/sci/ - Science & Math

It's explained a bit better in the book where he was originally wearing a respirator to ensure that the amount of oxygen present in the HAB was exact when he was doing his calculations.

The problem was that even though he wasn't inhaling oxygen from the atmosphere because of the respirator, he was actually *exhaling* it, increasing the oxygen levels.

>>7589234
We exhale lots of O2.

We don't use all, or even most, of the O2 we breath in. Most of it just goes right back out. This is why it actually takes quite a while to run out of oxygen even in a closed space.

We exhale lots of things because when we inhale, our lungs aren't 100% efficient. So aside from the obvious ones of CO2 and N2, we also exhale O2 that wasn't absorbed.

>>7589234
your lungs don't magically absorb all the oxygen in the air you breath. The air you breathe out is very similar to the air you breathe in.

>>7589234
It is possible, there's a documentary you can find of a NASA scientist going over everything like what he does, most are possible, try finding the link. I also loved the movie

The book was better than the movie, but the movie was still fucking fantastic.

One of my biggest complaints about the movie is that Mark Watney was supposed to be more of a scrawny Otter-mode physique and he makes several references to how Old-School astronauts (basically, military badasses) would have shoved him into a locker if they ever got the chance.

Also, the book was a lot closer to a comedy while the movie was a lot closer to a drama. Mark Watney still had a sense of humor in the movie but it was waaaaaay toned down. Also, he didn't say "fuck" nearly enough.

>>7589266
Both were garbage.
Genre-fiction plebshit and cinema.

>>7589343
Fuck you too.

>>7589343
Fucking retard

>>7589348
>>7589352
Get some fucking taste.

>>7589354
At least make comparisons to existing stories instead of just flying in with guns a blazin.

God forbid you recommend alternatives.

>>7589360
>>God forbid you recommend alternatives.
Literary fiction.
It's not that fucking hard, now please stop existing, you're just perpetuating the stereotype that most of us are tasteless aspies.

>>7589364
Provide legitimate criticism or fuck off.

>>7589369
Terrible prose
Pop culture references
Terribly written characters
Now, fuck off.

>>7589234
>as a chemist
*as a first-year chem undergrad

fucking retard

>>7589364

You know who uses phrases like "please stop existing"? Asspies

>>7589372
You're gonna need to be more detailed than that.

Put some effort into your trolling.

>>7589376
Ebin
>>7589377
Read the canon and then read this garbage and tell me that this isn't shit prose.
You have shit taste, accept it and improve it.

OP again, the movie had its flaws for sure (characters reading out loud as they type, excessive man to camera monologues by Watney), but as an exploration of what could be achieved as one man alone on Mars, portrayed in an entertaining way, I thought it did its job well.

>>7589389
Another example
>>7589391
It would have been better off as one of those fictional How-To books about surviving on Mars rather than a novel.

>>7589389
The prose is supposed to be less than stellar. The narrator is the character in question, written in the way they think.

You're being ridiculous.

>>7589393
>>7589389
You really aren't in any position to call other people asspies.

>>7589395
Just because it's supposed to be garbage doesn't excuse it from being garbage, and this is all aside from the fact that if it was intended to be written in the way that the character thinks that the character would at least be well-written, but the characters are two-dimensional, even the narrator who was isolated on another planet doesn't change.
>>7589401
Why, because I actually care about art?
Piss off

>>7589402
>but the characters are two-dimensional, even the narrator who was isolated on another planet doesn't change.
See, was this so fucking hard for you to write?

All you had to do was this: Citing specific criticisms instead of coming in and screaming at everyone over how their tastes garbage like a raging faggot.
You're capable of civil discussion. Employ that skill next time.

>>7589409
Maybe because after the nth thread about this garbage I expected people to know why it's so hated?
How new are you?

>>7589413
>How new are you?
/sci/ is not one person.

If you don't like being in these discussions, then don't participate in them.

>>7589343
>>7589354
>>7589364
This is why everyone hates lib art faggots

>>7589413
>I expected people to know why it's so hated
Hated by who, other autists?


You do realize you're not on /lit/, right? Why are you posting as though you are?

>>7589389
>>7589393

As someone who enjoyed the Martian immensely, I can indeed agree that the prose was by far the lowest part of the novel. It's written in a conversational style, and the character having that conversation is neither particularly well-rounded or eloquent.

The term is, I think, "Workmanlike." You can do truly wonderful things with prose - make it clever, elegant, beautiful, moving - with careful and creative craftsmanship and architecture.

