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You've probably seen this already, but in case anyone else missed the Movie Physics review of The Core, here it is.

How high would the overpressure be under the nuclear blast? There would be a lot of pressure pushing on the fridge to blow it that far. And why was it lead lined? What would be the purpose of that in a commercial refrigerator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions_on_human_health#Blast_effects_-_the_initial_stage

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/IndianaJones3.htm

These links provide some food for thought.

These two sites talk about science errors in movies and TV shows. It's a great way to start a discussion because you're leading in with something fun and familiar, and possibly even something that they've seen and thought "oh no WAY could that work."

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/

Actually, what they should do is follow the lead of sites like this and this and teach science by explaining everything that the show gets wrong. They'd never run out of material if they did that.

As for your example about ships passing each other while going from Point A to Point B: space travel isn't like a transatlantic cruise. To get to where you want to be, you need to head for where the planet is going. To pick a simple (and simplified) example, consider two ships flying from Earth to Mars and vice-versa. Imagine you plan your trip for a time when the planets are both pretty close together. Since they both go around the Sun in the same direction, let's simplify and pretend they're on parallel tracks heading in the same direction, like two cars driving down the road next to each other. As you know, it is a multi-month trip, and if both ships leave on the same day, they will have to fly at an angle to reach where their destination will be in a couple months. So their paths would not be two parallel lines--they would actually form an X. (And that's before you factor in elliptical orbits, varying orbital planes, etc., to say nothing of relativity and how really effing big space is.)

In other words, imagine firing a gun in Los Angeles towards Maine at the same time someone in Miami sends a bullet towards Seattle. Calculate the odds of them hitting in mid-air. :-)

The hex clock is WAY cooler than this. And less creepy.

http://www.intuitor.com/hex/hexclock.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal_time

Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug.

I responded to this question on dig and I have simple answer because the same thing happens with full metal jackets ammunition on soft targets.

First the idea that bullets or any objects that pierce flesh will cause blow back is false.

Secondly, the US forces in Mogadishu (you know Black Hawk down) discovered that the their current model of M16s had no stopping power on drug crazed militia men who felt no pain. Their bullets were designed to pierce armored targets and would basically go through the attackers without causing much to the attacker who kept fighting. The bullet would simply pass through the attacker without mushrooming or fragmenting and does not knock them down.

The AK-47 on the other hand does not have this problem and causes massive flesh damage as it not only mushrooms but also spirals through the human body.

You might have trouble punching through Kevlar though...

So if we assume that the meteor burnt off any material that would have "mushroomed" like a hallow point bullet it is safe to assume that it would have pierced the flesh and went on through at that high of a speed without affecting the surrounding hand.

Had it of course hit something harder than bone then it might have shattered and caused more damage.

I can count to 1023 on my fingers.....I especially like the number 132.

http://www.intuitor.com/counting/

Layne

due to the movement of the Earth's outer core

Time to build a drill-train out of unobtainium and fix it with nukes!

Does anybody know any movie reviewers who include realism of the physics, realism of the computer scenes, or realism in general in their reviews? If I knew in advance which movies would annoy me, I'd avoid them.

This guy has some, but I don't know how often he does reviews.

The Core (2003) http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/ was both educational and fun.

Atleast reading the movie physics review on it. http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

Quotes such as "It's the worst physics movie...ever...." and "...the movie's heroes are at least 335 bombs short...." just make me laugh everytime I read it

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

The trouble will be getting through the void.

Finally, the Japanese attack. At last, projectile motion! Then Hollywood drops the ultimate physics bomb. The special effects animators in their effort to dramatically portray the bomb's deadly descent do a bang up job of reinforcing the major misconception that horizontally released bombs fall straight down. When a bomb is released it has the same velocity as the aircraft. When the velocity is horizontal, the bomb will travel a considerable distance forward as it descends. The bomb will remain nearly horizontal for much of its flight and its nose will tilt downward slowly. In the movie, when the bomb is released, it immediately turns its nose earthward and falls straight down until it crashes through the deck of the Arizona. This was a scene which shall live forever in movie physics infamy.

I've always enjoyed intuitor dissect movie physics for some of the more popular movies.

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

But if said 8 year old is looking at a Windows 98 login screen, he might try the unthinkable and hit "cancel". Or even the esc key. I did this, and I was maybe 12 or 14 or something.

That's not really hacking though. Windows is asking you for your network password before it starts mapping drives. You can enter whatever you want and it'll still let you in.

The #1 mistake I see is them dumbing down the computer stuff -- can you name a single hack that's actually been explained to you that made any real sense, without you inventing huge amounts of crap to fill the gaps?

There is one legit hack I know of, that I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet. In one of the Matrix sequels, Trinity uses an SSH exploit to get into a powerstation control network. Apparently nmap is involved as well. Sort of the exception-that-proves-the-rule, just about everything else is silly.

If you want to other silly movie plots/effects non-specific to IT, Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics is a good resource and funny too.

