5 ms·

> The Martian The thin atmosphere bit is acknowledged by the author, you can watch his talk here around 32:35: I just want to be as accurate as I possibly

> The Martian The thin atmosphere bit is acknowledged by the author, you can watch his talk here around 32:35: I just want to be as accurate as I possibly could. There are a few places that are inaccurate. The biggest place that's inaccurate is right at the beginning. Don't tell anybody, but if you're in a dust storm on Mars, you're not even going to feel it. Mars' atmosphere is less than 1% of Earth's. So a 150 kilometer an hour wind would feel like about 1 kilometer an hour wind does on Earth. It wouldn't do any damage to anything. https://youtu.be/gMfuLtjgzA8?si=8aZUEizDWuBhnaJg&t=1958 https://youtu.be/gMfuLtjgzA8?si=8aZUEizDWuBhnaJg&t=1958 There is another clarification later at 35:34 saying the dust storm is basically like talcum powder.

rob74 3y ago
Well yeah, he needed some sort of catastrophic event to set the rest of the story in motion, and a huge dust storm which forces an evacuation and then separates Mark Watney from the rest of the crew was just the thing, so he added it although he was fully aware that storms don't work that way on Mars...
danielvf 3y ago
I don't know anything about mars, but I've messed with windmill math. This really doesn't make sense to me. A 150 mph wind in 1% atmosphere should be a way stronger a 1 mph wind on earth? You know the old formula, force = mass * velocity * velocity But with wind and water the more velocity, the more mass you get hit with in the same amount of time, so we get to multiply by velocity again. wind force = mass * velocity * velocity * velocity (This formula is why people die in fast moving water.) So a Mars 150mph wind (0.01 * 150 * 150 * 150) would have 34,000 times more force than a 1mph wind on earth. Which works out to around a 32 mph earth wind.
- deleted 3y ago
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- MathMonkeyMan 3y ago
  mass * velocity * velocity has units of energy. It's twice the kinetic energy.

rob74 3y ago

Well yeah, he needed some sort of catastrophic event to set the rest of the story in motion, and a huge dust storm which forces an evacuation and then separates Mark Watney from the rest of the crew was just the thing, so he added it although he was fully aware that storms don't work that way on Mars...

danielvf 3y ago

I don't know anything about mars, but I've messed with windmill math. This really doesn't make sense to me. A 150 mph wind in 1% atmosphere should be a way stronger a 1 mph wind on earth? You know the old formula, force = mass * velocity * velocity But with wind and water the more velocity, the more mass you get hit with in the same amount of time, so we get to multiply by velocity again. wind force = mass * velocity * velocity * velocity (This formula is why people die in fast moving water.) So a Mars 150mph wind (0.01 * 150 * 150 * 150) would have 34,000 times more force than a 1mph wind on earth. Which works out to around a 32 mph earth wind.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MathMonkeyMan 3y ago
mass * velocity * velocity has units of energy. It's twice the kinetic energy.