Physics from a Non-Brony: The Sonic Rainboom Unraveled (reposted from another forum) · 6:29pm Oct 7th, 2012
Somewhat edited for content and form. Originally posted at this forum.
The intent of this thread is not truly an attempt to convince you that Rainbow Dash is subsonic; the purpose of this is to convince you that the "Sonic Rainboom" scene, as well as the entirety of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic," is far too inconsistent to consider applying real-world logic and science to in hopes of toting concrete proof when using a singular scene as evidence. (AKA you need more evidence than a scientifically-inaccurate "mach cone" to support a conclusion)
Hello there, Bronies. As the title suggests, I am not truly a Brony (or wasn't at the time I wrote this). Don't ask why I'm here (I'm here to read stories, which can be good regardless of their subjects or themes) and I'm not quite sure why I felt the need to post this. The fact of the matter is: I am. While I enjoy many of the fan-created works on media such as Youtube and such, I don't really think the show itself is anything special (in fact, I consider it only moderately entertaining at best). I suppose that makes me one of those "fan of the fandom" types? Nevertheless, I sincerely hope that this fact doesn't color your judgment regarding what I'm about to share with you. Personally, I find it interesting. Not sure if anybody is going to see this blog post or not, but I thought I would post it anyways.
Although I can hardly call myself anything even close to an "expert" concerning any material MLP-related, I do have a tendency to take notice of things that most people don't notice, especially the parts relating to logic and the sciences. And I've noticed from the little bit of MLP that I do know of that, as expected from a children's cartoon setting, it's not very consistent. That is, it prioritizes the episodic story content over the over-arcing continuity. Although this isn't necessarily always a bad thing, as I for one would prefer good plot to a consistent setting, this characteristic does make it hard to form specific conclusions about the setting, especially in fields of physical sciences — obviously, the show has more than merely passing resemblance to Loony Toons in terms of the physics involved.
Once, a good while ago, I was brought into a little debate as a trusted source of information by someone I happened to know over the matter of "who is faster: Rainbow Dash or Sonic the Hedgehog"? I was honestly not a fan of either of them, so I could be considered a rather fair arbiter.
Now, I knew from past experience with these sort of "VS match" deals that 'canon Sonic' (from the games only) has a casual run (forwards and backwards) at over the speed of sound at sea level (Mach 1+; 340.3+ m/s; ~761+ mph) and is capable of reaching speeds over hypersonic (Mach 5+; 1.7+ km/s; 3805+ mph), especially in more recent games (Sonic Adventure DX manual even states "he's the world's fastest, hypersonic hedgehog"). "Light Speed Attack" and "Light Speed Dash" are directly stated, in-game by at least two characters if I remember correctly (I don't have the quotes anymore, and I'm not a Sonic fan so I don't know the names of the characters who stated this or when it was stated off the top of my head), to be literally "light-speed"; which would make his max speed as fast as light traveling through air at STP (Mach ~880,764.5; ~299,704,645 m/s; ~670,420,196 mph). Furthermore, "Super Sonic" would be considered capable of "faster than light" movement at least thanks to having some form of "Chaos Control" (limited time manipulation), and his normal movement speed is stated to be "speed of light" (I still don't have reason to believe this is a hyperbole, given that he fights at high speed in space); and from what I've gathered through evidence, he would have to be at least mid-to-high 'relativistic speed' anyways ('relativistic speed' is somewhere over 10% of light speed: mid-level would be 35-70% the speed of light) in order to perform many of the feats from the games as Super Sonic. SEGA has also stated in the past (I can't find the quote, unfortunately) during the 2D age that they literally couldn't code Sonic moving at supersonic speeds in real time because of (still WIP) hardware limitations, and because the human visual processing and reaction time would be unable to keep up, thus making it nearly impossible to navigate levels; therefore, Sonic is normally moving much faster than he appears to in the games, but is held back by inadequate hardware and slow human brains. There were numerous examples of confirmed high-speed supersonic feats for the Blue Rodent (actually, hedgehogs are erinaceids, not rodents, but I digress) that I already had access to; ...such as this excellent example from "Sonic Unleashed":
• First checkpoint: 699 m/s (Mach 2.05)
• Second checkpoint: 1939 m/s (Mach 5.70)
• Third checkpoint: 674 m/s (Mach 1.98)
• Fourth checkpoint: 820 m/s (Mach 2.41)
• Fifth checkpoint: 1245 m/s (Mach 3.66)
• Sixth checkpoint: 729 m/s (Mach 2.14)
• Last checkpoint: 600 m/s (Mach 1.76)
• Average Speed: 958 m/s (Mach 2.82)
...But at that time, I didn't know anything about Rainbow Dash. And this post isn't about Sonic, it's about Rainbow Dash. So let's get to it, shall we?
