[why me why now (OP)]

right...hello...

Firstly: I am not a scientist in the slightest so please treat me like the simpleton i am..

Last week i blagged my way into a screening of a new film, the story of which is based around a team of people sent on a mission to the sun. The sun is dying and the team has some massive bomb they are going to drop into it to get it going again...Anyway...what i want to know about is whether the situation with the sun as it's described in the film is even remotely possible.

The film had a science advisor who seems to argue convincingly, but i have seen other people say that it's complete twaddle..

So now i come to you for some clarification. Can anyone here help me with this?

thanks in advance..

 []

Oh - here's some stuff to clarify

film site > www.sunshinedna.com [nofollow]

Interview with the film science guy (got it from that site above):

http://www.sunshinedna.com/?p=180 [nofollow]

Sunshine Science

I’ve put up an interview with Dr. Brian Cox, ‘Sunshine’s’ Science Advisor, in the Video Section. His job on ‘Sunshine’ involved discussing the science of the film with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland well before the script was completed in order to make sure that the concepts and terminology used were correct. The interview explains how the Sun could die prematurely.

The following was put together by Alex Garland after many discussions with Dr. Brian Cox. It explains, very simply, the background science in ‘Sunshine’.

Q: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SUN?

A: A Q Ball is eating the Sun from the inside out.

Q: WHAT’S A Q BALL?

A Q Ball is a super-symmetric nucleus, produced in the early Universe. That is to say, a nucleus made up of super-symmetric particles, formed shortly after the Big Bang.

Q: WHAT ARE SUPER-SYMMETRIC PARTICLES?

They are the super-symmetric counterpart to ordinary matter.

Q: WHAT IS ORDINARY MATTER?

Ordinary matter is what makes us up. Ordinary matter is constructed of atoms. The nucleus of an atom is constructed of protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are, in turn, composed of quarks.

Q: WHAT ARE QUARKS?

Quarks are elementary particles. Protons and neutrons are each composed of three quarks. The super-symmetric counterpart of a quark is a squark, and the Q Ball is composed of squarks.

Q: WHY IS THE Q BALL SO DANGEROUS TO THE SUN?

The protons and neutrons of ordinary matter would ‘rather’ be squarks. When ordinary matter is placed in close proximity to a Q Ball, the protons and neutrons are disrupted, ripped apart, and turned into squarks.

In other words, a Q Ball turns ordinary matter into itself. And unless it was stopped, this process would eat the Sun from the inside out, until a critical masa had been reached, at which point the Sun would explode.

Q: ARE SUPER-SYMMETRIC PARTICLES AND Q BALLS REAL?

This question should be answered by work that will be undertaken at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, which has its headquarters in Geneva. In 2007, scientists will use the laboratory’s vast particle accelerator to search for super-symmetric particles. It is considered very likely that they will find them.

Q: IF Q BALLS EXIST, DO THE REALLY DESTROY STARS?

It is speculated that the origin of gamma-ray bursts may be the cataclysmic destruction of neutron stars by precisely this method. Gamma-rays are the most energetic form of light, and are produced by events such as supernova explosions.

Q: HOW WILL THE ICARUS MISSION STOP THE Q BALL FROM DESTROYING THE SUN?

The Icarus mission carries a Stellar Bomb, which it will detonate in the Sun. The bomb will destroy the Q Ball.

Q: HOW WILL THE STELLAR BOMB DESTROY THE Q BALL?

The bomb creates the same super-heated conditions in which the Q Ball was made. To be specific, Q Balls were formed at a particular time after the Big Bang: 10 to minus 35 seconds. The heat at this moment of the Big Bang was 10 to the power of 32 degrees.

By recreating these conditions, the Q Ball will split up, separating it into squarks. Squarks on their own decay quickly into normal or stable (benign) supersymmetric particles. Put simply, the Stellar Bomb makes the Q Ball fall to bits.

Q: WHAT IS THE STELLAR BOMB MADE OF?

Dark matter and Uranium. In the same way that an atomic bomb uses normal explosives to trigger uranium into a nuclear explosion, the stellar bomb uses uranium to trigger the dark matter.

In the film Sunshine, mankind has been able to construct two of these Stellar Bombs. The fact that the Stellar Bomb uses uranium is the reason that mankind is limited to only two payloads – because Earth does not contain enough uranium to build a third.

Q: WHAT IS DARK MATTER?

We don’t know, but we have considerable gravitational evidence that it exists. Simply put, the gravitational effects that we can observe in the Universe require much more matter than we can see. Because we can’t see this hidden matter, it has been termed ‘dark’. Dark matter might make up as much as 95% of the Universe.

