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Post by theotherjosh on Aug 29, 2017 12:27:08 GMT
All I Really Need To Know I Learned from Doctor Who
This thread is for sharing real-world facts you learned by watching Doctor Who. I’ll give two examples.
This was shortly after we returned to school after summer recess. I was in the seventh grade, about twelve years old or so, and our math teacher bet that no one in the class would know what a twelve sided figure was called. I was generally a pretty quiet kid, but I was so excited that I knew the answer that I yelled out "IT'S A DODECAHEDRON!" without even raising my hand.
The other was a bit that’s probably no longer canon, but the old FASA Doctor Who role-playing game had a supplement on the Daleks and went into some detail about the technical specifications of the armor. Something that they mentioned was that the way the armoring is set up is that there is a layer of Dalekanium, a brief area of vacuum and then another layer of Dalekanium. I thought that was novel, so I retained that information, but didn’t really think of anything beyond that. It was only that when I was in college and my professor was explaining how a thermos keeps things at a steady temperature that I realized that the design of the Dalek was based on real-world engineering principles.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2017 12:30:50 GMT
The other was a bit that’s probably no longer canon, but the old FASA Doctor Who role-playing game had a supplement on the Daleks and went into some detail about the technical specifications of the armor. Something that they mentioned was that the way the armoring is set up is that there is a layer of Dalekanium, a brief area of vacuum and then another layer of Dalekanium. I thought that was novel, so I retained that information, but didn’t really think of anything beyond that. It was only that when I was in college and my professor was explaining how a thermos keeps things at a steady temperature that I realized that the design of the Dalek was based on real-world engineering principles. Those FASA books are marvellous creations, I've spent ages trying to track down a number of them for writing purposes. City of Gold has to be my favourite scenario, there's something about a gold-plated El Dorado actually being a Silurian research centre that I find really appealing. There's a lot of stuff from those books that still made it into canon like the idea of nexus points in The Marian Conspiracy. I wowed a third-grade classroom with my rudimentary knowledge of matter and anti-matter.  |
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Post by theotherjosh on Aug 29, 2017 12:37:39 GMT
Those FASA books are marvellous creations, I've spent ages trying to track down a number of them for writing purposes. City of Gold has to be my favourite scenario, there's something about a gold-plated El Dorado actually being a Silurian research centre that I find really appealing. There's a lot of stuff from those books that still made it into canon like the idea of nexus points in The Marian Conspiracy. I wowed a third-grade classroom with my rudimentary knowledge of matter and anti-matter. I was very fond of them. I was hoping that they had been reprinted as PDFs, but I was unable to find any of them. I assume it's some kind of rights issue, which is a shame, because they did have some pretty interesting concepts. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2017 12:47:51 GMT
Those FASA books are marvellous creations, I've spent ages trying to track down a number of them for writing purposes. City of Gold has to be my favourite scenario, there's something about a gold-plated El Dorado actually being a Silurian research centre that I find really appealing. There's a lot of stuff from those books that still made it into canon like the idea of nexus points in The Marian Conspiracy. I wowed a third-grade classroom with my rudimentary knowledge of matter and anti-matter. I was very fond of them. I was hoping that they had been reprinted as PDFs, but I was unable to find any of them. I assume it's some kind of rights issue, which is a shame, because they did have some pretty interesting concepts. And a lot of them still slip very neatly into canon. The Dalek manual told me a lot more about them than I ever thought to ask, including a step-by-step examination of their invasion methods. I've been trying to track down Legions of Death for ages, if only for its depiction of a War Chief after the events of The War Games. Apparently, and I found this out through a fanzine, there were going to be more including a Gallifrey manual (that had Romana as President) and an adventure called The Six Doctors where the Doctor's final incarnation is forced to play against the Celestial Toymaker with his former lives as cosmic chess pieces. |
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Post by Whovitt on Aug 29, 2017 13:18:32 GMT
"The ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter is represented by the Greek letter Pi." - Tegan, The Five DoctorsThe number of times over the years the class was asked what 'pi' was and I quoted back the first part of that sentence to a teachers' amazement... Good times  |
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Post by theotherjosh on Aug 29, 2017 13:57:09 GMT
I wowed a third-grade classroom with my rudimentary knowledge of matter and anti-matter. Young Wolfie: Anti-matter is material composed of the anti-particle partners of ordinary matter- Teacher: Very impressive, Wolfie! Young Wolfie: -and the anti-matter universe is ruled by the exiled Time Lord Omega, who wears a pope hat and shouts all the time. |
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Post by constonks on Aug 29, 2017 18:00:49 GMT
So so so much history. Churchill, Rasputin, the Peterloo Massacre, Agatha Christie's disappearance... The list goes on and on.