I saw many people arguing on the Rainbow Dash side saying things ranging from "she's about Mach 1 (761 mph)" to "she's over Mach 2.36 (1800 mph)" to "she's over Mach 4.8 (3655 mph)" to "she's over Mach 5.485 (4175 mph)" to "she's over Mach 6.175 (4700 mph)" to "she's over mach 10", and even claims as far as "she broke the light barrier, so she's light-speed and/or faster than light". But none of it seemed to be very well based in solid proof, and much of it was riding on evidence collected by other people, such as that one "Physics Brony" on Youtube, who calculated Dash's speed during her first "Sonic Rainboom" by measuring the shock cone vertex ('Mach angle') using the formula "sin(Θ) = c(relative velocity of sound)/v(velocity of object)", as seen in this video:
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=muVfidujxRg]
Now, personally, I would have preferred to use the formula "μ = sin⁻¹(1/[Mach number])", but that isn't the point here. No, the point is that he used the "Mach cone" Dash produced when accelerating. Now, normally I wouldn't have a problem with this sort of logic, but given the fact that this series isn't especially known for following the logical boundaries of physical laws (quite the opposite, it seems, especially if you take into account things like the sun and the moon not following any known astronomical laws), his use of the "Mach cone" shown in the scene to calculate Dash's speed seems to be of suspect reliability. In fact, I'm rather certain myself that the "Mach cone" Dash produces in this scene was only added because someone in the design process looked up images of supersonic flight, saw a vapor cone, and thought it "looked cool" (AKA, Rule of Cool), and that no real thought was given to the actual physics of the phenomenon, as evidenced by the fact that said vapor cone doesn't follow the laws of aerodynamics in the scene. 
Since "velocity (and speed)" is literally the measure of "distance traveled over time elapsed", calculating it by literally examining the "distance traveled (in a single direction) over a specific time interval" will ALWAYS be the MOST reliable method of calculation, and shall therefore trump any other method such as "Mach cone angle" calculation every time. So, with this in mind, I set out to figure out the best way to calculate her velocity myself, gathering the evidence myself using the "Sonic Rainboom" scene, as seen in this video:
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=WImRs-nWW48]
Unfortunately, there is a certain "content over consistency" problem that reared its ugly head multiple times. The visual perspective in that whole scene is rather inconsistent, so most of the scene couldn't be used to accurately gauge a reliable distances. For example, I considered the fact that the starting point (the coliseum-like area housing the audience) appeared to be located within a cloud layer that seemed to primarily have a similar structure to the cotton-like, low-to-middle moderate vertical altitude family D1 Cumulus-genus clouds, such as the sunny day Cumulus humilis (base height as low as 500 meters up to almost 2000 meters, and cloud-top height of 3000 meters, up towards 6000 meters when out at seas); possibly even the globular, middle-to-high altitude family B Altocumulus-genus clouds higher up in the sky, such as the tower-like Altocumulus castellanus (base height as low as 2000 meters up to almost 6000 meters, and cloud-top height as high as 9000 meters); however, since the depiction of the clouds is inconsistent (as expected, I've seen more than one clip of Rainbow Dash manipulating small cumulus-like clouds at an absurdly low altitude of a mere 10+ meters, among numerous other inconsistencies I won't list here), I decided to eschew making any distance conclusions involving cloud heights, seeing as that information couldn't be trusted.
Likewise, the overall time lapse in the scene doesn't seem to be consistent; which is, as I'm sure you've all realized, rather common in fictional television and movie settings, used at certain parts of scenes to "stretch them out" in order to make it more dramatic, allow for narrative, or various other purposes. This means that I could only use consistent scene parts where there was no observable change to the perspective (such as "camera angle/position") in order to ensure that the conclusions I made would be as accurate as possible... at least for a generalization.
Something I knew for certain was Rarity's (and the three unnamed fliers) downward acceleration, and using that I could estimate her terminal velocity. Assuming the standard gravity of whatever planet Equestria happens to be on (as it turns out, "Equestria" is a kingdom, not a continent or planet, so I will call it "My Little Planet," or "MLPlanet" for short) is close to ~9.8 m/s² (~32.15 ft/s²) — and I still have no real reason to believe it isn't — the terminal velocity of a human in a un-streamlined posture would be ~52–56 m/s (~187–201 km/h, ~116–125 mph); but in a "bullet-like", streamlined posture, one can reach up towards 90 m/s (~324 km/h, ~201 mph). Since the body structure of a pony is generally similar to a human's (has a torso, head, four limbs; overall similar aerodynamic profile relative to the comparison between something like a ball and a flat plate), these numbers should suffice well enough for this analysis. Given Rarity is flailing like a mad mare in the scene, I'd say she wouldn't be streamlined at all, so a generalized 54 m/s (~194 km/h, ~120 mph) sounds about right, so for the purpose of this calculation we'll assume that this is Rarity's terminal velocity.
