"Wait, that's not right..."

[Akira]

I must touch on this hair thing. There seems to be a large misconception regarding saiyan hair that I would like to dispell. I will start with direct quotes from the Manga and the Anime on this, then explain what it means.

Viz Manga Dragonball Z Volume 16 (DB 32):
-On page 25, bottom right pannel
- In response to Bulma's question about Vegeta's hair
"Pure Blooded Saiyans have thankfully been spared the grotesquery of "hair growth."

And from the Funimation Dub line response to the question:
"For your information, a Pure Saiyan's hair does not change from the day he is born."

Original Japanese version subtitle:
"The hair of a pure saiyan does not undergo any weird changes from the time they are born."

Basically, saiyans are born with a full head of hair. Whatever style it may be is what it will stay at thier entire lives. What this means is that it grows to a certain length, then stops at a specific point. By contrast to the comment about Trunks' hair, which continually grows until cut due to his half human genetics.

Do not confuse this with any wild statements you may hear. A saiyan can cut thier hair, sure. It will just regrow over time back to that set style and not anything beyond that is what Vegeta is implying. Goku's spikey tuffs got sliced off by swords and such in Dragonball and even once in DBZ Movie 1 Dead Zone. It always grew back to the same set style.

Vegeta cut his hair in GT to probably fit in better with the population, or maybe just wanted a change. If he did not continue to keep it cut to that length, it would naturally grow back out to that spikey length that he had throughout Z.

In Nappa's case, if you go bald, you go bald I guess. It happens to older guys sometimes. Besides, when Nappa and Vegeta arrived on earth back in early DBZ, Nappa was already 52 years old or something like that already.

The Moustach thing may be something that comes later for saiyans. remember that they age slower than humans and live longer. Goku was 15 years old when he fought Piccolo the first time, but was still quite short in stature. Perhaps facial hair doesn't show up until later in saiyans. It is more likely an aesthetics thing than something they ever thought about though. Some characters have them and some don't. Goku was never meant to have one, so he didn't.

The moustach part is where I would say "Don't think about it too hard." Although about the head hair thing, do think about it, because it is mentioned, and the answer is somewhat obvious, yet does not seem to be commonly understood.

The half-breed saiyans have hair that has spikey tendancies, but will grow out long continually like humans as well. Just something they have to deal with.

[Nekoni]

Scientificly, the saiyan's don't need any hair (other than on their heads); the hair on your head keeps you warm and pretty... the hair -elsewhere- is merely to protect delicate places (where IS there a delicate place on a saiyan?)

You know I always thought Nappa just shaved. I mean, that mop-top probably didn't look very threatening whilst anihalating alien species

Another example of this is when Vegeta and Nappa are seen in plain space. It's obvious they breathe as well, but how can you in a vaccum? Not only that, but how do they speak to each other?

I think ki barries trapping air... (somewhat similar to Brolli) would be what characters use in space. I mean, they can force and manpulate air already with kiais... and already show ability to survive at insane altitudes... however maybe it could be considered... how oxygen is used in the human body. It's -used- to release energy; but not needed constantly.

I always thought of Frieza as Eel-like. As some of you may know an european eel can exit the water for hours by taking a reserve of water. The eel then oxygenates the water and voila... survives.

However Frieza wouldn't be able to reoxygenate... so I'm thinking more along the lines of a 'store' of oxygen within his body which he can use for a while.... All in all, this is merely a theory for a mystery! =D maybe he just uses the ki shield method, or something else entirely!

You know I just remembered one that I always wondered about. During the credits of "Dete Koi Tobikiri Zenkai Power", we see that funny image of Chi-Chi driving a jeep through the mountains with Gohan, Goku, and Gyuu-Mao. Then later on in that famous "driving test ep", she acts like she can't drive and wants Goku to learn so they can get a car and he can drive her places. Ya, that one always had me pondering......

I can remember two pics of ChiChi driving... I'd say for both, if I were a driving instructor I wouldn't give her a -liscence- XD she's susceptable to road-rage it seems...

[Steven Perry]

Vegeta and Nappa are seen in plain space. It's obvious they breathe as well, but how can you in a vacuum? Not only that, but how do they speak to each other?

I think their ki barrier is trapping air... (somewhat similar to Brolli) would be what characters use in space. I mean, they can force and manipulate air already with kiais... and already show ability to survive at insane altitudes...

That's the closest anyone's going to get in making sense of the situation. Although it makes perfect sense, I highly doubt that Akira Toriyama or any other author had this in mind. It puts our minds at rest, but really, there's no real explanation.

Another example of where logic just doesn't apply is when... Launch pulls out a f-*Unicorn*-ing rocket launcher outta nowhere! What the hell? Just where does she keep her weapons? In her back pocket?

How about those capsules? I know technology is advanced, but not that advanced! A whole house in a capsule?!?

