FYSE 130 - Physics In Film

Titan A.E. - Earth is Dead and So is Physics Titan A.E: A Death Star on Steroids Picture a literal giant cannon that shoots pure energy into an object for massive cataclysmic damage. Picture it splitting the Earth into hundreds of tiny pieces destroying everything you know and love and picture it wiping out the moon with its large chunks of debris. Wasn’t that fun? That’s basically the opening scene to the movie Titan A.E. ; an animated sci-fi film about a dude name kayle who has to go on this mission through the galaxy to find a spaceship his dad built that can literally create a planet. This lack of care for physics is shown in the first opening scene of the movie that I just talked about. Take a look:    Basically, big alien ship comes to earth, big alien ship powers up its laser, laser destroys Earth, earth destroys moon, and we are left to ponder how the heck everything that just happened actually happened. Well there are some things that we can analyze about this s

"Fat Man and Little Boy" Vs. Fat Giant Lizard The films "Fat Man and Little Boy" and "Gojira" oddly seem to be two sides of the same coin, with one presenting a different answer to the same moral question. They both pose a similiar question, should weapons of mass destruction be destroyed to protect us? Or should they be created to protect us? I know it seems like a contradictory question but just read through this and you'll understand. In "Fat Man and Little Boy", the main plot is focused on the scientists of the Manhattan project trying to figure out whether what they're doing is morally right or wrong. Once all the initial excitement and hysteria around the project fades, it quickly becomes apparent that this weapon of mass destruction is not truly necessary once the allies find out that the Germans are nowhere near developing this bomb. There is a lot of argument about whether or not this weapon of mass destruction is truly neces

An Unbiased Source on Climate Change Also known as a "Needle in a Haystack" The Copenhagen Diagnosis was originally a book created by 26 individual leading climate change experts around the world. It was mainly created to serve as an in-depth analysis of all the recent scientific data surrounding global warming in the early 2000's. This data was then condensed down and prepared as a report for a climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in December of 2009. The book can be purchased online and the report itself can also be downloaded for free. The executive summary is a quick and easy to read 1 page summary of each of the topics that the book presents. This can be found by clicking here. The summary on it's own is a good source of information but the actual report is even better. The summary has a few key points that it makes that is good information to cite for almost any research paper. For starters, it announces that the original models for rising sea lev

Spiderman: Centripetal Acceleration and Goat Spiderwebs? "The Physics of Superheroes" is honestly really interesting just for the amount of stuff you can learn while talking about something that is genuinely interesting. Although, if you do find yourself reading this for fun you have reached ultimate nerd status. Welcome to the club. One of the most interesting bits that I found in the book pertains to spiderman. Particularly, his webbing and ability to swing from building to building. The question that the author poses is, quite simply, can spiderman swing from building to building on really only spider webbing. As it turns out, from a physics standpoint, it's totally possible. As spidey-boy is swinging amongst the skyscrapers or new york, he is experiencing a centripetal force as he is swinging even though he is not experiencing a pure acceleration in one direction. The author notes that as you swing in a semi-circle, you're constantly changing the directio

Armageddon: The End of Physics (and life) as we Know it Armageddon is one of those movies that everyone knows about I think? There's no doubt that it's at least a half decent movie and one worthy of watching if you've got a spare 2 hours. However, the whole "let's blow up an asteroid with a nuke and have the two halves of the asteroid miss us entirely" thing, is utterly false and impossible to do. In actual practice, one nuke would barely separate each of the asteroid pieces a football field apart from one another by the time it reaches the movies "0 barrier". However, it does pose an interesting question. In the event that earth does come into the crosshairs of an "extinction level" asteroid, what on earth (no pun intended) do we do? The Plan So, although throwing nukes at the thing last minute would give a great last-minute fireworks show, it won't work. If we are going to actually hit this thing with nukes, we need to be able

Mission Impossible III: No Physics Required So, in my eyes, "Mission Impossible III" seemed like a hot mess. Some of the scenes where extremely cringe worthy, there were plot holes the size of the grand canyon, and Tom Cruise seemed to be the only half decent actor in my opinion. However, the main gripe I have with this movie is much nerdier than that. Some of the physics in this movie are appalling. Some are normal Hollywood cliches, some are downright crazy stunts, and some are just downright illogical at best. I'm very interested in being able to determine whether or not these scenes really were accurate. Even though we know that, because they are action movie scenes, some of them are inherently incorrect. None the less, listing out the information that's given to use would definitely shed some light on whether or not some of these scenes are even physically possible in the real world. Shanghai Fulcrum   The first scene I want to touch on, screams for ph