Now, if you stop the Youtube clip I posted of the Sonic Rainboom at almost exactly 1:26, just before you can see Dash enter the frame, we can clearly see the the four falling ponies about in the middle of the screen. Using the laws of perspective as well as some experience and common sense, I would have to estimate that they are ~100 meters (~109 yards) away from the viewers' perspective, judging by their relative size versus the size of the large and rather noticeable blue tree that appears to be just as far away from the viewer's perspective as the ponies are, thus establishing a frame of reference. This would place Rarity and the other falling ponies at an altitude of ~50 meters (~54.7 yards) at that very instant, nearly the height of Niagara Falls. In the next frame, we see Dash come flying in from the top of the screen. I don't even need to do any calculations at all to tell you that if Rarity is ~50 meters off the ground when in the middle of the screen, Rainbow Dash would be a little bit more than ~100 meters off the ground when at the top of the screen. Over the span of this scene Dash makes it to the center of the screen, so she should be slightly more than ~50 meters off the ground, while Rarity and the others end up at ~25 meters off the ground.
Now, at 1:28-1:29 we see something similar to that scene, only from a perspective that is low to the ground (~1 meter) and at a Dutch angle. Thanks to the reference of the blue tree, we see that Rarity and the others are still ~25 meters off the ground (meaning the scene from Dash's perspective at 1:27 didn't actually happen in a scene-consistent time frame, as no observable distance was gained during it), and Dash is a little less than that distance from Rarity and the other ponies, meaning she is ~50 meters off the ground. In the time it takes Rarity and the other ponies to fall ~24 meters (~1 meter less than their altitude), Dash manages to cover almost ~50 meters.
Now, if Rarity and the others are falling at terminal velocity — which, if you remember, for this example we're assuming to be ~54 m/s (~120 mph), which is very reasonable — that calculates to the conclusion that Rainbow Dash (at least within the context of this single scene) is only traveling a little in excess of ~108 m/s (~242 mph), almost a third the speed of sound (just over Mach 0.317).
[SEGUE]For those wondering what the "rainboom" part of the phenomenon is all about, and thinking it was "magic" or "breaking the light spectrum" or something silly like that... well, traveling at transonic-supersonic speed has a tendency to generate something called a vapor cone, which is the literally visual aspect of the "Mach cone" referenced in this message. Since it's made of water vapor, and a rainbow is produced by prismatic refraction of light within droplets of moisture in the air, it is possible for real vapor cones to produce rainbows, as seen here and here. See? There is a simple, logical explanation for it after all. While not as overt as the Sonic Rainboom, it definitely counts as being concrete evidence that such a thing is not "breaking the light spectrum" and is perfectly possible at transonic–supersonic speed.[/SEGUE]
This is certainly a very stark contrast with the more... outspoken MLP fanboys' claims of Rainbow Dash clearly being "Mach 2/5/6/10/etc" or even "Light-speed" and faster (I never considered that opinion to be even a remote possibility), isn't it? I'm sure many of you are thinking "no, you're wrong Temporary, Rainbow Dash couldn't be this slow, it's impossible!" But I implore you to examine the evidence again and attempt to find a flaw in my logic; it wouldn't even matter if you were to discover something like that I botched the calculation of the actual distances involved, since it's still quite clear that Rainbow Dash is only flying twice as fast as ponies falling due to gravity in these particular parts of the scene. Now, the only other real possible way that I can think of to debunk my conclusion is to boldly make the claim that the laws of aerodynamics and/or gravitation of "MLPlanet" are somehow vastly different in an observable way, so that the terminal velocity of a falling pony would be closer to ~170 m/s (~380 mph), or whatever velocity they needed to support their particular position. However, this is quite a tall order to fill, since just claiming that the aerodynamics/gravitation are vastly different doesn't prove that they are in fact vastly different, and since there is no clear evidence to support such claims, it doesn't hold up and should be discarded for the much simpler explanation of assuming the they are the same or at least similar to what we are used to.
I'm not the only one who calculated the actual speed of Dash in this scene:
Somewhat understandably, my original conclusion was met with disbelief, vindication, denials, and gloating from various fanboys, while a few others (I suppose somewhat rightfully, to be perfectly honest) criticized me, saying that because I didn't examine more than one source of Rainbow Dash's feats (like there were many to begin with, though?), my conclusion was an inadequate generalization. So, I amended my original conclusion by saying that, judging by the name and nature of the "Sonic Rainboom", I seriously believed that the creators most likely intended for Rainbow Dash to be able to reach transonic speeds (Mach 0.8–1.2), and that I'd respectfully accept that assumed intention as being canon. However, I also warned that attempting to judge her velocity by such methods as "Mach angle" would be both dubious and futile due to the overall inconsistency of the show.
