What is Digg?87 Comments
- nallelcm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+107Sorry for the Comment Abuse
1. Those Exploding Cars
When youre watching an action flick, all it takes is a crash, or maybe a stream of leaky gasoline that acts like a fuse, and suddenly, bang! You see a terrific explosion thats complete and violent. But gasoline doesnt explode unless mixed with about 93% air. Gas-induced car explosions were discovered on film relatively recently (you dont see them in the old black-and-white movies), and now audiences just take them for granted. In general, theres no need to rush out of a crashed car, risking injury, because you fear an imminent explosion its probably not gonna happen.
2. Sound that Moves at the Speed of Light
Hollywood always gets this one wrong. On film, thunder doesnt follow lightning (as in real life, because sound is slower); they occur simultaneously. Similarly, a distant volcano erupts, and the blast is heard immediately rather than five seconds later for each mile. Explosions on the battlefield go boom right away, no matter how far away spectators are. Even a small thing, like the crack of a baseball players bat, is simultaneous with ball contact, unlike at a real game.
3. Everything is Illuminated: The Myth of Radioactivity
Film would have you believe that radioactivity is contagious and makes you glow in the dark. Where did this idea come from? The Simpsons? Perhaps, but the truth is that the most common forms of radioactivity will make you radioactive only if the radioactive particles stick on you. Radioactivity is not contagious. If a person is exposed to the radioactive neutrons from a nuclear reactor, then he can become slightly radioactive, but he certainly wont glow. And because radioactive things emit light only when they run into phosphor like the coating on the inner surface of a TV tube you dont really need to worry.
4. Shotgun Blasts and Kung Fu Kicks Make Targets Fly across the Room
With the string of new kung fu films out (they run the gamut from The Matrix to Charlies Angels), you just cant escape the small matter of bad physics. Yeah, the action scenes look great and all, but in reality momentum is conserved, such that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So, when you see a gal kick someone across the room, technically, the kicker (or holder of a gun) must fly across the room in the opposite direction unless she has a back against the wall.
5. Legends of the Fall
We arent surprised when the cartoon character Wile. E. Coyote runs off a cliff and is suspended there momentarily before he falls. But in the movies, buses and cars shouldnt be able to jump across gaps in bridges, even if they go heavy on the accelerator. The fact is, a vehicle will fall even if its moving at a high speed. During the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, a driver saw a gap in the bridge too late, and probably inspired by the movies, accelerated to try to make it across. Unfortunately, the laws of physics were not suspended, and he fell into the hole and crashed on the other side. Movies with special effects should come with a warning: Laws of physics are violated in this movie. Dont try these stunts at home.
6. The Sounds of Science
All across the silver screen, youll catch people screaming as their car flies in slow motion across the gap in the bridge. The problem, though, is that their voices dont change. In reality, if you slow down motion by a factor of two, the frequency of all sounds should drop by an octave. Women will sound like men, and men will sound like Henry Kissinger. Sound is an oscillation of the air. Middle C, for example, is 256 vibrations per second. If time is slowed down, there are fewer cycles per second, and the resulting sound is lower in pitch.
7. Shell Shock! Exploding Artillery Shells that Blow Straight Up
In movies, shells tend to kill only the person standing directly over them. It seems like a waste of artillery, since if you believe the movies each shell cant kill more than a single rifle bullet can. But in real life, artillery shells blow out in all directions, killing people all over. Movie directors like to have their actors running through a field of such shells, but they dont want their actors killed, so they arrange for underground explosions in holes that blow straight up, missing anyone whos more than 5 feet away.
8. The Sparking Bullet
Sparking bullets are relatively recent invention in movie special effects. The gimmick provides a way of letting the audience know that the bullet just barely missed its target. In real life, sparks do occur when you scrape steel or other hard metals on hard surfaces (such as brick) because little pieces of brittle materials are heated to glow and fly off. The problem here is that bullets are generally made of lead because its dense and soft, and you dont want the bullets scarring the steel of the gun barrel. Ever notice that no sparks fly from the front of the gun? Thats because youre seeing lead bullets.
9. Sound Travels in Space
This is the granddaddy of all scientific complaints about space movies. For instance, in space the hero shouldnt be able to shout out instructions to the other astronauts from a spot several yards away. The movie Aliens corrected this misimpression with its tagline: In space, nobody can hear you scream. And its true. Sound is the vibration of air, and its sensed when the air makes your eardrums vibrate. But try to forget this rule as soon as possible; itll wreck a good many movies for you. - fittysix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+61As long as we're stealing slashdot's stories, we might as well steal their mirrors too.
http://mirrordot.com/stories/cf9b10a62111181de30448780a278260/index.html - rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -2/+37No laws — physics or otherwise — apply to celebrities in Hollywood.
- oracleofmist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31diggs!=site views
I don't know how many times this has to be repeated on digg but understand that!! - mc7winkie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23With the whole thing about momentum. True momentum is conserved but what about the ground that said kicker is standing on? Wouldn't the ground serve as another means of resisting flying in the opposite direction?
