Copyright Kristin C Sabo 1997 The Deadly Bubble ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ We finally get a break from crap, blasphemous/Artieless eps with The Night of the Deadly Bubble, not to be confused with TNot Bubbling Death. ;) Alfred Ryder stars in this one as a predecessor to your radical environmentalist who plans on terrorizing the west coast with his "deadly bubbles" until humankind agrees to stop using the world's oceans as their private garbage pit. Of course, our heroes are out to stop the "neptunian" megalomaniac. There are things to like, things not to like, and things to wonder about, here. In the teaser, a blind begger(??) hikes his way up a lighthouse(?) and the boys don't blink an eye at it? Better yet, although Artemus mentions it in passing, someone fires what later appears to be a .44 from the ground into the top of the lighthouse - from pitch dark into light - and has the angle, aim, and muzzle velocity to hit the professor straight in the back and kill him? Besides all that, there were THREE - count 'em THREE men in very similar cloaks in the room, under red light it would be almost impossible to distinguish between them, IMMHO. Man, that Philo is a helluva shot, and what vision he must have! Heh.... I've previously mentioned that the two Washington State cities listed as hit by tidal waves would be very hard to actually strike unless Philo had similar compressor set-ups all up and down the west coast, not just the one in CA (I assume). And I *know* I griped about how stupid Artemus is written when Miss Potato Chips is kidnapped.... grrrrrrrrr. GRRRRRR! Let's have a little fun with Philo's tidal wave model -- the one he shows Jim and Miss Bean-Brain/Oh-No!-We're-Gonna-Die,-So-Make-Me-A-~Woman~-Mr-West. Been a while since I did any television physics demos for you, afterall. =) Ready? In the fish tank, a bubble of about 2 1/2 inches [6.4 cm = .064 m] in diameter is formed (my estimate). Philo claims his compressors make a bubble one million times that size, or (1,000,000 x .064 meters, which is 64,000 meters or 64 kilometers (38 miles) in diameter, which means that the water at the bottom of where this bubble is formed needs to be at least this deep. Philo claims he is a scientist, so we assume he's speaking correctly about the magnitude of his weapon.... Does anyone think this is even remotely possible??? What? You're not sure? Okay - Let's say for argument's sake that Philo exaggerated by a factor of 10. How much, then, does a ball of sea water with a diameter of 1/10th Philo's estimation (= 3.8 miles) weight? This is the amount of water Philo's steam compressors would have to displace in essence to create that bubble. The total water in such a sphere is 4/3 PIx(3.8/2)cubed = 28.7 cubic miles. (or 1.4x10^11 cubic meters). Tap water (close enough) weighs about 8 lbs force per gallon and one gallon is approx. 2.5 liters, so water weights roughly 3.2 lbs force per liter. 1 cubic centimeter = .001 liters = .000001 cubic meters => 1 liter = .001 cu meters. SO, water weighs 3.2 lbs force per .001 cubic meters or 3200 lbs f per cu m. Right, so finally the total weight of water Philo's compressors must displace to make a bubble one hundred-thousand times the size of the one he showed Jim and Pringles in his lab is: 1.4x10^11 x 3200 lbs force = 4.48x10^14 lbs force! That's 448,000,000,000,000 lbs, and we gave the guy a factor of 10 (a factor of 10-cubed diff in weight) exaggeration in the bargain!!! Where's Artemus when you need him? Philo's ~got~ to be kidding. Jim and Artie should have simply done the math, and laughed the guy off the planet! ;) What do I like about this episode? The fights are ~good~, the talking villain is pretty cool, Artie's neo-balistics are interesting, (and questionable, but then we didn't see all the tests Mr Gordon said he performed on the bullets, did we?), and there's just nothing quite like a gunfight a mile under water to bring a smile to my face. ;) I guess I just have one question remaining, just how are Artemus and Miss Potato Chips going to warn the entire west coast in under 27 minutes??? Now that, I wanna see! -Trail Mix -- ............................................... ksabo@physics.usc.edu .....