In conclusion: Sonic won... quite handily. You have my condolences, Rainbow Dash fans, it couldn't be avoided— he's just obviously the faster of the two blue speedsters, given all the evidence I gathered. Of course, you're free to disregard whatever I've posted here, and continue believing her to be the faster of the two. Just don't expect that to hold up in an actual match between them.
tl;dr — The intent of this thread is not an attempt to convince you Rainbow Dash is subsonic; the purpose is to convince you that the entire "Sonic Rainboom" scene is far too inconsistent to apply real-world logic to . I am not a Brony. Measuring a "Mach Angle" to determine velocity isn't remotely reliable when the physics of aerodynamics aren't even considered by the creators of the show. By measuring Rainbow Dash's velocity using literal "distance over time", it was determined that she was vastly slower (~108 m/s, Mach 0.317) than previously calculated velocities, being only twice as fast as the falling Rarity. However, I also conceded that the creators intended for her to be capable of reaching velocities close to the speed of sound, so I accepted that as the assumed canon.
...Also, Sonic is much much much faster than Rainbow Dash. 
[REDACTED BY THE RAINBOOM SOCIETY]
One of the problems with any kind of analysis of Equestria is the presence of magic in significant quantities. This environment is saturated with a form of energy that behaves in ways that we, as nonmagical beings, cannot predict and potentially cannot discern.
(Also, that classroom presentation had a bunch of problems, including things like mistaking degenerate/collapsed matter for dark matter. If Applejack was made out of dark matter, we wouldn't be able to see her!)
The Mach cone measurement runs into some problems, because it assumes an atmosphere whose temperature and density are the same as those on Earth, and whose behavior is congruent with Earth's. This is self-evidently not true, as we've seen numerous effects that could not be replicated terrestrially. Moving clouds, manual alteration of seasons, extremely small and low clouds... there's a host of examples. Measuring Rainbow's speed via measuring the Mach cone is a flawed procedure, I agree with you on that.
I disagree on the visual measurement, however, because there's no guarantee that the time measurement is reliable. Time in visual media can often be quite elastic, especially in cases like this where we're following characters in high-stress situations. There's no guarantee that time in the clip is flowing at a 1:1 rate; it may be subjectively dilated or compressed for the character we're following due to things like adrenal reactions. In cases like this, where visuals are unreliable, I prefer to rely on dialogue; even if I can't fully tell what is happening in the world of the show, presumably the characters can. Based on dialog, therefore, I presume that Rainbow is indeed moving at supersonic velocities, probably somewhere in the realm of Mach 1-2. I realize that this is assuming that the speed of sound in Equestria is the same as it is on Earth. If I wanted to inflate Rainbow's speed, I could point out that the dragon's snores in Dragonshy seemed to coincide with the visual image of the plumes of smoke, even at great distances, thus potentially implying that the speed of sound in Equestria is in fact far higher than it is on Earth.
As for Sonic, I have no dog in that fight. I've never played a Sonic game, and I've never found the setting particularly interesting.
399457
I'd actually have to come out boldly and say that the single biggest problem facing people who try to analyze MLP isn't the presence of 'magic'; because however annoying that variable might be in this case, 'magic' is not always an shameless plot device functioning to bypass physical laws using incalculable explanations at the creator's whim. Actually, the simple fact that it is a show specifically designed to deliver episodic content aimed at children (specifically girls) between ages 5-10, if you ask me, poses the greatest problem. This paradigm the show follows does not promote a truly consistent setting. Yes, it all happens in 'Equestria,' but 'Equestria' turns out to be an ambiguous, barely-realized world with no truly defined rules or laws, because the creators did not take the time to develop a world that adhered to such a level of consistency. No, a consistent world like that would actually become somewhat detrimental to the method of storytelling in this case, as it would restrict the number of convenient plot devices the storyteller could use without breaking the target audience's (5-10 year old girls) immersion in the setting... not to mention little girls aren't entirely concerned with the logical consistency of a cartoon about colorful horses. So the setting was created to be flexible and loose to allow for the message to be delivered without requiring strict adherence to a logical continuity. And since this show was created with little girls in mind, the attention to details in the overarching continuity is not considered a huge concern and largely falls to the wayside in deference to the episodic content.