It is widely speculated what dark matter actually is. Planets, dim stars, neutrinos, exotic particles, and weakly interacting massive particles. But Q Balls are a good candidate.

Q: ARE THERE ANY CAVEATS ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND TO THE FILM?

There are, not least because the film assumes that large areas of theoretical physics are correct. In addition, the Sun may not actually be dense enough to stop a Q Ball, but for the purposes of the film, we assume it is. Also, the rate of ‘eating’ is proportionate to the density of Sun - so the rate might be very slow.

[science_guy]

Interview with the film science guy

I find this funny.

the last comment about theoretical physics is entirely sure.  The very fact that I or anybody I know has never heard of a Q ball is evidence enough that this would be very obscure, if not almost unknown.  But, with us living in a Universe we only partially understand, this is a possible, if only a little, scenario.

but the bit about Uranium triggering Dark matter, that might just be bogus, since Dark Matter only interacts with normal matter on a basis of gravity.  In fact, there are billions of dark matter particles passing through you as I type this post.

[neilep]

Was it a good film......?...........and welcome !!

[why me why now (OP)]

Was it a good film......?...........and welcome !!

hahha....YES NEIL - THE FILM WAS ABSOLUTELY BLINDING THANKS

[neilep]

Was it a good film......?...........and welcome !!

hahha....YES NEIL - THE FILM WAS ABSOLUTELY BLINDING THANKS

LOL....thank you...it's important you know ?...just the kind of film I like too !!

Anyway, I don't want to trespass on the premise of your thread so I hope you get some excellent responses soon.

Neil  []

[why me why now (OP)]

Was it a good film......?...........and welcome !!

hahha....YES NEIL - THE FILM WAS ABSOLUTELY BLINDING THANKS

LOL....thank you...it's important you know ?...just the kind of film I like too !!

Anyway, I don't want to trespass on the premise of your thread so I hope you get some excellent responses soon.

Neil  []

haha - not at all. Sorry - i re-read my original post and i didn;t really give much context did i..

I actually posted a review on my local student forum, so here it is anyway..

"I blagged a press screening of this last week, and i can tell you it's damn amazing.

without a doubt... DO NOT see this on some crappy small screen...You need the scale of it. The production values are something else...But it's not some 'empty' blockbuster like half the rubbish out there..
It's definitely not another disaster movie..Much more in line with Alien / 2001 etc...Classy as hell. Some seriously thought provoking stuff, not so much the science (although that is interesting), but more the human interaction stuff.

I am a big danny boyle supporter, although i wasn't a massive fan of the ending of 28DL..i still rate it highly as a film...Some of the set pieces (particularly the intro sequence in London and the tower block chase) were incredible...

As with sunshine, the thought-provoking stuff was actually quite early on. A lot of the same themes of claustrophobia and harsh-moral-decision-for-the-greater-good are present in both sunshine & 28DL

I mean ask yourself...Could you kill a loved one to save the rest of mankind? (that's the sort of thing the crew in sunshine face)

It's a simple, but genuinely intriguing moral dilemma...and the film's full of them

trust me - you have to see this "

[why me why now (OP)]

oh and here's the trailer..

[neilep]

oh and here's the trailer..

Cool !!!..(or should I say HOT !!)..LOL..me likey..me likey lot !!..thanks !

[why me why now (OP)]

no worries geez..

yer - best film i've seen in ages actually. There's loads of clips online if you hunt around

[another_someone]

I suppose if you invent enough laws of physics for which we have absolutely no evidence they exist, but no evidence yet they do not, you could argue anything you want.  It is not science, it is unfounded speculation about things science knows nothing about (you may as well be debating religion).

We don't know much about dark matter, except that it is fairly low density, and impervious to most of the forces (aside from gravity) that we know of.  This means that you are working in the field of the unknown.

Aside from how you get to build a bomb, and how you get a bomb like that to with enough power to restart the Sun without blowing the entire solar system apart, I would ask how are you going to deliver the bomb to its target?

Detonating a bomb like that, if it had the power to restart the Sun, would need to be delivered to the core of the Sun (simply trigerring it on the outside of the Sun is likely to blow the Sun itself apart, and the explosion out of there is likely to have an impact on the rest of the solar system.  You might be able to get away with a number of bombs around the Sun, focusing their blast into the core of the Sun, but not with one bomb.

Besides that, even if the Sun is only half as hot as it it today, no bomb would be able to get close to the Sun without being vaporised long before it reached close enough to be able to be triggered.

