Spoilers DC's Legends of Tomorrow - Season 1

[Reverend]

As much I like to needle Chris about being pedantic, it's hardly condescending to expect a TV show (at least the kind not mainly concerned with felt puppets and sing-alongs) to display a level of education at least on par with a half-way attentive secondary school student.

I learnt about alpha particles in school several decades ago, from a text book, WAY before the internet was a thing most people were even aware of and haven't revisited the subject since. They are not obscure or arcane knowledge known only to the scientific elite.
Alpha & beta particles along with gamma & X-rays are pretty much the first thing you're taught about radiation in science class, even if the extent of it is merely that they are things that exist and it's the latter two that give you cancer/superpowers. It's *basic* information like "there's nine...eight...possibly nine planets in the solar system" or "gravity is a thing that exists" and "sticking magnesium strips in a lit bunsen burner is a good way to damage your eyesight."

You don't have to fully comprehend what these things are to know they exist. So whoever wrote this episode is either stunningly ignorant, or at least thinks the audience is. They really would have been better off just making something up.

 

[theenglish]

To be fair to the argument, even with modern technology, most people don't know anything about atomic particles today.

I was actually wondering though if the episode draft wrote "alpha particles" with the intention of just being "tech stuff" that some person would fill in later and then some sloppy editor never got around to fixing it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was reading a lot about Omega Particles in a Rip Hunter Mini Series from 2010.

Given the relationship between Alpha and Omega, it's possible that what they call Alpha particles in the DCU are not Alpha particles in our "real" Universe. Besides, if Alpha particle detection technology is so entry level that it was happening in the 1970s, why didn't the Waverider have one on board or a machine lab to quickly make one?

If anything the dark matter/metahuman detector that Harrison wells employed on Earth II as a watch, shouldn't be too difficult to employ globally, if the Wave Rider orbited the plant geoasynchronously for a few hours.

 

[Corran Horn]

To be fair to the argument, even with modern technology, most people don't know anything about atomic particles today.

You mean you didn't learn about alpha particles in grade school?

 

[Guy Gardener]

I remember when I should have learnt a minimum amount of information about Alpha and Beta particles, but the entire class freaked out when it became clear that Gamma Radiation was real and then we all just did Hulk impressions for the rest of the hour until lunch.

 

[dahj]

I learnt about alpha particles in school several decades ago

Quality of education has gone down the toilet over the years though.

 

[Reverend]

Quality of education has gone down the toilet over the years though.

Not that far down, and are you suggesting the writers are teenagers?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, the problem is, basically as stated upthread, the writers have less knowledge than required for a bachelor's degree in physics, but they are writing for characters who are supposedly PhDs.

The only way to resolve that problem while suspending disbelief is to assume that in the universe of the show physics are fundamentally different than they are in the real world.

 

[Turtletrekker]

A lot of shows have science advisors on staff. I don't know if the Flash does.

 

[theenglish]

You mean you didn't learn about alpha particles in grade school?

When politicians deny climate change, tectonic plates, evolution there's not much hope for the average joe. Have you ever seen Jay Leno or Jimmy Kimmel interview people on the street? I think we should all go out in front of our work places and stop ten people randomly--ask them what Alpha particles are--and report back here with the results.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I remember when I should have learnt a minimum amount of information about Alpha and Beta particles, but the entire class freaked out when it became clear that Gamma Radiation was real and then we all just did Hulk impressions for the rest of the hour until lunch.

That sounds about right.

 

[dahj]

Not that far down, and are you suggesting the writers are teenagers?

Nope, just exercising my right to complain about them damn good for nothing kids these days

 

[Corran Horn]

When politicians deny climate change, tectonic plates, evolution there's not much hope for the average joe. Have you ever seen Jay Leno or Jimmy Kimmel interview people on the street? I think we should all go out in front of our work places and stop ten people randomly--ask them what Alpha particles are--and report back here with the results.

It would be absurd to say that nuclear energy concepts are not taught in any grade school. However I think it is pretty safe to say that not much time is spent on the subject, if any. My oldest is only in 3rd grade and in the 5 minutes I looked at elementary-level science curricula some had it and some didn't.

More likely nobody on the writing staff knew it was a common thing and they (likely rightly) assumed 98% of the viewing audience wouldn't notice. To say that it's such an obvious error that an average schoolchild would catch is an overstatement, I'd say.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Next up, the team is searching time and space for the rare molecule only known as H2O

 

[Christopher]

To say that it's such an obvious error that an average schoolchild would catch is an overstatement, I'd say.

Which is not at all what I said. What I said was that the episode's assertion that the scientific community in 1975 was unable to detect alpha particles was factually incorrect, because they'd been detecting them routinely for 76 years before then.

Not to mention, even ignoring the comparison between Arrowverse "alpha particles" and real-world alpha particles, there's the contradiction in the statement "The world of 1975 is still 10 to 20 years away from being able to detect these particles, but here's an actual working detector device in this drawer." I dunno, maybe there's a missing scene where Stein modified the device using his latter-day knowledge, but the episode implied that it worked just fine as it was, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Not to mention, why couldn't the Waverider just use its sensors? I mean, heck, how did Rip find out in the first place that Ray had left a piece of his suit behind? Rip and Gideon knew that before Ray did, even though they weren't there. So they must have some really advanced detection technology. So why couldn't Gideon scan for the particles? It was a really contrived reason to have Stein meet his younger self.