Correct. It seems he did not understand the meaning of "dark" in dark matter. It would be more logical if he had said she was made of neutron-degenerate matter... well, even then, it wouldn't make much sense. A Neutronium sphere the size of a human tissue cell (10 microns in diameter, ~523.6 µm³) would have a mass of around ~250 kg. So in a seesaw scenario, an average-size human body made of Neutronium (volume of ~0.07 m³, mass of ~41.3 trillion tonnes) would weigh ~329 petanewtons and fall from a 5 meter drop with an energy of ~1.63 exajoules (equal to ~390 megatons of TNT
) and should fling a normal average-size human body (volume of ~0.07 m³, mass of ~70 kg) about.........
ಠ__ಠ
...You know what, it's not even important to say how far, because it's pretty damn apparent that they would fly WAY OUT OF THE BALLPARK. Probably enough to exit the troposphere.
Actually, I'm pretty damn sure that Neutronium person would have more mass than a mountain anyways, so it really doesn't even matter! (Everest = ~6.4 trillion tonnes)
Don't know, don't really care. All I do know is that this is an utterly ridiculous conclusion. The simple explanation of "it's a children's show, and doesn't have logical physics" is much more sensible.
Refer to roughly half of my message where it goes into detail about EXACTLY what you're talking about and explains why I decided to use that specific segment of the scene and admitted that the time lapse and physical scale of things in the scene was not reliable enough to make a definite statement. However, also refer to the part where I said it doesn't matter if the distance or time measurements are off since the logical conclusion of the scene points to Rainbow Dash flying only slightly greater than twice as fast as the ponies falling due to the effects of gravity, an easily-observed discrepancy that just can't be explained using something like "subjective time dilation".
...Unless you were to suggest that Rarity and the other falling ponies experienced (physically manifested, not mentally subjective!) time at the "standard" rate in that scene, whilst simultaneously Rainbow Dash was inexplicably trapped in a 'pocket' of time dilation that stagnated time by a factor of greater than three (once again, physically manifested, not mentally subjective!), which caused her to travel at slightly over 360 km/h in "standard time" even though she was actually traveling over 1225 km/h within the 'pocket' of inexplicably stagnated time?
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WE INTERRUPT THIS MESSAGE TO GIVE YOU THIS VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE:
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HOLY SHIT, ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT MADE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF SENSE!
i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/241/758/0f9.jpg
...Also, I swear by the Akashic Records if you try to pass off some kind of bullshit explanation involving theory of relativity's relative velocity special relativistic time dilation I will figure out how to convert my hand into data so I can send it through the internet to SLAP YOU SILLY.
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
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Refer to my admission of what I felt the creators' original intent was (transonic speed, in my opinion) and that I accepted that as being the most reliable data out of all of it. Personally, I don't think much thought was given by the actual creators to the implications and mechanics of this sort of thing, and I honestly believe that the discussion of the topic could have easily gone like this:
"
Person 1: "Hey, I think we should make Rainbow Dash perform a sonic boom."
Person 2: "Sounds good. We should call it a 'Sonic Rainboom' because that's cuter."
Person 1: "Awesome, I'll go look up a picture of a supersonic jet for reference!"
Documentary Narrator: "...And that's how the episode with the Sonic Rainboom was made!
...To which I would respond:
"Because circumstantial evidence (that isn't testable and likely wouldn't hold true in other scenarios) from a children's show that has demonstrated a definite lack of adherence to consistent laws of logic is completely legitimate proof for any loosely-constructed assumption! The two words that will deflate any such argument towards the logical legitimacy of any phenomena within MLP will always be: Pinkie Pie. Your arguments are invalid, this show doesn't have consistency and thus definite conclusions cannot be made about the laws that govern it."
But seriously, this message was mean to be a demonstration of why the show could not be analyzed using such methods expecting logical results, because the show is not logical to begin with.
And that's why we as fans worldbuild. Kudos to you for making such an interestingly and sensibly alien world out of something otherwise nonsensical. Thanks for not only taking the time to read and comment on this, but also create such a fascinating world to house one of my secret (not so much anymore) guilty pleasures.
EDIT: lol I'm a dumbass
lol science
This is a comment.
A comment is this.
I tried to comment.
But really, I missed.
492460
Meh. D–. I've seen better attempts at failing.
thedistractionnetwork.com/images/test-exam-fail-pics-0010.jpg
Next time someone tries to throw calcs at me in a Rainbow vs X thread, I'm gonna direct them to this post.
982322
i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww118/AAKRON/tumblr_m8hnps8um51r6mlpb_zps40e59b0c.gif
Now, mind you, this is not to say that there aren't feats you can analyze in MLP:FiM.
The issue I'm exposing here is that calcs of many feats in MLP, like this now infamous feat, aren't at all consistent with other feats of those same characters in the rest of the series, making this feat an outlier rather than credible evidence, thus resulting in dubious to outright fallacious claims about the characters' abilities (...such as calcing rainboom speed at Mach 10+ based solely on the physically-inaccurate mach cone
). A good motto to remember when analyzing a series is "analyze the internal consistency before analyzing the feats".
