to be with using it.

The Doctor should rely on his wits and his charm first and foremost. The screwdriver should only come out in situations where there's no other recourse. Using it to get out of the handcuffs to which Amy didn't have key? Sure. Using it as a tricorder to try and figure out what's going on with the whale-ship? Not so much. Simple legwork and investigation could have gotten him the answers he needed. Boosting River's communications device simply as an excuse to whip it out? That's getting lame even if the intent was to demonstrate River's knowledge more than to showcase the screwdriver.

So yeah. If they'd just get rid of the stupid "sonic" prefix and only use it when they absolutely needed to, I'd be completely fine with it. As it stands, it's still acceptable but mildly annoying. At least it's not used as often as the all-powerful holodeck or transporters from Star Trek, though. But it is getting close.

 

[FalTorPan]

Wibbly wobbly, sonic wonic.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't know if it was destroyed to stop it from being silly, but it was never used again during the original run of the program.

The writer of The Vistation destroyed it because he needed to keep the Doctor locked up for another half episode - he'd assumed that the Doctor had spares in the TARDIS, so it wouldn't be permanent.
The producer of the time thought that the screwdriver made things too easy for the Doctor, and decided that the scripted scene was the end for THE sonic screwdriver, not A sonic screwdriver.

Which of course, was one of the first things to go out the window when the John Nathan-Turner era ended. I even think the one Sylvester McCoy used in the McGann movie was the exact same model last seen in the series.