[desirecampbell]

How about those capsules? I know technology is advanced, but not that advanced! A whole house in a capsule?!?

[tarsonis]

Capsules work by some sort of matter to energy conversion process. The matter is stored as a compressed energy stream in the capsule that can then be decompressed and converted back to a physical form later. Kind of the way a transporter works. I'm not sure how to explain the accompanying cloud of smoke though.

[Steven Perry]

Right.

You can't make the space between an atom's shells even smaller! There's hardly any space there! Besides, even if you could, I don't think there would be enough room to significantly reduce the size of an object. Right? Any scientists here (I don't know what I'm talking about, really )?

Black holes? Now, that's gettin' stupid.

[tarsonis]

Black holes? Now, that's gettin' stupid.

Still a better explanation than theory 3.

[desirecampbell]

Right.

You can't make the space between an atom's shells even smaller! There's hardly any space there! Besides, even if you could, I don't think there would be enough room to significantly reduce the size of an object. Right? Any scientists here (I don't know what I'm talking about, really )?

Black holes? Now, that's gettin' stupid.

Haha, that's scanned from the Official DragonBall Z RPG book. It's so lame.

I do like that one thing though. They're not terrible explanations, well, comparatively speaking.


-edit-

Since the electron cloud does not have a sharp cutoff, the size of an atom is not easily defined. For atoms that can form solid crystal lattices, the distance between the centers of adjacent atoms can be easily determined by x-ray diffraction, giving an estimate of the atoms' size. For any atom, one might use the radius at which the electrons of the valence shell are most likely to be found. As an example, the size of a hydrogen atom is estimated to be approximately 1.0586×10−10 m (twice the Bohr radius). Compare this to the size of the proton (the only particle in the nucleus of the hydrogen atom), which is approximately 10−15 m. So the ratio of the size of the hydrogen atom to its nucleus is about 100,000:1. If an atom were the size of a stadium, the nucleus would be the size of a marble. Nearly all the mass of an atom is in its nucleus, yet almost all the space in an atom is filled by its electrons.

That's the whole description, but to sum up "If an atom were the size of a stadium, the nucleus would be the size of a marble". The theory for Capsules is the same as 'Honey I shrunk the Kids'. Take away all the empty space and you'll make the object smaller. Of course this should lead to tiny versions of whatever was shrunk down that weight the same as when they were big.

[Panda]

I remember an early episode of Dragonball (The Boss Rabbit one I believe) where Bulma is shopping for capsules and in the case that the salesman is showing to Bulma the capsules ranged in size.

This could easily explain how houses fit into capsules...

[Steven Perry]

So the ratio of the size of the hydrogen atom to its nucleus is about 100,000:1.

Oh. My. God.

I was always under the impression that there wasn't much space! Hmmmm... Electrons aren't that big, so they don't reduce the amount of free space. So, I guess that somebody could carry a portable Big Ben in their pockets. Seeing as though that's kinda sorted, has anyone got an idea of how they manage to carry those things?

-Edit-
To make what I said earlier sound even more wrong, I found another great article:

There is a great space lying between the basic particles. If I think of the proton of an oxygen nucleus as the head of a pin lying on the table in front of me, then the electron revolving around it draws a circle passing through Holland, Germany and Spain (The writer of these lines lives in France). Therefore, if all atoms forming my body came together so close as to touch each other, you would not be able to see me any more. You would actually never be able to see me with the naked eye. I would be as small as a tiny dust particle of the size of a several thousandth of a millimetre.

This one explains an even greater proportion of space (in atomic scale)! Okay, so maybe you could fit Jamaica in a capsule or something.

[Rocketman]

Of course, you hit a point eventually where the object is too densely packed and the object collapses into a singularity and forms a black hole...

[desirecampbell]

Of course, you hit a point eventually where the object is too densely packed and the object collapses into a singularity and forms a black hole...

Yeah, that problem... I'm going with "it's magic".

[Nekoni]

MMMMmmmm physics! *in lala land* I love physics... ain't it COOL!?

Blackholes are real =O it's wormholes that are theoretical.

That might make a good fanfiction plot. 'Mr Briefs creates a Capsule so dense it creates a quantum singularity; and enemy the Z fighters can not defeat!' Yaaay

[desirecampbell]

MMMMmmmm physics! *in lala land* I love physics... ain't it COOL!?

Blackholes are real =O it's wormholes that are theoretical.

That might make a good fanfiction plot. 'Mr Briefs creates a Capsule so dense it creates a quantum singularity; and enemy the Z fighters can not defeat!' Yaaay

Which they defeat by gettiung Goku to eat it

[DBZ MAN]

the only time Dr. Brief is ever scientific is when he tells Roshi and Chi-Chi about what may have caused the camera in Goku's ship to go on the fritz.

[Chuquita]

He might've been when they were working on 16 too...I'm not sure though.


Slightly OT...300th post!