In fact, recently someone on this very website calced that, in order to make the 90 degree turn to avoid the ground at the end of the original Rainboom feat, Rainbow would have had to withstand an acceleration of (IIRC) >5.7k gees, and thus concluded that she must have a durability comparable to at least industrial steel alloys, likely something stronger like superalloys.
Then I pointed out that this was also a [wing] strength feat (the torque required to oppose inertia over such a small time frame while moving at mach 1.0+) and mentioned that, in the episode where Derpy first spoke (RIP Derps) Rainbow Dash was completely incapable of even slightly slowing down a falling piece of a the building while flying, which could have only weighed ~600 kg (~1325 lbs) at the most... provided it was made of wood and plaster, and not something like lead, depleted uranium, or neutron-degenerate matter. This thus creates a vast contradiction between it and the earlier Rainboom feat, and throws the credibility of both into serious doubt.
...He then got uppity about this, and tried to brush aside the issue of inconsistency by employing sophistical logic. I don't remember if you were there to see it, but it wasn't pretty. In the end I just walked off and washed my hands of it, because I'd already made my point, and it was abundantly clear that he was already set in stone and was not even going to bother considering my argument.
Also, because he was kind of a prick.
982336
I just figured that he was a mad man, the same kind who thinks that Celestia can actually move the Sun, as in 2*10^31 kg celestial object.
Now, I'm not here to complain about your maths and/or physics or to suggest that RD would beat Sonic (Sonic's speed is ridiculous. RD doesn't stand a chance).
What I am going to say is that you don't even need calcs to know that RD is way over sound speed (whether sound speed is different in Equestria is another matter).
Why? Because everyone who claims that the Sonic Rainboom is just a sonic boom with colours and therefore mach 1 or possibly even slower is completely ignoring the information provided to us by the characters (especially Pinkie Pie) which should trump such things anyway as they're a clearer indicater of author intent.
Pinkie tells us that Sonic Rainbooms are faster than sonic booms which tells us that anytime a sonic rainboom happens it is not as slow as mach 1. In fact, the context of the conversations in both Sonic Rainboom and Cutie Mark Chronicles tell us that the difference in speed is significant. Enough that supersonic speed in a pegasus is something the ponies are well aware of yet the speed needed to acheive a Sonic Rainboom is considered impossible.
988237
I addressed this at the end. And I also summarized the point of my argument at the beginning of the blog.
The point of my argument wasn't to prove how she was slower than supersonic, but rather to prove that writing up calculations for a scene as self-contradicting as Sonic Rainboom is a logical folly. I was pointing out the internal consistency problem it has, the violation of law of noncontradiction that is inherently caused by using this scene to measure her speed. Rainbow Dash is Mach 1+ in canon, but the evidence from this scene shows a completely different story; since RD cannot be simultaneously supersonic and not supersonic, this means that the scene is inconsistent with the accepted canon (and even with itself) and thus cannot be considered reliable for use in calculations.
Also, do you know at what point in the episodes Pinkie says that? I'd like to be able to reference them in the future if I need to.
988108
You (and Sereg) should see my recent follow-up to this blog if you haven't already.
988551 Eh, you didn't fully adress it. I'm not claiming that you are saying that you've proven that Dash is subsonic. I know that you stated you weren't doing that right at the begining.
I'm saying that while you show that while the mach cone calculations aren't consistent with the rest of the scene, their results are reasonable (though admittedly we can't have confdence in them) based on what the characters have told us. Speed estimates that say that she was travelling less than mach 1 don't fit with what the characters told us, so those can be thrown out for most purposes (though you are right to tell us they throw out all confidence in any exact measurements from the same scene).
Similarly, any other calculation which relies on RD's speed where she has alredy achieved rainboom speed means that despite what any calcs say, we know that that speed is above mach 1 because we've been told that by the show.
Also, your refutation of RD's strength feat relies on several assumptions which we don't know to be true. As you said yourself, we can't be sure that the beam was wood and plaster. Even if that were true, we can't be sure that RD's failure was a result of strength rather than awkwardness. Which is a problem that occurs in the real world all the time.
988666
Exactly, that's just it. All we can rightfully conclude from the scene is that RD is mach 1+. Since the scene isn't internally consistent, using mach cones, pixel/frames-to-distance/time translation, or any other scientific method is a folly. Law of noncontradiction comes into play, since the logical conclusions of those methods come out to contradicting results.
That's actually somewhat the point of it. I'm exposing how ridiculous this all is.