Weir, by contrast, has elected to hold up his novel by hammering together a quick and crude structure of unsanded and unpainted planks. It's sturdy and it works, but it's not what you came to look at - it's there to do a job and hold the ideas in.

Would The Martian be a better novel if it had been written with better standards of prose? Absolutely.

Is it a shit novel because its prose is weak and frankly a bit ugly? Hardly. (At least, depending on what exactly you mean by "shit" - there's a lot of rulers there that aren't at all parallel, as you can tell by the fact that a popular book that many people enjoyed can still be considered shit. Certainly it is one of the least aesthetically pleasing novels ever published that wasn't being deliberately ugly for the sake of postmodernism)

>>7589389
>>7589393
Go back to /lit/.

I see your thread in there right now, same filenames and everything. Now stay there.

>>7589416
Nice echo-chamber you want here.
>>7589417
I'm STEM, but nice try; you're the reason why the STEM stereotype exists.
>>7589418
>Hated by who
Whom*
By people with taste.
>You do realize you're not on /lit/, right?
But we're posting in a thread about The Martian[1], where the same points on why it's terrible are always brought up.
>>7589421
see >>7589402
>Just because it's supposed to be garbage doesn't excuse it from being garbage, and this is all aside from the fact that if it was intended to be written in the way that the character thinks that the character would at least be well-written, but the characters are two-dimensional, even the narrator who was isolated on another planet doesn't change.
>>7589424
I haven't been on /lit/ for the past few days, whatever thread you're talking about isn't mine.

[1] The novel written by Andy Weir, and the film based off of it.

>>7589234
it was mediocre

it felt like IFLS porn, throwing in at least one nod to every major "geek" thing

as a movie, though, it was pretty bland. there was little to his character (he likes science, laughs in the face of death to keep sane, and, uh, iron man?), it was pretty low drama (it didn't even seem like his getting off the planet was ever in jeopardy), didn't really explore that much of the extreme psychological uniqueness of the situation/peril that is the backbone of drama.

overall, the movie was mysteriously light, and seemed to just throw in shoutouts to various branches of science. it is nice to see some level of accuracy in a movie, but if you are watching it for accuracy, just watch a fucking lecture or documentary, no need to fictionalize.

>>7589425
Oh, so the thread in >>>/lit/7235053 just so happened to use your exact filenames, and just happened to be posted the same time your ass was posting in this thread. Also:

>mass replying
Autism confirmed.

>>7589428
You do know that people can copy filenames, right?
>>7589428
>>mass replying
>Autism confirmed.
Whom are you quoting?

>>7589437
>You do know that people can copy filenames, right?
Not him but let's play a game of occam's razor
Situation 1) Two random people have the same filenames and post on two separate boards on 4chan at the same time
Situation 2) Some shitposter realized they can shit post on two boards
HMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm..............

>>7589465
Except none of my posts were shitposts.

>>7589467
ad hominem like calling people aspies is pretty shit posting. Unless you somehow believe that's a legitimate argument, in which case the irony in your insults should not be lost, even on you

>>7589478
If it's true it's not shitposting

>>7589485
There you go again ;^)

>>7589490
:^)

>>7589343
this tbh. A friend of mine wanted me to read it and it really was horrible.

>bad prose (see what anon posted >>7589389)
>wtf is the plot, him solving problems all over again? what kind of a plot is that

'realistic depictions of science' does not make a book/movie good, with that logic 'Functional Analysis' by Yoshida would be a fantastic book because everything in it is true and perfectly proven. In fact you could argue that in a way writing about stuff that is not real or correct offers the writer more possibilities because things can get a lot more interesting once you leave the realm of reality (see for example Maxwell's Demon and this whole entropy thing in A Crying of Lot 49).

Arguing here on /sci/ about literary merit doesn't make a ton of sense I guess, when most have never seriously read literature. I mean, would you discuss science with pop-science 'space is so cool' fags? No, you would tell tem to read the textbooks and learn the basics, and the same is true for literature, there is no point discussing literary merit with people who have probably never read a good book after they did a Great Gatsby report in 11th grade. (inb4 >great gatsby >good).

The movie is average shallow Hollywood stuff, not completely shit (hi @jurassic world) but nothing innovative/modern whatsoever.

>>7589425
I didn't say it was garbage.
I didn't say it was supposed to be garbage.
I merely said that the prose was not aesthetically pleasing.

Therefore, your reply does not apply.

>>7589532
>the prose was not aesthetically pleasing.
Therefore it is garbage.

>>7589234
>What did /sci/ think of this movie?
I enjoyed it quite a lot. And I usually hate "Man vs Environment" movies. I think the science kept it intelligent enough for me.