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Post by number13 on Aug 29, 2017 19:53:02 GMT
So many random facts over the years. Here are a few I recall from my formative Pertwee era:
The Daemons: first word of Latin: Magister. I later studied Latin for a couple of years at high school and wow I knew this one word already!
The Three Doctors: black holes, matter and anti-matter and what happens when they meet. Bonus fact: Orange jelly is evil.
The Curse of Peladon: the word 'hermaphrodite'. Now that was an eye-opening trip to the dictionary.
The Green Death: some people choose to live on vegetables. (Not kidding; I had never registered vegetarianism existed before then.)
And the Doctor's teachings never end. Today I learned new facts about the 1951 Festival of Britain, thanks to the Short Trip 'The British Invasion'.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2017 22:13:07 GMT
Tolerence.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 4:36:24 GMT
I wowed a third-grade classroom with my rudimentary knowledge of matter and anti-matter. Young Wolfie: Anti-matter is material composed of the anti-particle partners of ordinary matter- Teacher: Very impressive, Wolfie! Young Wolfie: -and the anti-matter universe is ruled by the exiled Time Lord Omega, who wears a pope hat and shouts all the time.  That's amazing and not entirely inaccurate either. |
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Post by Timelord007 on Aug 30, 2017 7:18:47 GMT
The Doctor is who i inspire to be despite me being more like The Valeyard, my personality is very much like the Sixth Doctor although i haven't strangled anyone yet.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 8:04:17 GMT
I learned all about entropy and recursion.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 30, 2017 12:46:12 GMT
The target novelisations taught me spelling and grammar (kudos to Terrance especially). Honourable mention to Malcolm Hulke for using an apostrophe with 'phone, which I had never realised was necessary.
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Post by Ela on Aug 30, 2017 17:33:10 GMT
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Post by theotherjosh on Aug 30, 2017 20:22:24 GMT
The Green Death: some people choose to live on vegetables. (Not kidding; I had never registered vegetarianism existed before then.) You're lucky. I learned about it from Terror of the Vervoids. |
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Post by number13 on Aug 31, 2017 11:24:47 GMT
The Green Death: some people choose to live on vegetables. (Not kidding; I had never registered vegetarianism existed before then.) You're lucky. I learned about it from Terror of the Vervoids. Isn't that the one about some vegetables that choose to live on people?  (And carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice... ) |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 12:35:23 GMT
You're lucky. I learned about it from Terror of the Vervoids. Isn't that the one about some vegetables that choose to live on people? (And carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice... ) Oh, god, I just realised that I learnt about mulch from The Seeds of Doom. Yeesh... |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 12:38:15 GMT
I really impressed my English teacher with my knowledge of The Ballad of Flannon Isle. And she was hot, so that was a big moment for me😁
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Post by Faith on Sept 15, 2017 0:33:52 GMT
"Because you're going to be like that, anyway. You might as well make it part of the plan. Then it will feel on purpose."
Also, somewhere along the line, that 'fake it til you make it' is a valid strategy used even by the best.
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melkur
Chancellery Guard
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Post by melkur on Sept 15, 2017 22:50:26 GMT
I really impressed my English teacher with my knowledge of The Ballad of Flannon Isle. And she was hot, so that was a big moment for me😁 Nope, totally didn't snort coffee out of my nose in laughter. No siree... |
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That's amazing and not entirely inaccurate either.