It is reasonable to assume that something apparently made of wood and plaster in a fictional environment is intended to be wood and plaster. It is far less reasonable to assume that it is made of something that goes against both the observations in the scene and common sense. Kind of similar to the concept of "presumption of innocence". If you were to claim that it is not wood and plaster, the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence for it. You can't ask me to disprove that it isn't something other than the wood and plaster it appears to be and that common sense tells us is most likely, because that's disproving a negative. Similar to the "presumption of innocence" (aka "innocent until proven guilty"), if something is apparently consistent with what common sense and observations tells us it should be, we are to assume that it is at least highly similar to that thing until evidence to the contrary beyond reasonable doubt is provided.
This is somewhat fallacious logic. Absence of evidence and evidence of absence are distinctly separate concepts. There is absence of evidence to strongly support your proposal that RD's failure is because of awkwardness; in fact, observation suggests otherwise, given that she was pushing from directly beneath the beam, which would give her at least decent leverage. However, there is strong evidence of absence for [wing] strength, since she was unable to even slow this object down. According to the logic behind Helio's original calculation, Rainbow Dash should be able to exert a force of over 7.2 meganewtons (736 metric ton-force, 810+ short ton-force) while flying in order to make such a sharp turn. That means either the falling object was made of something ridiculously dense... like 566+ g/cm^3 dense (whereas one of the densest stable elements, platinum, is only ~19.77 g/cm^3)... or something screwy is going on (AKA toon force and rule of plot relevance).
988716 EH, fair enough. I don't fully agree, but I get your point.
988764
You might be misunderstanding. I'm not saying "RD can only be Mach 1 or less". I'm saying there is no way to calculate RD's speed using these scenes because they are contradictory within themselves and thus are not consistent enough to be considered reliable.
Thus, the only thing we can rightfully conclude is "RD is supersonic, Mach 1+".
On "Toon Force"... while it is normally disregarded as "literal rule of funny" (such as Twilight bursting into flames or causing her house to shoot into the air when angry, which are in contradiction with serious parts of the story that suggest she would be incapable of doing these things without at least serious effort or harm), there are times when Toon Force is considered a legitimate part of the canon universe. However, these examples are very rare relatively. Examples of this include "Who Framed Roger Rabit?", "The Mask", and "Space Jam", where the ability to use "Toon Force" to solve problems is a legitimate feature of the characters, and can be compared to a form of limited reality warping in other fictions.
From the looks of it, RD doesn't even seem to be that fast. I'd say somewhere around 200m/s.
What is that? She can fly mach 1 because the writers say so? Hahaha, yeah, because writers are infallible people who clearly know their physics.
Okay, wow, just wow Sereg.
988804
Word of God is Word of God. RD is Mach 1+ according to the plot. Since that is a very important aspect of her character, it trumps other canon and fanwank.
So the ones who were most fallible here wasn't the writers, but rather the animators (and fanwankers, but that's not a surprise lolamirite?). That's what I'm pointing out in this blog.
988809
I am sure it's just me, but personally, I am not obliged to obey the Word of God if the God is full of shit.
Ah, so you are aware of the "fanwanker".
988836
As I mentioned in the other blog, the writers are not full of shit in this case, since it is the animators who are at fault. Writing team is only at fault for any errors in the writing, which is not the case here. It's completely unfair to dump the errors of another aspect of the development team onto them when they had next to no say in how they handled the visuals. That is not their responsibility, so the consequences are not theirs to shoulder.
Now in the case of a series where the writing and art are done by a single person or team (provided the team is not split into authors and artists and that all of them participate in both activities), like Bleach, then the writer is completely at fault for errors both the writing AND visuals...
988774 No, you're thinking that I'm disagreeing with you more than I am. I actually agree with every point you made in this post. But there's more to it than that. Yes, this is all we can conclude and confirm. However, the mach cone estimations that a sonic rainboom happens at roughly mach 5 is still reasonable even though this is admittedly not much better than a random guess.
As for Toon Force, yeah, I never disregard that or any feat made for rule of funny. As far as I'm concerned, if a character can do something, they can do it. The reason they can do it is irrelevent (unless the reason is something in-universe which changes depending on circumstance, such as Chrysalis's ability to overpower Celestia).
988804 The writers' knowledge of physics is irrelevant. Rule zero: The writer is never wrong when talking about their universe. Not even if they want to be. Because whatever they say becomes true. They are the creator gods of their worlds. Any ignorance that affects that is irrelevant until in-universe logic fails.
As for the materials, I never belkieved that that contained plaster, so I'm not just randomly coming up with excuses. (Admittedly, I never thought about it deeply. My first thoughts were actually concrete, brick or stone, but that's irrelevant).
988864
If this were correct, retcons would not exist.
Writers can be mistaken, even about their own work.