If, whatever it is eating up the Sun, is capable of operating in the extremes of the solar core, then you clearly have to create an environment where it cannot operate.  The fact that this Q ball is eating up an ongoing thermonuclear explosion, but does not exist in the middle of the Earth, then one has to assume it can only exist above a certain threshold of temperature and pressure.  What is this bomb going to do - will it increase the temperature and pressure (thus making the environment even more suitable for this Q ball), or reduce the temperature and pressure, and the sun in effect quench the Sun itself.  If the Sun were reignited, what would prevent the Q ball from returning?

If this is happening within the Sun, then what about all of the other stars in the universe - are they all going the same way - what would that do to the milky way itself?

[Soul Surfer]

The only relationship of most of the "science" in this film to real physics is the use of a few reasonably well known scientific terms like quarks,  supersymmetric particles and dark matter.  The rest is absolute rubbish and has not the remotest chance of being relavant to the way the universe works.

The lives of stars (including the boring ones that just keep on shining) are extremely intensively and thoroughly observed and if any star suddenly failed rapidly it would be as interesting event as a supernova and the subject of intense observation.  I can assure you that no such event has taken place.

This does not prevent the film from being interesting and exciting as a work of fantasy but the real danger lies with people who are not discerning enough to leave the fantasy in the cinema and start to think that it has some relationship to reality.  Over enthusiasm with "Harry Potter" and other similar stories of magic can cause the same problems.

[Ophiolite]

Over enthusiasm with "Harry Potter" and other similar stories of magic can cause the same problems.

You mean Harry Potter is not real!?! []

[why me why now (OP)]

The only relationship of most of the "science" in this film to real physics is the use of a few reasonably well known scientific terms like quarks,  supersymmetric particles and dark matter.  The rest is absolute rubbish and has not the remotest chance of being relavant to the way the universe works.

The lives of stars (including the boring ones that just keep on shining) are extremely intensively and thoroughly observed and if any star suddenly failed rapidly it would be as interesting event as a supernova and the subject of intense observation.  I can assure you that no such event has taken place.

This does not prevent the film from being interesting and exciting as a work of fantasy but the real danger lies with people who are not discerning enough to leave the fantasy in the cinema and start to think that it has some relationship to reality.  Over enthusiasm with "Harry Potter" and other similar stories of magic can cause the same problems.

sorry to be off topic for one moment, but you're not soul surfer the DJ are you?

[paul.fr]

This does not prevent the film from being interesting and exciting as a work of fantasy but the real danger lies with people who are not discerning enough to leave the fantasy in the cinema and start to think that it has some relationship to reality.  Over enthusiasm with "Harry Potter" and other similar stories of magic can cause the same problems.

I think the content these films tend to be portrayed in a matter of fact way, and they always credit a scientist as advising on the film. This will give the viewer the impression that it must be true. Like medical tv shows where they have a doctor advising them, the viewer is left thinking that this must be true because a scientist or doctor advised the makers.

Do we put this down to the level of education people recieve or their willingness to take on face value what they are watching?

[Soul Surfer]

why me why now   No  I am not a DJ

follow the link to my web pages if you want to know a bit more about my background

[why me why now (OP)]

Do we put this down to the level of education people recieve or their willingness to take on face value what they are watching?

that's a very good question....i was talking to a friend the other day about climate change etc..

He is militantly opposed to th popular opinion that there is a problem with the environment etc...He thinks it's just another way for the government to control us <rolls eyes> (yeah  - he's one of those friends>

However - the point is that for basically scientifically uneducated people like us, there's actually no way of knowing what's true (or as close to true as possible) and what's not.

We hear people arguing compellingly in both directions and both side can sound very convincing..

what's a cretin like me to do?

[why me why now (OP)]

why me why now   No  I am not a DJ

follow the link to my web pages if you want to know a bit more about my background

......


oops - sorry my man 

i thought for one second you were this guy  > http://www.myspace.com/djsoulsurfer [nofollow] 

but he doesn't look as hot on evolutionary philosophy as you

[why me why now (OP)]

The only relationship of most of the "science" in this film to real physics is the use of a few reasonably well known scientific terms like quarks,  supersymmetric particles and dark matter.  The rest is absolute rubbish and has not the remotest chance of being relavant to the way the universe works.

really? so all that stuff has no basis in reality at all?

[ukmicky]

You mean Harry Potter is not real!?! []

Its all right you can pick yourself up off the floor now, my daughter was in one of the films and had his mobile number so he must be real.

[why me why now (OP)]

lol