Don't Go To The Movies With A Physicist?

OK, no one tell any of my friends that, or I'll be going to the movie alone from now on.

This article interviews professors Maxim Sukharev and Michael Dugger of the Applied Physics Lab at Arizona State University on the physics that they noticed in the movies. The article focuses on light, as in lasers, since these scientists are experts on them.

“Lightsabers? I don’t know what those are supposed to be,” said Dugger in puzzlement, as the two settled into Siskel and Ebert mode. “If that’s a laser, particles of light would never just stop abruptly like that."

“Of course, if you see somebody on the big screen with a Russian accent doing science, that person will turn out to be a bad character,” Sukharev said with a chuckle. He completed a doctorate in the Department of High-Power Lasers in the General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. “But what’s really laughable to me is when a spacecraft is shown speeding through the vacuum of deep space and yet we hear, ‘Zoom, zoom.’ 

I'm not that critical of the scientific mistakes or outrageous applications of science in the movies. They are, after all, fiction. But I can suspend my disbelief only so much, and if a movie takes too many liberties and transgression against science, then the movie is not longer that credible, because one can just make things up without regards to anything.

I can't wait for Avengers 4!

Zz.

Putting Science Back Into Popular Culture

Clifford Johnson of USC has an interesting article on ways to introduce science (or physics in particular), back into things that the public usually gravitate to. In particular, he asks the question on how we can put legitimate science into popular culture so that the public will get to see it more regularly.

Science, though, gets portrayed as opposite to art, intuition and mystery, as though knowing in detail how that flower works somehow undermines its beauty. As a practicing physicist, I disagree. Science can enhance our appreciation of the world around us. It should be part of our general culture, accessible to all. Those “special talents” required in order to engage with and even contribute to science are present in all of us.

So how do we bring about a change? I think using the tools of the general culture to integrate science with everything else in our lives can be a big part of the solution.

Read the rest of the article on how to inject science into popular entertainment, etc.

Zz.

Physics In "Doctor Strange"

Adam Frank, a physics professor at the University of Rochester, talks about being a consultant for the upcoming Marvel movie "Doctor Strange".

I suppose the biggest and most dicey issue that he had to deal with is how to deal with "consciousness", because as he stated, we actually do not have a concrete description of it. This is where many movies, and many pseudoscientists, allow themselves wide liberty at abusing the concept.

I will see "Doctor Strange" when it comes up, and I'll see for myself how the movie deals with this.

Zz.

The Physics of BB-8 Star Wars Toy

Did you get caught up with the release of the new Star Wars toys and merchandise this past week?

It turns out that one of the toys, the BB-8, is quite astonishing. Rhett Allain has an interesting article on how this toy works.

The last part on inductive charging shouldn't be a puzzle anymore, should it? I've had a tea kettle for at least 6 years that used inductive heating. So inductive charging shouldn't be unusual anymore, I would think.

Still, like he said, this might be a toy that could be a very good physics class demo.

Zz.

Which Famous Physicist Should Be Depicted In The Movie Next?

Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar last night for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in the movie "The Theory of Everything". So this got me into thinking of which famous physicist should be portrayed next in a movie biography. Hollywood won't choose someone who isn't eccentric, famous, or in the news. So that rules out a lot.

I would think that Richard Feynman would make a rather compelling biographical movie. He certainly was a very complex person, and definitely not boring. They could give the movie a title of "Sure You Must Be Joking", or "Six Easy Pieces", or "Shut Up And Calculate", although the latter may not be entirely attributed to Feynman.

Hollywood, I'm available for consultation!

Zz.

The Physics of Thor's Hammer

Not that you should take any of these seriously, but some time, entertainment reading like this can be "fun".

Jim Kakalios, the author of The Physics of Superheroes, has written an article on the physics of Thor's hammer. I think what I am more interested in is the details trying to explain the initial inconsistencies of what was seen (such as the hammer appearing to be too heavy for everyone to lift, yet, it isn't so heavy that it crushed the books and table that it was resting on). I think that is more fascinating because in many storyline, such inconsistencies are often either overlooked or simply brushed aside. To me, that is where the physics is, because someone who notices such inconsistencies are very aware of the physics, i.e. if such-and-such is true, then how come so-and-so doesn't also occur?

Zz.

Science In Cinema

Zz.

Slowing Down Sound So That You May Hear It?

Sometime you just have to shake your head at how badly science is mangled.