Considering that many aspects of Equestria runs on nonsense, that would just make the writers the god of bullshit, then.
988894
Woooooah, he's entitled to his opinions too. There is no need for hostility. We can be completely civil adults about this.
988864
I am actually interested in the quote you mentioned concerning Pinkie claiming a Sonic Rainboom is faster than a sonic boom. I'd like to have that for reference purposes, if you can help me locate it with any sort of expedience. I'm looking at the transcript for the episode but I'd rather have help locating it quickly rather than just scouring through the entire script for it. Although if you can't help me here, that's fine, I understand that it's a little unreasonable to assume you would have this exact knowledge, and I'll still likely be able to find it myself.
988913
Good points. Lost my discipline momentarily. Edited the comment.
988864
This is all I could find that even resembled such a remark. Is this what you were referring to? Because it actually doesn't say anything regarding a Sonic Rainboom being any faster than a normal sonic boom, just that it is a sonic boom and a rainbow occurring at the same time.
988890 Admittedly I'm biased due to being a D&D player and hating retcons with a passion, but no. Retcons simply change the world into something new. They don't invalidate what they said about the old world.
988894 You're free to think of it that way. I happen to enjoy said "bullshit" though and thus don't care. To each his own. I also happen to be a fan of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Glaxy where the physics are a load of nonsense, but that's part of the fun and I'm not going to claim that the Infinite Improbablity Drive isn't capable of teleportation despite the fact that it is based on an intentionak misunderstanding of real world physics. In it's universe it works, so it does.
988913 Thank you.
Admittedly, she doesn't say so explicitely and yes, you're free to interpret her as meaning something else/being confused etc. But I think the wording does indicate this, especially as she's in the room with Twilight and RD at the time.
Pinkie: A Sonic Rainbom is legendary! When a pegasus like Rainbow Dash is going so fast a sonic boom and a rainbow happen all at once!
This is especially clear when you break the statement up and look at the implications.
She indicates that pegasi can create sonic booms without rainbows. She also says that it occurs when they are going "so fast that" these thingshappenall at once.Indicating that the only difference in technique is speed.
EDIT: My opinions on Wod of God are so strong because every fictionl universe is actually made out of the words and ideas of their creator.
988972
Retcons do change the world retroactively, and are often used to resolve errors in the continuity that the author has made, which means that the author's previous statements are no longer valid in the current version of the fictional universe. At any rate, the point is that the author admits to making a mistake, which means that even Word of God is not 100% infallible. I'm not saying to distrust it, I'm saying that we should not blindly accept it as always being true. Scrutiny is wisdom.
Also, while I can agree with what you've said about the quote and did take note of that myself, it still is not enough to contrive justifying the mach cone or similar calculations. If the quote directly mentioned or even alluded to such factors as being evidence of it, I'd be much more inclined to agree with you fully. However, Pinkie Pie merely saying "a pegasus[...]is going so fast [that] a sonic boom and a rainbow happen" only lends weak purely correlational support to such calculations, since it gives us absolutely no idea just how fast that is, only that it is at least faster than the speed of sound. So, the mach cone calculation is still only "possibly true" rather than becoming "probably true". Thus, I can't agree that it is "reasonable [to assume as probably true]" (theory), only that it is "potentially true but at the moment only a possibly" (hypothesis).
989003 This is another case of us disareeing with each other less than we think we are.
As for retcons, yes, they affect the current version retroactively. They do not affect the old version. As such, when the old version was the current version, all statements about it were true and the old version still continues on s an independant entity though the creator is no longer working on it.
And you overestimated my confidence in the mach cones. Yes, I admitted that they're little better than random guesses and we have no confidence in them. If you wanted to use those values in a fic though, for example, they would be a fair compromise as we have nothing better so far. Of course, you could also assume that a sonic rainboom has a different speed when engaging in such an endevour, but that would be your decision. All I'm saying is that it might be such a speed.
989063
However, since we live in the present and not the past, this is kind of irrelevant, since that would be considered alternate continuity, a completely different subject. In context of "official canon," the general rule is that current materials override older materials.
And I was only using the mach cones as an example common to both our understanding. Sorry I didn't make that part clear, that's my fault. And since the context of this argument's premise is based around claims made about Rainbow Dash's speed pertaining to canon material only, using such values in a story because they are a "fair compromise" is an example of fanon and fan wank (which is not always a bad thing, since I use logical analysis on fictional stories all the time), not canon, thus it is not directly relevant to the argument I made in this blog.
However, as I said, I use similar analyses when writing about fictional characters all the time. However, I don't try to immediately claim that those analyses are absolutely true of the canon, and mostly apply those conclusions to fanon meant solely for writing fanfiction.
989125 Fair enough. I can agree with that.