I like this http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html, it's about "The Core"-physics

Bowling balls
:D

Ummm... he actually made one... and caused an earthquake...

http://www.intuitor.com/resonance/tesla.html

The problem with hiding technology is the telephone/radio/programming issue, where more than one person can come to the same conclusion, albeit via different means/functions/devices.

And many of the more geeky ones are listed here at the Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics page: http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

If you liked that article try reading some Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. They don't update much anymore, but there are some gems in this site.

If you enjoy this kind of thing, I also recommend the Insultingly Bad Movie Physics page. Includes information about the bad physics that crop up all the time, and reviews of particular movies. Most recent article piece on the site? "Bioinformatics and Hollywood".

Credit where credit is due - the movie DOES use the name "Unobtainium" for the material used in the craft.

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ has a more detailed view on several movies with bad physics (which tend to indicate movies with bad science in general), and their review on The Core is worth a read - http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

Credit where credit is due - the movie DOES use the name "Unobtainium" for the material used in the craft.

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ has a more detailed view on several movies with bad physics (which tend to indicate movies with bad science in general), and their review on The Core is worth a read - http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

just like it has no place in movies that aren't documentaries about physics. This book is just as bad sounding as the website Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics . Maybe i am the minority here, but i think entertainment shouldn't be subjected to scrutinty like this. Who cares if spidermans web is not able to do what it does in the comic. Whoever referenced the superman vs darth vader is right, those are the important questions (Like who would win in a fight Neo or Gandalf) not, what are the physics of superman's flying. Its called supsension of disbelief, its what allows us to go to the movies and see Logan/wolverine and not hugh jackman just wearing gardening tools on his hands.

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

There is some interesting reading at the "bad movie physics" webpage where the author explores how easy it is to light gasoline with a lit cigarette - he basicaly found that it was very difficult to do. See http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/mpmain.html#c igarettes for details (note that is a link to frame within a page - the page itself is at http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ - hit the link on the left to "cigarettes" to get it displayed as the author intended.)

From the page:

Lighting puddles of gasoline with cigarettes in movies is a common device. The character takes a few puffs and tosses the glowing cigarette in the puddle. Immediately, the gasoline ignites. However, numerous readers have written us and said it isn't so. Some have cited experiences where they saw it attempted. Others have said that cigarettes don't get hot enough.

We searched the web and found several sites that say cigarettes do get hot enough. In other words the glowing tip of a lit cigarette is well above the autoignition temperature of gasoline. Normally this information would have convinced us, but as mentioned before, some of the people writing in seemed to have personal experience. Finally, we decided to conduct an experiment.

We poured a very small amount of gasoline in an aluminum pie pan or slightly deeper cake pan and placed it in the middle of a concrete slab. The pie and cake pans were chosen because they allowed the gasoline to spread out into a very shallow puddle the way it would if spilled on the ground. It also pretty much guaranteed that the vapors at some point above the pan would mix enough with air to form an ignitable mixture. ....

There is some interesting reading at the "bad movie physics" webpage where the author explores how easy it is to light gasoline with a lit cigarette - he basicaly found that it was very difficult to do. See http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/mpmain.html#c igarettes for details (note that is a link to frame within a page - the page itself is at http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ - hit the link on the left to "cigarettes" to get it displayed as the author intended.)

From the page:

Lighting puddles of gasoline with cigarettes in movies is a common device. The character takes a few puffs and tosses the glowing cigarette in the puddle. Immediately, the gasoline ignites. However, numerous readers have written us and said it isn't so. Some have cited experiences where they saw it attempted. Others have said that cigarettes don't get hot enough.

We searched the web and found several sites that say cigarettes do get hot enough. In other words the glowing tip of a lit cigarette is well above the autoignition temperature of gasoline. Normally this information would have convinced us, but as mentioned before, some of the people writing in seemed to have personal experience. Finally, we decided to conduct an experiment.

We poured a very small amount of gasoline in an aluminum pie pan or slightly deeper cake pan and placed it in the middle of a concrete slab. The pie and cake pans were chosen because they allowed the gasoline to spread out into a very shallow puddle the way it would if spilled on the ground. It also pretty much guaranteed that the vapors at some point above the pan would mix enough with air to form an ignitable mixture. ....

I know I am a little late, but to avoid people becoming paranoid because they saw the core, here is a link to a review of the "science" behind the movie (the web refers to it as the worse sci-fi movie in the scientific aspect). [http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html]

The CORE ?? Are you sure?
Check out http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

oh how did they miss The Core, internationally popular as the worst sci-fi movie ever? not content with violating several laws of physics, geology and thermodynamics and pure commonsense, this movie had to take a stab at the internet/computers as well. US govt hires master hacker 'Rat' (who nonchalantly unlocks the hero's cellphone for lifetime free minutes by blowing thru a chewing gum foil) to 'control the internet' by 'hacking the planet' and regulating the flow of information! and how can we forget the ending where he connects to the internet and sends (spams) ALL users of internet with an email glorifying the deeds of Virgil's unsung heroes?!

I also saw a movie where Earth's core stopped and the resulting hole in the magnetic field caused a space laser to melt the Golden Gate Bridge. Call me disillusioned, but I think that sometimes movies might not depict reality. On the other hand we should probably try not to develop an earthquake weapon, just in case.

