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Physics in the Movies
nucal writes "Here's a site rating Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. A really thorough site with a rating system which ranges from GP (Good Physics) to XP (Obviously physics from an unknown universe)." My vote goes to the helix of M&M's.
They give the coveted GP == Good Physics award to Seven Years in Tibet...?!?! Like... okay? How about we give other coveted Good Physics awards to Lolita, Joy Luck Club, Pi, True Stories, and Office Space since they were so full of projectile cars, falling, laser beams, and other physical effects that could be modelled poorly???
Then they go and say the Matrix had questionable physics, despite the fact that a key element of the plot is that the physics of the world are simply rules in a computer which Morpheus so eloquently describes: "some can be bent, others broken."
I'm gonna just have to go ahead and disagree with you there.
fifth sigma, inc.
I liked the comment about the sniper rifles and laser sights, mostly because they're wrong. They were correct in stating that the army doesn't use LASER sights for sniper rifles, however, as an army friend was recently telling me, they now use a form of IASER for sights.
The IASER basically paints an infrared dot as opposed to a visible light dot, thus it can't be seen with human eyes. But, If one is looking through the infrared sight of a sniper rifle, it is clear as day. Thus, one gets all the advantages of a laser sight without letting the victim know of his impending death ahead of time.
One thing to note though, is that these sights are only really practical on sniper rifles, as one would have to be wearing infrared goggles for them to work on normal guns.
BTW, I was mildly amused by the ego on display in their review of The Matrix:
Somehow, I don't think the creators were aiming to make it a "cerebral thriller". If the maintainers of intuitor.com didn't like The Matrix, that's fine, but they should review the difference between "fails to meet its potential" and "fails to meet your expectations."
Nitpicking makes a movie better! Every time I'm watching TV with my friends, and I see a physical error, I pause it with Tivo, and draw out a diagram of how it cannot happen. My friend threatened to shoot me with an Uzi for doing this, but I reminded him that a Mac 10 is what the REAL action heroes use.
Arrrrrgh! No! no! no!
Mr. Ebert confused the speed of the shadow of an object on Earth with the speed of the Earths Terminator.
Here's my e-mail to Mr. Ebert...
Mr. Ebert recently wrote in his review of THE MUMMY RETURNS:
"4. I have written before of the ability of movie characters to outrun fireballs. In "The Mummy Returns," there is a more amazing feat. If the rising sun touches little Alex while he is wearing the magical bracelet, he will die (it is written). But Rick, carrying Alex in his arms, is able to outrace the sunrise; we see the line of sunlight moving on the ground right behind them. It is written by Eratosthenes that the Earth is about 25,000 miles around, and since there are 24 hours in a day, Rick was running approximately 1,041 miles an hour."
Mr. Ebert is in error.
Mr. Ebert has over-simplified the geometry, and physics of the velocity of shadows generated by the Sun.
While it is true that the Earth's rotates with an angular velocity of ~7.29e-5, and thus has a tangental rotational velocity of ~1041 mph, it is manifestly untrue that a shadow cast by mountains, canyon walls, etc. also travel at 1041 mph.
The velocity of the shadow is a function of not only the Earth's angular velocity, but also of the hight of the object, the time of day, as well as the time of year.
Consider the shadow cast by a flag pole. The length of the shadow is infinite at sunrise, but at local noon it will be at minimum at local noon. If the pole is located along the equator, and it's an equinox the the shadow will have a length of zero. Thus in six hours the shadow will have gone from infinitely long to infinitely short, thus having an average velocity that is infinite. (It is written by Zeno of Elea) A second example may serve to make my point a bit better. Consider the same day, and the same flag pole, but this time let us stipulate that the flag pole is 100 feet tall. As 09:00 local time the Sun will be 45 degrees above the horizon therefore the shadow will be 100 feet long as the oppsite, and adjacent sides of a 45 degree right triangle are equal. Thus, in the three hours between 09:00, and 12:00 local time the shadow of the flag pole will have moved 100 feet. Thus, the average speed at which the shadow will move in this period will be 100 feet / 3hours = 33.33... feet per hour, or ~0.0063131313... mph. Manifestly, this is very much less that 1041 mph.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
That wasn't the only example. He can't conceive of a machine which can act as a helicopter and a submarine at the same time -- but a hundred years ago people couldn't have conceived of helicopters in the first place. Why should he evaluate everything by present-day technology?
The Phantom Menace review was even worse. There was no real "physics" being objected to, only stuff like "if the force field can stop water, why doesn't it stop humans who are 80% water?" If we don't know how it works, how can we pass judgements on such things? Perhaps it actively detects the presence of humans or biological objects. Perhaps it only stops liquids and not solids. Perhaps any number of other explanations.
Remember Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Conversely, in the movies, anything which looks like magic could be the product of sufficiently advanced technology.
Overall, I'm not impressed.
That's great, but I think we've all seen this list before.
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in 0 gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300C.
This is another moldy oldy, and what's more, it's wrong:
NASA never asked Paul C. Fisher to produce a pen. When the astronauts began to fly, like the Russians, they used pencils, but the leads sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the [capsule's] atmosphere where there was no gravity. They could float into an eye or nose or cause a short in an electrical device. In addition, both the lead and the wood of the pencil could burn rapidly in the pure oxygen atmosphere. Paul Fisher realized the astronauts needed a safer and more dependable writing instrument, so in July 1965 he developed the pressurized ball pen, with its ink enclosed in a sealed, pressurized ink cartridge. Fisher sent the first samples to Dr. Robert Gilruth, Director of the Houston Space Center. The pens were all metal except for the ink, which had a flash point above 200C. The sample Space Pens were thoroughly tested by NASA. They passed all the tests and have been used ever since on all manned space flights, American and Russian. All research and developement costs were paid by Paul Fisher. No development costs have ever been charged to the government.
-a
How to rationalize theft.