>I liked it, as a chemist I found the way he synthesized water (hydrazine over an iridium catalyst to produce hydrogen, plus oxygen) pretty interesting. Is this plausible?
Yes, absolutely. Google Sabatier.

>Also he mentioned something about excess O2 that he exhaled or something similar. I thought we exhaled CO2? Do we exhale a mix of O2/CO2? And even so, wouldn't the amount of O2 exhaled be less than what he had inhaled?

We don't use 100% of the O2 we breath in, we're not that efficient. The point was just that he overlooked a variable.

>>7589343
The film was a decent sci-fi 'thriller'. It was honestly far superior to the novel as a film, rather than the object of a nerds wet dream.

>>7589534
Yes, this is what I was saying I disagreed with. I disagree that "prose craftsmanship" is an objectively correct axis to grade fiction on.

Actually, I just disagree that there are any objectively correct axes to grade fiction on.

And that, if there were such an axis, that something must be garbage simply because there are things much higher than it on the axis.

>>7589550
>I disagree that "prose craftsmanship" is an objectively correct axis to grade fiction on.
You can't disagree with facts, Anon.

>>7589395
Yeah, but the way that the character thinks is very grating and considering he isn't real and is the creation of the author I'd say it's a valid criticism to state that the author should have written the narrator in a more aesthetically pleasing way and with a greater degree of depth and complexity.

I'm not the guy shitposting in this thread, but it honestly is just really stupid that such a highly educated astronaut is spewing random shit about "pirate-ninjas" and Aquaman when he's isolated on another fucking planet. Maybe the book is supposed to be a comedy, but it really isn't that funny and its plot and subject matter are hardly good platforms for delivering humor.

>>7589566
To argue a book is of lower quality because of it's prose is like arguing about the quality of a painting because of it's canvas choice. Art is art and there's no such thing as something being "less art." It's all opinion and the cool thing about opinions is they mean absolutely nothing and prove nothing

>>7589618
no its like arguing that a painting is bad because it wasn't painted very well or with any authentic or interesting vision

>>7589618
i think you're thinking about not liking a book bc of paper stock lol

>*it's

>>7589618
>Art is art and there's no such thing as something being "less art."
Yes there is
>>7589618
>It's all opinion
Taste and the quality of art are both objective properties.

>>7589467
They were the text book definitions of shitposts.

>>7589694
Calling out shit tastes isn't shitposting.

>>7589618
>To argue a book is of lower quality because of it's prose is like arguing about the quality of a painting because of it's canvas choice
That isn't equivalent at all.

>>7589425
>dat footnote
i hope DFW's wrapped snugly in the great bandana in the sky.

>>7589421
>elected to hold up his novel by hammering together a quick and crude structure of unsanded and unpainted planks. It's sturdy and it works, but it's not what you came to look at - it's there to do a job and hold the ideas in.

That's an excellent description of just about all Golden Age SF (I'm looking at you Asimov and Clarke) and a lot of it even now.

>>7589523
>A Crying of Lot 49
>Tommy Pinecone
Lit detected. I'll agree that lack of structure and lot's of technical descriptions (I didn't read the book but I've heard this) are a major complaint people have about this, but if you look at the writings of hard sci-fi writers like Asimov, the pleasure of the read is in those technical details and problem solving (probably the main reason I, Robot is amazing). It definitely isn't for everyone, but I think a lot of us on this board sometimes fantasize about being thrown into a situation where our problem solving abilities and knowledge of science, which is essentially useless day to day, becomes necessary for survival.

> when most have never seriously read literature.
... See...
This makes you sound pretentious. If you want people to listen to you why would you decide to sound pretentious? People derive enjoyment from different things, don't be so judgmental and stop trying to impose your taste in art onto others. If you have criticisms, drop the insults and people will be more receptive to them.

>>7589618
I don't agree with your wording, but I agree with what your trying to say... Anyone that didn't like The Martian because the prose didn't meet their le elite patrician tastes is an utterly irredeemable faggot who missed the point of the book

>>7589234
You aren't really a chemist are you?

>>7589427
>but if you are watching it for accuracy, just watch a fucking lecture or documentary, no need to fictionalize.
What if I want accuracy presented in a way that's not fucking boring as all fuck?

>>7590415
>pretentious
There was nothing pretentious about his post, please point out where the false pretense lies.
>>7590455
He appropriated art and for that we'll call him out on it, if he really did have a purpose for his novel he shouldn't have used the novel form.
>>7590503
>What if I want accuracy presented in a way that's not fucking boring as all fuck?
The novel failed in that regard too.

