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By Bob Wobbaz
#4805189
Whilst working on my gigameter, it's got me thinking about it's use in the films and in the GB universe. The equipment information page states that it reads psychomagnotheric energy expressed as a GEV readout. I've read that people believe it's purpose is to find mood slime but I think it's a little more than that. I suggest that the gigameter is used to measure whether a ghost is docile or not, the psychomagnotheric reading helps the GB better understand what they're dealing with and act accordingly. For example, Slimer was not an aggressive nor particularly evil Ghost, he's friendly and generally docile only attacking when attacked himself. His GEV reading would be low. Gozer and Vigo, who's soul purpose is world domination and destruction, with very evil tendencies would give a high reading. If we're taking the IDW comics into account, collected volume 5, The New Ghostbusters, when the team is battling Dibello, Kylie uses the gigameter to source where he is. Certainly this isn't about just mood slime. Realising his evil nature as a serial killer, they were able to use the information to understand Dibello's motives and defeat him.

Looking at GB2, there is a running theme throughout the course of film of people being nasty to one another, from the opening scene with the guy arguing about his parking ticket etc, discovery of the evil mood slime, "6 million completely miserable assholes" etc. The GB would be measuring this, clearly they had been to create the positively charged mood slime as a counter measure. It makes sense that the gigameter would be used to monitor this.

Just a thought :)
SPJ, goodale.jason liked this
#4805210
If it's measuring something in giga electron volts it's probably not emotions. The PKE meter measures psychokinetic energy, which is supposedly the energy that ghosts use/have. A higher PKE reading means a more powerful ghost, right?

The giga-meter might measure proximity, which the PKE meter seems to have trouble with...how many episodes of RGB are there where they are checking the meter but can't identify where the ghost is or how close it is to them?

This would tie into GB2 as well, they are using both the PKE and the Giga-meter. One tells the strength, the other tells them how far down it is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronvolt
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By Bob Wobbaz
#4805226
The arms of the pke meter determine your proximity to the entity. The library scene shows this as the near the library ghost the arms go up. Same can be applied to the pke with the street scene in gb2. Pke wings are half raised up until they're over the "honeypot" when the raise fully. Similarly, the gigameters microphones move when surveying an area and stop when over the entity/ source, you can see this in the street scene too
SPJ liked this
#4805337
Ok sure...so the PKE arms are measuring proximity not direction.

Like if you are using a metal detector, it beeps louder depending on how close you are to the buried metal object, but it doesn't tell you in what direction the metal object is. (Well you can assume it's "down", but... lol)

In fact, if a metal detector could be invented that showed you what direction the metal object was, instead of just how close you were to it, it would make a lot of treasure hunters happy!

In the library scene, the arms of the PKE meter would be raising because they are getting closer to the signal. But the PKE meter itself is probably not giving Egon any clue to in what direction the signal is coming from. Same in GB2 with the street scene. In that scene, they all know the direction is "down" because they are standing over the most intense signal.

So that was my idea of the giga meter's function..some sort of direction thingie. Guess that's not it though. Is there some canonical source that talks about the Giga meter's function in more detail?
SPJ liked this
#4805439
Oh of course, I totally understand what you're saying. They could be wandering around for ages with ears dipping and raising before they hit on the actual source. Bit of movie pacing that they follow the exact path to the source, or maybe the Ghostbusters are just that good, that professional :cool:

I can't recall where I heard it but Dan has stated that the PKE meter is like a spiritual diving rod (one of them Y shaped sticks used for finding water). If that's the case, the wings would rise in closer proximity to the source just as a diving rod rises when near water.

The same principle can be applied to the gigameter's scanning mics. If you look carefully on the street scene, before they move out into the street Egon is holding the giga up, microphones moving and the lights pulsing steadily. When they hit the spot over the shaft, the microphones stop and the lights are pulsing rapidly.
Ivo Shandor liked this
#4805447
There should be some sort of "Ghostbusting Manual" like they have published for Star Wars and Star Trek. Where each piece of tech has its picture and specs and a write-up detailing how it works. That would be pretty cool I think.
#4813291
Agreed, a good few years ago there were a series of Star Wars books, Incredible Cross sections, that showed the workings of ships and vehicles. I'd love to see a Ghostbusters version of this done.
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By Wildcard
#4817647
I like your definition and description.

Given the use of eVs and GeVs in particle physics, could it be possible that GeV could also be a measure of the mass of a spirit, or the direction of a reading of particular mass?
By LandoSystem
#4818920
Just to shed a little context on the gbfans equipment info page description, I believe it's explained as measuring emotions in GEV's in the script. I haven't read the final script, but I know in the early draft released on Halloween by Spook Central, it's described that way. It's also stated Egon had been researching a way to measure emotions and had a theory negative emotions were like magnets for ghosts. It was "psychomagnetic" energy in that script but "psychomagnetheric" in the film.
In the early draft, there was no slime or any real physical representation of the negative energy (except maybe rapidly multiplying bugs). They use the gigameter to find psychomagnetic hot spots and Egon scans Vigo with it at one point.
It explains why he's studying emotions at the beginning of the final film, at least.

So it seems it can be used to detect and measure places or entities containing strong negative emotion, which acts like a magnet or magnifier for ghosts or paranormal activity. Maybe not specifically to detect mood slime.
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By Ivo Shandor
#4818933
LandoSystem wrote: It was "psychomagnetic" energy in that script but "psychomagnetheric" in the film.
Is it "psychomagnetheric" (which looks more like a real science word) or "psychomagnotheric" (which looks dumb, but I've seen it used a lot)?

I went with the latter in my own fan-fic just because I wanted to use the official spelling, even though it looks stupid. I'll gladly change it to the former if it's used somewhere official.

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