This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Andyzero: Would the timer in Lost count?
Tabby: Considering the latest revelations, I'd say yes.
CTrombley: What about the changing fuel loss rate in Dr. Strangelove? It's a truly great aversion.
MasterKnight: Somebody want to add in the playing with of this trope in Justice League episode Wild Cards?
Caswin: Removing this:
- To be fair, days in Advance Wars are pretty much just another word for turns.
Axlion the Unregistered: How could no one have remembered "The Insecticon Syndrome" and its time limit to their detonation? I'll just paste here what's on the T Fwiki about that. Make of it what you will, users who have more confidence than I to edit the article itself.
- From the time Spike looks at his watch and issues the 30-second warning to the point where Shrapnel explodes, about 1 minute and 46 seconds pass. As well, when he gives Shrapnel his 10-second warning, it takes about 47 seconds until he detonates. (On a minor note, it takes Spike 6 out of the available 10 seconds to say that Shrapnel is going to explode.)
MCE: an aversion of this wasn't present in star trek (I think) where the countdown hit zero and nothing happens, they crew look around confused and then a character says "well more or less" and then the crew is push back into their seats by g-force.
Trigger Loaded: Nuked some natter from the Metroid entry. Far as I can tell, none of it added any relevant information.
- This is somewhat justifiable, as a reactor core overheating is calculable with math. It starts at X temperature, at Y temperature, things go boom, and based on how the temperature is increasing, it will reach Y temperature in Z minutes/hours/whatever. In addition, the self-destruct runs are less "This place will explode in X minutes" and more "If you don't get to your ship in X minutes, you won't be able to escape the blast radius in time". Still falls into the trope, but...
- BUT this is exactly the type of problem this trope is about. The physicist would also know about the variation in the behavior, and the randomness inserted BECAUSE of the quantum mechanics, and so the best he could do would be something like a predicted interval, with maybe a 95% chance of the cutoff falling in that interval. NOT an exact time to explosion. It just doesn't work that way in real physics.
- A highly accurate prediction with small (<1m at best) standard deviations. In other words close enough to say exact (the point of the trope isn't that you can't ever say something will take x amount of time exactly since you'll always be off by a tiny amount, the point is that accurate numbers are often given for things that you shouldn't be able to predict with any reasonable accuracy).
- This is somewhat justifiable, as a reactor core overheating is calculable with math. It starts at X temperature, at Y temperature, things go boom, and based on how the temperature is increasing, it will reach Y temperature in Z minutes/hours/whatever. In addition, the self-destruct runs are less "This place will explode in X minutes" and more "If you don't get to your ship in X minutes, you won't be able to escape the blast radius in time". Still falls into the trope, but...