>>7590455
I don't really understand why we should accept an author transmitting their story through a certain creative medium if they place no expectation on themselves to properly employ the fundamental expressive vessel of that medium (in this case, language) in way that at least meets the general standards set by that medium's history. I mean, I don't feel like I'm being unreasonable by saying that if an author's primary intent isn't to write well then they probably shouldn't be transferring their ideas through the written word.

>>7590455
Considering the number of fuck words in the book, I like to think that the less civil style of prose actually gives it credit. Especially since it's in first person perspective and he tries to make Mark Watney out to be a little more down to Earth than you'd expect an astronaut to be.

>>7589425
I will literally shit on you

>>7590601
Witty response.

>>7589425
Waah. I want the scientist in the story to sound more like James Joyce.

>>7590503
>What if I want accuracy presented in a way that's not fucking boring as all fuck?

bc that's not a movie, that's a nice self-assuring conversation you have over a beer with a /sci/ friend

>"if I was stuck on mars man, I'd grow potatoes out of my own shit"
>"ifls"

There are lots of ways to recreationally reassure yourself about your interests, it doesn't make something a good movie, it just makes it satiating.

There are movies I like just because they make me feel good or have stuff I like in them, but that doesn't make the movie high-quality.

>>7591409
Yes, I do.

>>7589377
Some people get their fun by disliking what others enjoy.

>>7589389
I suppose you consiser Adrian Mole shit tier as well

>>7589234

its a fucking movie

it was enjoyable whilst drunk

may even torrent blu ray and watch at home again

>>7589234
I thought it was a great movie,
and also appreciated how they pointed out how all the other sciences mock biology, when in reality, biology and biochemistry will be of the major sciences needed in space travel and experiments with terraforming. We will need biology to see if a planet is safe or not due to its microbe environment.

Then we have all these fags on here always mocking biologists as if we're all shitheads.

>>7589234
>as a chemist.....
>is this plausible?

YOU'RE THE FUCKING CHEMIST WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME

>>7592115

We don't mock biology because it's useless, we mock biology because it's what dumb people study.

They should have made a "Into the looking glass by john ringo" movie instead.

>>7589343
*tips monocle*

>>7592427
Witty reply

Will we get to Mars within my lifetime?

>>7589354
>literally "stop liking what I don't like"

>>7589343

I think that there were a few bits of dialogue that made it painfully clear that the film didn't have enough time to fully explain concepts ("Technobabble" if you will.).

>>7589234
You start by saying "As a chemist" and then you ask something as stupid as "do we exhale O2?"

You realize that oxygen gets in your blood via diffusion and it can impossibly all diffuse at the same time, probably not even if you hold your breath untill you pass out.

Why do you think we blow air in someones mouth when giving CPR? Because they need CO2?

Tbh I'm mad. You are probably not even 16 as I learned this shit in biology in 11th grade

How would you compare the Martian to the Mars Trilogy? Strictly books only.

>>7589343
>>>/tv/

Okay, guys, arguments about how good the story was and whether OP is a chemist aside, I don't really get the catalytic decomposition of hydrazine thing.

He uses a catalyst to decompose the hydrazine into nitrogen and hydrogen, with the intent of then burning the hydrogen with oxygen (provided by the hab's magic atmospheric regulator).

Is there any reason it wouldn't make more sense to just burn the hydrazine directly to obtain the same effect? Hydrazine is flammable down to 40% solution, and this is the anhydrous rocket propellant.

Also: if you catalytically decompose hydrazine with a fast catalyst meant for a rocket engine, shouldn't the hydrogen be hot enough to react with oxgyen without an ignition source?

Finally: whether he's using a catalyst or a burner, shouldn't he be leaking enough hydrazine into the hab to make himself very sick?

>>7589343
I genuinely want to know what your favorite masterpiece of all time book is. I want to read good books but every book I enjoy gets shat on by people who go on and on about taste. I might as well skip straight up to the top where you are mighty taste god to find out what books are 1000x times better than this. Show me the light.

>>7594601
>Back in 11th grade
>Back
>Implying you're not just some little dipshit in middle school

>>7589523
>'realistic depictions of science' does not make a book/movie good
They're not the only factor, but unrealistic depictions of science RUIN books/movies.
>In fact you could argue that in a way writing about stuff that is not real or correct offers the writer more possibilities because things can get a lot more interesting once you leave the realm of reality
Pleb fiction isn't interesting.

>>7595087
Here you go:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VDRUI5Q

I doubt a pleb like you can appreciate its genius.

>>7595076
Have you read the book?