 

[Corran Horn]

Which is not at all what I said. What I said was that the episode's assertion that the scientific community in 1975 was unable to detect alpha particles was factually incorrect, because they'd been detecting them routinely for 76 years before then.

Not to mention, even ignoring the comparison between Arrowverse "alpha particles" and real-world alpha particles, there's the contradiction in the statement "The world of 1975 is still 10 to 20 years away from being able to detect these particles, but here's an actual working detector device in this drawer." I dunno, maybe there's a missing scene where Stein modified the device using his latter-day knowledge, but the episode implied that it worked just fine as it was, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Not to mention, why couldn't the Waverider just use its sensors? I mean, heck, how did Rip find out in the first place that Ray had left a piece of his suit behind? Rip and Gideon knew that before Ray did, even though they weren't there. So they must have some really advanced detection technology. So why couldn't Gideon scan for the particles? It was a really contrived reason to have Stein meet his younger self.

Palmer: "...we just have to find the other piece of my suit - which shrinks because it's made of an alloy which mimics intermolecular compression of dwarf star--thus emitting alpha particles."

Stein: "So we just need to be able to track them. Fortunately alpha particles are highly trackable."

Palmer: "Yet unheard of in the 1970s. It's like we're trapped in the stone age."

Stein: "I'll have you know I was researching alpha particles when you were eating crayons."

Only Palmer seemed to think that it was an impossible tech for that era.

Captain Cold mentions they need a way to track them and Stein mentions he has a device in their current time. Old Stein later says (to lead on his younger self) detection is a decade away and young Stein says "more like two". I guess that's open to arrogance vs. reality.

Why the ship isn't capable of it is a conceit of the episode but not too much of one.

 

[Thestral]

On Rip and Gideon not detecting, it's simple enough. The whole episode Rip was hanging back and letting the team do it 'their way' to let them see how that would work out for them (Stein's marriage never happens, Ray loses a piece of his suit, then is captured with Snart, Carter dies...).

Which is not at all what I said.

Eh?

This stuff was common knowledge to anyone with a high-school education...

 

[Guy Gardener]

Here's my problem.

Alpha Radiation

Alpha radiation is a heavy, very short-range particle and is actually an ejected helium nucleus. Some characteristics of alpha radiation are:

• Most alpha radiation is not able to penetrate human skin.
  
• Alpha-emitting materials can be harmful to humans if the materials are inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through open wounds.
  
• A variety of instruments has been designed to measure alpha radiation. Special training in the use of these instruments is essential for making accurate measurements.
  
• A thin-window Geiger-Mueller (GM) probe can detect the presence of alpha radiation.
  
• Instruments cannot detect alpha radiation through even a thin layer of water, dust, paper, or other material, because alpha radiation is not penetrating.
  
• Alpha radiation travels only a short distance (a few inches) in air, but is not an external hazard.
  
• Alpha radiation is not able to penetrate clothing.

Examples of some alpha emitters: radium, radon, uranium, thorium.

Sure it's best radiation to be swimming in constantly it would seem, but Is Ray planing on having children?

A couple open gashes from crashing into the ground, because he sucks at flying, and Ray has no living sperm left, for when he finally meets the real Jean Loring.

 

[Christopher]

Sure it's best radiation to be swimming in constantly it would seem, but Is Ray planing on having children?

A couple open gashes from crashing into the ground, because he sucks at flying, and Ray has no living sperm left, for when he finally meets the real Jean Loring.

The item you quoted doesn't say that the radiation itself is potentially hazardous if absorbed, but rather the radioactive materials that emit it. Because they're heavy metals and it's a bad idea in general to get heavy metals in your body. Sure, too much of any kind of radiation is bad for you, but it's not like the tiniest amount will be instantly fatal.

We're all constantly exposed to a minor background level of radiation every day. You get a dose of radiation from eating a banana, because of the trace amounts of radioactive potassium in it. Not to mention the potassium that's already in your body and radiating from inside you. I live in a brick building, so I'm getting a steady dose of low-level radiation all the time. And so on. Radiation is like most anything else -- it's too much of it that's dangerous.

 

[Captain Craig]

I finally got caught up on the first two episodes. I found it enjoyable. It's going to be a romp and I find if I just allow for it as the pure escapist fantasy that is, not to question too hard any science, it'll be fun.
I don't pretend to fully understand Quantum Fields and Alpha particles or temporal mechanics so those aren't things I'm going to challenge as problematic.

Some SuperHero shows break some standard rules of basic physics you'd get in AP High School classes or Undergrad University studies and while that sometimes gets me I just remind myself....fiction, serving a plot device or just cool visual.

I'm more likely to be anal or pedantic when a "real world" type show bend/breaks some scientific principles than a superhero show. A fantasy show at least lets you know from the onset that it's not trying to exist wholly in your world vs say NCIS or Scorpion.