Dick Tracy finds new ways to not make sense (19 November)
Joseph Nebus
1. Dick Tracy didn't suspect Pops the Clown. Dick Tracy didn't
suspect *anybody*. Dick Tracy has stood impassively by while everybody
has started confessing everything to each other without anything they
say making a lick of sense.
2. Pops didn't time his shot, which was part of the regular and
nightly routine of the circus, to any external factor. Barb Els timed
*her* shot to Pops's, when the noise would cover her and the attraction
would have a remote chance of distracting the thousands of people in the
audience from witnessing Els's shot.
3. Two shots at the same time is impossible only if you get down
to the quantum mechanics level where there's not very much of a thing as
'simultaneous' and, for that matter, 'time' gets to be a pretty hairy and
difficult-to-support concept. In the real world, two guns shooting at
the same time is quite possible, particularly if one of those guns is
fired according to a routine, like, say, a nightly performance, which the
second shooter could get to know very well.
4. Pops was partners in crime with everybody in the circus except
the ringmaster. This was explained already, although since it didn't make
sense Locher and Brozman were probably confused by the revelation too.
5. It is not a revelation worth two exclamation points to show
that the other person who shot a gun was the other person shooting a gun.
6. You're still left with Pops and Barb Els shooting Louise
Trapeze rather than the person anyone wanted to shoot, in public, in
front of thousands of witnesses.
7. Nobody's been mauled by a tiger even though we spent about
two months with people tossed in the tiger cage and the tiger hadn't
eaten since the show stopped, three months ago to the readers but about
ten minutes ago internally.
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2009/11/19&name=Dick_Tracy
--
Joseph Nebus
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Mark Jackson
> Oh, let's try taking this from the top:
> 3. Two shots at the same time is impossible only if you get down
> to the quantum mechanics level where there's not very much of a thing as
> 'simultaneous' and, for that matter, 'time' gets to be a pretty hairy and
> difficult-to-support concept.
You're ignoring relativistic inertial frame considerations, but there's
nothing wrong with doing that here.
> In the real world, two guns shooting at
> the same time is quite possible, particularly if one of those guns is
> fired according to a routine, like, say, a nightly performance, which the
> second shooter could get to know very well.
How much delay between two sharp sounds (like gunshots) before they are
no longer likely to be mistaken for one? How close together were the
two shooters at the time? Sound only travels about 350 ft/sec.
--
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
Not knowing is much more interesting than believing
an answer that might be wrong. - Richard Feynman
Mark Jackson
> two shooters at the time? Sound only travels about 350 ft/sec.
Should be m/sec.
Sherwood Harrington
> Mark Jackson wrote:
>> two shooters at the time? Sound only travels about 350 ft/sec.
> Should be m/sec.
Depends on where you are. The speed of sound on Triton's surface isn't
much faster than 350 ft/sec.
--
Sherwood Harrington
Boulder Creek, California
Mark Jackson
> Mark Jackson <mjac...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> Mark Jackson wrote:
>
>>> two shooters at the time? Sound only travels about 350 ft/sec.
>
>> Should be m/sec.
>
> Depends on where you are. The speed of sound on Triton's surface isn't
> much faster than 350 ft/sec.
Don't spoil the plotting. The location of the circus isn't supposed to
be revealed until *next* week.