Dear Johnny Fanboy,

A few minutes of your time, please.

In the Tom Baker Doctor Who story Pyramids of Mars, the Doctor states that a radio beam takes two minutes to travel from Mars to Earth. However, in reality it would take between 4.3 minutes and 21 minutes for a radio signal to reach Earth from Mars, depending on the distance between the two planets at the time. How can the Doctor make such a basic mistake?

Toby Sutton

Johnny Fanboy replies:

You must bear in mind that the radio transmitter in question was set up by the Osirans, a highly advanced race of beings. Who is to say that their radio technology is as limited as ours? It could be that they invented a way to accelerate radio signals, in much the same way that the Time Lords developed the "light-speed overdrive", which allows the Master to transmit a signal to a distant constellation in mere minutes in Logopolis.

Evidently the Doctor knows about this aspect of Osiran technology, and so he is correct in his estimation that the radio beam will take just two minutes to reach Earth from Mars.

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