This is a "verdict" on the latest Godzilla movie. Of course, one doesn't expect accurate science reporting when it is an article on such a movie. Still, read this passage at the very end and tell me if you can't find, in this single paragraph, a couple of really glaring and puzzling errors.

But what you think you are hearing with that Godzilla roar may be deceiving. The roar is actually a decibel beyond the human range of hearing, so the design duo used special Japanese microphones to slow the sound so it falls within audience's hearing range.

REALLY!

A "decibel" measures the sound "loudness" or intensity. A sound may be too loud for a human being to hear comfortably, but it certainly isn't outside a human range. So to say that the roar is "a decibel beyond the human range of hearing" is rather puzzling.

But the kicker comes next where you can actually use these "Japanese microphones" to slow the sound, and thus, make it fall within the hearing range! I can understand the microphones picking up these ultra or sub-sonic sounds and then alter the frequency so that it falls within the hearing range. But slowing down the sound so that you can hear it?

I suppose if the microphone itself is filled with some dense medium that actually changes the speed of the incoming sound. But if we use our understanding of light going from one medium to the next, we see that the frequency remains constant even when its group velocity and wavelength change from one medium to the next. So I don't see even via such a picture, how one would "slow down" sound and make it fall within the hearing range.

After the earlier mistake being made on what a "decibel" is, I suppose it is hard to take anything written down after that seriously. So I am definitely making a big deal out of a mole hill.

Zz.

Particle Fever

It looks like there is a documentary film about the search for the Higgs making its way around film festivals. Other than the uninspiring title, Particle Fever seems to be getting a rather good review. I am more impressed that the people responsible for the production of the movie are really physicists themselves.

It’s crucial for starters that the subject is second nature to the filmmakers: director Mark Levinson earned a doctoral degree in particle physics from Berkeley before veering into film, and producer David Kaplan, a professor of theoretical particle physics at Johns Hopkins, has also been active on History Channel and National Geographic science programs. They’re able to simplify and synthesize without dumbing down the material and put non-science-oriented viewers at ease by drawing a smart parallel between science and art: Both endeavors ultimately represent attempts to explain our existence and our place in the universe.

I'll have to check and see if and when they'll show that in my neck of the woods. Have you seen it? If you have, what did you think of the movie?

Zz.

"Ghostbusters 3" To Be Based On Physics Research?

I'm trying very hard not to roll my eyes (it's getting difficult to pop them back into the sockets), but hey, if it is done tongue-in-cheek like the first movie, it might just be entertaining enough.

It appears that the new Ghostbusters movie will tackle spacetime, or at least, something that threatened our spacetime.

Dan Akroyd told the ever-famous radio personality about the story of Ghostbusters 3:

“It’s based on new research that’s being done in particle physics by the young men and women at Columbia University. Basically, there’s research being done that I can say that the world or the dimension that we live in, our four planes of existence, length, height, width and time, become threatened by some of the research that’s being done. Ghostbusters – new Ghostbusters – have to come and solve the problem.”

Oooookay! Another creation of black holes in a particle collider that could destroy our universe, perhaps?

It sounds like it could be a storyline for a Marvel movie. We'll just have to see how they play this out.

Zz.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Prefers Star Trek Over Star Wars

Hey, you can't win 'em all.

Famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, in an interview, indicates that he prefer "Star Trek" over "Star Wars" because, in his own words, Star Wars "... made no attempt to portray real physics. At all.... "

Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger.

You can read and hear the rest of the interview at the link above.

Zz.

The Physics Of "The Avengers"

Hey, did you go see "The Avengers" this past weekend and were a part of the folks who help set a new box office record for an opening weekend? I did. I don't normally go for this type of movie, but I went and see it anyway, and I was glad I did. The movie was a lot of fun, witty dialog, and hilariously funny. And oh, if you plan on seeing it, DO NOT LEAVE TILL THE CREDITS END. You'll be sorry if you did.

Anyway, as is the case whenever a movie like this opens, and opens big, you get some discussion on the physics involved in the movie. This blog article discussed the "tesseract", the almost-infinite energy source that is the center of this movie, and what everyone seems to want.

Still, with a movie like this, one has to take many of the artistic license with a grain of salt. They certainly bend the rules of physics quite a bit.

All of this does not detract from a very enjoyable movie.

Zz.

Lifing A House With Balloons

Looks like the scenario as depicted in Disney/Pixar's "Up" continues to get quite a mileage for discussion.