There are at least two logical ways to dramatize global warming effects: 1) Assume an extremely fast change, say in decades. Show the effects of global warming on several generations of characters -- The Godfather with polluters rather than criminals. 2) Assume a more reasonable rate of change, say thousands of years. Jump forward a few millennia and depict the aftermath -- a futuristic Mad Max with snowmobiles. The Day After Tomorrow does neither but then it's not about global warming effects. It's about special effects.

The near submersion of the Statue of Liberty is possibly the most notable special effect and illustrates our point. Using the 305 ft (93 m) tall (including the pedestal) 2 statue as a reference, we estimate the maximum "wind induced storm surge" height to be about 240 ft (72.8 m). This is about 215 ft (65.2 m) higher than the unusually high storm surge during hurricane Camille (1969) caused by maximum wind speeds near 200 miles per hour (322 km/hr) 3. A 240 foot (72.8 m) high storm surge would be virtually impossible without help from a catastrophic event like an asteroid strike or nearly instantaneous melting of Antarctic ice.

Not only does Antarctica hold about 90% of all ice on Earth but the ice rests on a land mass. Water produced by melting will raise ocean levels. By contrast, North Pole ice is floating. Melting it would have little effect on ocean levels although it might be disastrous for Santa Claus.

The storm surge in the movie eventually recedes but not to its previous level. Again, using the Statue of Liberty as a reference, and allowing for about 20 ft (6.07 m) of snow, the water level had to remain over 150 ft (45.5 m) higher than normal. To raise ocean levels by 150 ft (45.5 m), about 75% of Antarctica's ice would have to melt4. We estimate this would take about 2.6 years 5, 6, assuming that all solar energy available to Earth went entirely into melting Antarctica's ice and that the ice was already warmed up to 0 C. Obviously, this is only a fraction of the time required for melting.

On the other hand, maybe we're supposed to believe that the 150 ft (45.5 m) deep water did not recede because it was frozen all the way to the bottom in a few hours. After all, the movie showed no flooding in Washington DC even though it's located in a coastal area. According to the movie the storm system over New York pulled extremely cold air from the upper troposphere down to ground level where it had a temperature of -151 (-102 C) F, over 20 F (11 C) colder than the coldest climatic temperature ever recorded on Earth7.

A believable framework? Fooled this guy...: http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

As suggested over at Intuitor, why not send up a team of bowling experts to create a hole to the center, and then detonate a few nukes?

Simple...

NeoThermic

That sounds like unsubstantiated exxageration- eg no reality behind it. Now it may be true, but seems highly improbable to me?

One does tend to suspect any popular press story that makes mistakes of scaling like unto the ones in 1950s science fiction movies that have giant ants running around. For a basic primer on the goofiness of this claim, Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics would be one source.

They could do worse than begin by visitng this site: http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ which examines physics in Hollywood movies. The reviews alone are priceless.

The best use ever of Unobtainium was in The Core. It's MST3K quality, and it's worth gathering you friends together for a DVD showing. The science is bad, the acting is awful, the special effects will make you long for Episode 3, and I love it.

"The Core is a marvel. It has everything: common physics misconceptions, blatant misrepresentations of physical laws, a complete range of stereotypes, ridiculous feats of engineering, and pure fabrication of scientific "facts". The weighty or sad parts are so inane, they made us laugh out loud. The dialog, plot, and action are predictable, if not outright tedious. Yet, the bad physics provide nonstop surprises. It's the worst physics movie we've ever viewed. It's so bad, it's almost entertaining..."

http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

The core has been breached before -- described here in detail
--
The Core: "Someone set up us the bomb"

Black Guy: [gibberish]

Idiot: Duh... huh? Whoa...

[cool visual effect involving Hot Chick in tight shiny costume]

Audience: Whee!

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/matrix.html

Bam! Link!

Ummm... don't you mean 132?

They did:

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/mpmain.html#c igarettes

And the main site (framed):

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

They did:

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/mpmain.html#c igarettes

And the main site (framed):

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

I know a creative solution that works for everything...
NUKES!
Intuitor's insultingly stupid movie physics: The core

That technique was used in the movie "The Score". I'm not sure that it would work on a real safe using a small charge. Also, you would have to drill two holes, one to let water in and one to let air out, or it is going to take a long time to fill.

A guide to science in movies - comments on the movie the score

...you know what we could actually do? We could think of each of our 10 fingers as being a 0 or 1 in a 10 digit, base 2 number. Hold the finger up, and you've got a 1, otherwise it's a 0. Thinking of our fingers as a binary number, we'd get 2^10 (that's 1024) digits, which is a good deal better than our measly 10 we get now. Of course, this catching on would require quite a meme. Can anybody reading this do it well?

Practice with an applet here

and therefore able to generate the currents which cause the earth's magnetic field, which shield us from dangerous radiation... :-)

*Sigh*. Yes, we remember The Core, renowned as having the worst physics in a movie, ever.