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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: Re: Why is a TARDIS so big?
Message-ID: <643@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 16:37:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.643
Posted: Mon Aug 12 16:37:48 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 21:16:59 EDT
References: <456@moncol.UUCP> <569@hou2a.UUCP> <3464@dartvax.UUCP> <103@pyrnj.uucp>
Reply-To: wmartin@brl-bmd.UUCP
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Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
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In article <103@pyrnj.uucp> romain@pyrnj.uucp (Romain Kang) writes:
>  The Doctor comes up with a
>plan to eject 1/4 of the TARDIS's mass (17000 tons, velocity
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>unspecified) to produce the thrust to escape.

Aha! Many months back, I mentioned in a posting that I had thought that
the TARDIS was very massive, and yet we constantly see it being
schlepped around by people at the places it ends up (trucked to the
local police station in Black Orchid, hauled by primitives into a cave
in a couple episodes, etc.) Now here is evidence that I was right.

Even though the *spatial* dimensions are tricky, with a small physical
size in our world(s) but huge once you get inside, the MASS in our
world(s) should be the full amount (does the above mean that 17,000
tons is 1/4 the mass, or they ejected 1/4 of 17,000 tons? [and being
British, it should be "tonnes", right? :-)]. So it should be immovable
without a huge crane in our environment. Therefore, every time a story
has it being moved, or sitting in a spaceship which has to then haul(*) the
TARDIS's mass and its own payload, this is a failure of the writers to
stay correct and consistent. All fans should flame the writers!

(*) This would prevent the accelleration or takeoff of spaceships in
which the TARDIS is sitting; don't know what it would do, if anything,
to those cruising or drifting in which they materialize.