This is Physics World blog, several interesting topics were discussed and linked to. This includes the topic that we had discussed before, which is the scene from "Up" where huge amount of balloons were used to lift Carl's house.

If you enjoyed the film Up, you might want to peruse the paper that asked how many helium balloons would actually be required to lift a small wooden house – like the one in the film – as well as a common brick house found in the UK. The authors found that it would take almost 10 million helium balloons to lift the small wooden house and 400 million helium balloons to lift a typical UK house! They note the downfalls of this particular method of relocation though, by concluding that the balloons would “deflate very quickly at high altitudes” and that the “foundations and drainage of the house would be removed, making the structure very unstable, if by some miracle the journey is possible.” Pity, balloons would make moving so much easier!

Hum... I think they might have missed something. I went and look at the paper (freely available in that blog article if you follow one of the links). This is what the authors said in the discussion:

Since the air density decreases with altitude this would not be enough to let it climb indefinitely, even assuming that no helium can escape from the balloons. This is because the air density (and therefore the buoyancy force) is inversely proportional to N. This means that N would have to be even higher to reach an altitude of normal aeroplanes (37000 ft or 11277m [5]).

At an altitude of 11277m the air density is approximately 0.3471kgm-3 [6] which is more than 3 times smaller than at sea level. This means that N would have to be more than 3 times greater than that calculated previously at this altitude than at sea level.

The balloons will also deflate over time which will also be exacerbated by altitude, even at different altitudes close to sea level [7]. This is due to the diffusion in the balloons [8] to a space of much lower pressure, which at an altitude of 11277m is going to be a massive effect.

Hum... As the balloons rises to higher altitude, it is true that the air density surrounding the balloon becomes less. However, because of that, one can also argue thatm, for ordinary balloon that has elastic skin, the VOLUME of the balloon is also expanding. So in this case, the displaced volume gets bigger, which will add to the buoyancy. Whether the additional buoyancy can compensate for the decrease in air density, that I haven't calculated. I'm sure that depends on the elasticity of the balloon, etc.

When balloon detectors are sent very high up into the upper atmosphere, if you look at the launch on earth, you'll see that the balloons were not completely inflated because of this reason. If you sent things up already fully deflated, the drop in air density (pressure) will cause the balloon to want to expand even further and will eventually cause a rupture in the balloon.

Zz.

Recreating Disney/Pixar's "Up"

We had a spirited discussion on the physics of Disney/Pixar's "Up" a while back, focusing on the infamous and glorious scene of the house floating away due to all those balloons. Well now, in an episode of "How Hard Can It Be?" on National Geographic, some people were actually testing this principle of floating a house using balloons! Check out the video!



It is never as easy as in the movies, isn't it?

Zz.

A Movie About Einstein?

I suppose the question is, why not?

A biopic on Einstein is in the works and will be directed by Wayne Wang.

The film, tentatively titled “Einstein”, chronicles the true inspirational story of the trials, tragedies and vindication of the single-most celebrated scientist of the 20th century. Torn between the burdens of a family and his restless pursuit of unlocking the mysteries of the universe, he not only achieved unparalleled stature as a genius but he also changed the world forever - at no small cost to himself and those around him.

HSI Films will handle worldwide sales on “Einstein” and immediately introduce the project to distributors in Berlin.

They are still looking for an actor to play Einstein. So look in the mirror, folks. If you have that resemblance, send in your portfolio! Maybe you'll be called for an audition!

Zz.

Bridging Science And The Cinematic Arts

Seems to me that Hollywood is trying to get its act together in bringing in at least competent advice in its science content. The National Science Foundation and the CalArts school have announced a partnership ".... to forge collaborations between researchers and entertainment scholars to produce cutting-edge materials that inspire and inform mass-media audiences about science and engineering concepts..."

Not sure what the effect of this will be in future movies.

Zz.

The Story Behind RealD 3D Technology

A rather nice "historical" account of RealD's emergence in the movie industry. Certainly, if you've seen any 3D movies within the past few years, and certainly if you've seen "Avatar", you would have experienced the more pleasant way of viewing 3D movies than those nasty bi-colored glasses.

The history of RealD's Boulder brain trust stretches back to work at the University of Colorado in the 1980s.

In 1987, CU received a federal award to establish the Center for Optoelectronics Computing Systems, which initially had strong focuses in physics and liquid crystal technologies, said Kate Tallman, director of technology transfer for CU-Boulder.