The weird thing here is that so many people seem to think that this is a "realistic depiction of science" or "scientifically accurate" book, and are weighing that against how well-written it is as a story.

The book goes into depth on exactly what's supposed to be happening, so you can see constantly just how wrong it is. The author didn't even understand how potatoes work, let alone anything more technically involved than backyard gardening. Frankly, he had some trouble with how EATING potatoes works.

Basically, every major plot point depends on some glaring technical error.

>>7595109
Yes, it was a constant source of irritation.

I think the author's thought process was basically:
- [look up water]
- water is hydrogen and oxygen
- [look up hydrogen]
- if you burn hydrogen in oxygen, you get water
- there's hydrogen in rocket fuel, right?
- [look up rocket fuel]
- [look up hydrazine]
- okay, hydrazine works by being catalytically decomposed into hydrogen and nitrogen
- so if you catalytically decompose hydrazine, you get nitrogen and hydrogen, which you can burn
- that gives you water

...and it just never occurred to him to check whether you can just burn hydrazine.

>mark watney electrolyzes water to produce a Hab full of hydrogen and oxygen, then drains the oxygen to get pure hydrogen
>instead of separating the electrodes on his electrolytic cell and collecting the hydrogen directly

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne is the exact same book as The Martian except better in every way.

>>7595134
>electrolyzes water to produce a Hab full of hydrogen and oxygen
I haven't watched the movie, only read the book, but this didn't happen in the book, and I am like 99% sure it wouldn't be in the movie either.

>>7595098
A true classic.

>>7595230
Certified by NASA experts as scientifically accurate, too.

>>7595127
I'm curious about this too but of course /sci/ refuses to deliver and instead argues about what's considered art

>>7592200
This tbh
The real biology takes place in biomath and biophysics
Biology is no more than a place holder for premed chads

>>7595153
No, it happened in the book.
>But NASA thought everything through and gave me a process. First, I disconnected the rover and trailer from each other. Then, while wearing my EVA suit, I depressurized the trailer and back-filled it with pure oxygen at one-fourth of an atmosphere. Then I opened a plastic box full of water and put a couple of electrodes in. That's why I needed the atmosphere. Without it, the water would just boil immediately and I'd be hanging around in a steamy atmosphere.
>The electrolysis separated the hydrogen and oxygen from each other. Now the trailer was full of even more oxygen and also hydrogen. Pretty dangerous, actually.
>Then I fired up the atmospheric regulator. I know I just said it doesn't recognized hydrogen, but it does know how to yank oxygen out of the air. I broke all the safeties and set it to pull 100 percent of the oxygen out. After it was done, all that was left in the trailer was hydrogen. That's why I started out with an atmosphere of pure oxygen, so the regulator could separate it later.
>Then I cycled the rover's airlock with the inner door open. The airlock thought it was evacuating the whole trailer. The air was stored in the airlock's holding tank. And there you have it, a tank of pure hydrogen.

>>7595358
The rover he made into a trailer was not the "Hab".

But yeah, now I see what you're talking about. I had forgotten about that. It seemed strange to me, too.

>>7594524
No, it's called having taste.
>>7594539
Garbage texts isn't fun.
>>7594975
I don't browse that terrible board with shit taste.
>>7595087
Lolita

>>7595095
He's right though tbh, don't get mad

>>7589234
>Not a fan of Matt Damon in that movie.
>Not a fan of the constant unnecessary meh tier jokes.
>Expected fedora tier science.
>actually pretty decent science except for ***spoiler alert*** that last bit where they're trying to catch Matt and they blow up the ship and Matt plays iron man. The science is roughly there, but not the realism.

7/10 bretty good for a modern sci-fi movie

>>7589389
What is a indirect narration?
Just stop breathing, you unfathomable retard.

>>7589234
>Also he mentioned something about excess O2 that he exhaled or something similar. I thought we exhaled CO2? Do we exhale a mix of O2/CO2? And even so, wouldn't the amount of O2 exhaled be less than what he had inhaled?
we inhale about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other stuff like carbon dioxide and argon. each time we exhale, it's about 78% nitrogen, 16-17% oxygen, and 4-5% carbon dioxide

>>7589234
cat-fag here.

Its pretty much entirely implausible to do that for any length of time. Problem is, unlike what you learn in first year chem courses, all catalysts get passivated/deactivated over time. Impurities in the mixture, or even thermodynamic/mechanical instabilities lead to a growing loss in catalytic activity. In industry, all catalysts have to be reactivated, and ultimately replaced, at some point in time.

>>7596959
>What is a indirect narration?
Something that doesn't require constant "I"'s, fucking moron.
End yourself