The center spawned a number of inventions related to color display technology and color projection technology and would be the incubator for a spin-off launched by two of its CU scientists.

I think that it is extremely important to make sure the public realizes where the seed money came from and from what initial research effort. Too often, what we get today is never connected to the original work that spawned off so many direct applications, so much so that the public doesn't see their tax dollars at work when it was invested into science and technology.

Zz.

Triple Hit

It appears that there's a new independent movie titled "Triple Hit" that is making use of various popularization of quantum mechanics.

The film - previously called Schrodinger's Girl - centres on Rebecca Hunter, a disgraced scientist conducting research into alternate universes. She discovers a way to travel between realities and then finds her parallel-world counterparts have their own agendas: Anastacia Hunter is the science director for a gulag in the People's Republic of Great Britain, while Sarah Hunter-Gibson is a professor in a utopian hi-tech society.

Rebecca takes a terrifying trip into the People's Republic, a dystopian alternative Britain, where her encounter with a totalitarian regime is only the beginning of her problems as the multiverse begins to unravel around her. She has to use her sharp intellect and mastery of quantum physics to save the entire universe.

Oy vey!! :)

Well, to be fair, I shouldn't make any comments on this since I haven't seen it. And it is, after all, a "sci-fi" movie, so they should have some latitude to run away with it a bit. But this parallel universe type of theme is nothing new. How come no one makes a movie about the possibility of fractionalization and spin-charge separation, for example? Now THAT would be entirely new! :)

Zz.

The Physics of Tom Stoppard's Movies

A rather interesting way to teach non-science majors some physics and literature at the same time. This article in Physics Central covers Prof. Brad Carroll's course at Weber State University in Utah that examines the physics in 3 of Tom Stoppard's plays/movies: "Arcadia", "Hapgood", and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead".

I wonder if these movies are included whenever people evaluate the science (or bad physics) in Hollywood movies? :)

Zz.

A Physicist looks at "The Time Traveler's Wife"

Physicist David Goldberg takes a closer look at the new movie "Time Traveler's Wife", which opens this weekend. Strangely enough, he's quite excited about it, as opposed to other previous movies on time travel.

That's why I'm so excited about the film adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, which tells the story of Henry DeTamble, a man with a rare genetic disorder that causes him to skip around in time while his long-suffering wife, Clare, waits for him at home. The premise is no more or less plausible than that of, say, Back to the Future, in which a tricked-out DeLorean must reach 88 mph to jump into the past. But The Time Traveler's Wife follows through on its premise in a realistic way.

So what are these realistic ways that the movie actually followed?

1.

In a rule-abiding time-travel narrative, there are no parallel universes—just a single timeline. The Time-Traveler's Wife follows this rule to a T, and there is a significant online presence dedicated to diagramming the unique, entangled history of Henry and Clare.

2.

The time-machine construction clause is one of the most often overlooked of the rules of time travel and is the only real mar on the otherwise exceptional Terminator (1984), which proposes a single historical line (or loop) with no alternate universes. (Subsequent movies in the series revert to the parallel-histories model.) The Time Traveler's Wife very nearly gets it right: Since Henry is the time machine, he can't visit any time before he was born. His daughter, on the other hand, bends those rules slightly: She manages to visit a time before her own birth but not so far back that her father hasn't been born, either. (We might take Henry's birth as the "invention" of time travel and the whole family as components of a single machine.)

3.

So, try as you might, you can't kill your own grandfather, nor can you change history at all. The Terminator learned this the hard way, going back in time to prevent John Connor's birth by killing his mother. When a human travels back in time to protect her, the two fall in love—and she becomes pregnant with … John Connor. Ta-da.

There's no need for such finagling in The Time Traveler's Wife. Since Henry DeTamble serves as his own time machine, there's little chance of his preventing his own birth. Cf. rule No. 2.

4.

In The Time Traveler's Wife, Henry and Clare enforce the (predetermined) future by giving each other instructions and hints about how things are supposed to happen. That gives them a feeling of free choice where none really exists. In a letter to Clare about their future, Henry explains, "I won't tell you any more, so you can imagine it, so you can have it unrehearsed when the time comes, as it will, as it does come."

Yes, folks. There are constraints if you want to use physics as the realistic foundation to time travel. And of course, this is assuming that what we know about General Relativity is actually perfectly valid.

Zz.