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17It's really too bad most film makers ignore physics. But it takes imagination to do things with silence in space, for example. I've always thought you could make space movies a lot cooler with creative use of realistic sounds, including silence in space. Kubrick did it with 2001. Imagine being inside of a small spacecraft, hearing whatever sounds are going on inside of the craft as you chase the bad guy. Cut to an external view, and it's silent, cut back and you hear the spacecraft's own sounds. Then you score a hit on the bad guy's ship, it explodes silently in a perfect sphere, but in a little bit you hear the "thump, thump, ping" of parts hitting your outer hull. Cut to external view, and again there's silence.
Another disappointing one is sound at the speed of light. A nuclear blast seems so much more powerful when there is a seconds-long delay between the initial light and the roaring explosion.
The car explosion thing bugs me a lot, but recently I saw a movie that had a pickup's gas tank explode because someone lit it with a rag fuse. It was actually accurate, the rear end of the truck leaped up, but the truck wasn't blown to bits, it just landed back down, and then it didn't burn much afterwards, its fuel having already been spent. - surf314, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18That momentum thing in regards to kung-fu is misleading. I'm in a kung-fu class and just finished my basics (took me 4 months) and at the end I had to fight Sifu (the instructor). He had my flying across the ring on more than one occasion, although the most ground I covered was sliding on my feet, but I rebounded off the ropes at pretty high speed. You don't have to have your back against the wall, that's why you have to go through so much trouble strengthening your legs in stances. You anchor yourself to the ground by squatting and transferring the force from your legs up. With this you can achieve quite a lot of knock back force. It's mostly blunt though so it doesn't hurt nearly as much as you would think.
- adidax, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19yeah, it got /.'d at about 11 this morning.
http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/03/06/1413243.shtml - rstarr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15@fifftysix
Anyone else feel bad ass clicking the slashdot mirror?
fiftysix = digg robin hood - mc7winkie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I love how it mirrors the word press error screen.
- GiggleStick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@syd4111
"Why do people always insist on telling everyone about the "no sound in space" thing? We all know that. Ready to watch the physic-approved, silent version of A New Hope? I didn't think so."
Well, 2001 was pretty good, and it had silence in space. Does Battlestar break this rule? - blakholephysics, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I don't agree with using The Matrix as an example of Kung Fu done wrong. The Matrix is meant to be stylized.
- chocobomog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Firefly did this as well and it seemed more "realistic" because of it.
- Ellsass, on 11/05/2008, -1/+9Read the comments above you, namely:
1. Diggs != site views
2. It was on Slashdot this morning - nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7How about there being an up and down in space? In shows like Star Trek and pretty much any space show or movie, when space ships meet in space, they are always similarly oriented with respect to the tops and bottoms of the ships. When the Romulan Warbird appears, it's never upside down.
- V1be, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10http://www.neatorama.com.nyud.net:8080/2007/03/06/9-laws-of-physics-that-dont-apply-in-hollywood/
Loads hella slow, but it loads.
It's not even that interesting. - SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/
Far better site.
edit:
@ mc7winkie:
I think they're referencing aerial kicks.. because yes, if the kicker is planted and hits the person above their center of gravity, it would be easy to knock them down.
Similarly, a bullet can cause someone to stagger or fall back since the person hit usually isn't ready for the impact. But getting blown into the air is ridiculous. - Cougaboy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9While it sounded like it would be cool, I have to agree, it's pretty boring. Some of these don't even make sense as arguments against movie physics.
For instance, number 3 points out two things about radioactivity: radioactive elements don't glow and radioactivity is not contagious. First of all, the only place radioactive elements glow is in cartoons and bad movies from the 50's. Radioactivity is not contagious, but the author's understanding of radioactivity seems faulty. He say that someone could become radioactive if the radioactive particles "stick on" that person, which is true to an extent, but then later he says that a person can become radioactive if she is "exposed to the radioactive neutrons from a nuclear reactor." First of all, the neutrons themselves aren't radioactive - the element that released those neutrons was radioactive. Second of all, the release of neutrons is only one form of radioactive decay (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactivity ). And third, a person would become radioactive if the original radioactive particles "stuck on" the individual, which is an exchange that has quite little to do with the "radioactive neutrons."
Also, number 4 says that if a shotgun blast or a kung-fu kick were to launch their victims across a room, the attacker would also fly across the room. They defend this by saying that every action creates an equal and opposite reaction, but I think the point in movies is that the attacker is prepared, while the victim is not. The attacker can brace himself, while the victim is helpless to resist. I agree that these sorts of attacks shouldn't necessarily launch people across rooms, but the equal and opposite defense is just retarded in this case.
The last point that bothered me was the 5th, in which the author argues that a person couldn't jump a gap with a car. I think we can all agree that it would indeed be difficult to jump a large gap (as many stunt drivers have shown), but making a blanket statement that it is impossible is completely ludicrous. To back up such a point, the author cites a specific instance where a man couldn't jump a gap in a bridge. Maybe he just wasn't going fast enough?
There are a few others, such as 2 and 6, which I believe are acceptable concessions by the movie industry because what happens on screen needs to reflect what people expect to happen, even if only on an unconscious level. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I disagree with how the author mentioned The Matrix when talking about how unrealistic the kicks are. In The Matrix, if you have watched it, it very quickly becomes clear that these guys doing the kicking (Neo, Trinity, Morpheus...etc) all are outside the rules of The Matrix, allowing them "super-human" abilities.
Im dont usually sound so nerdy, i just had to say it. - jchalmer85, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@noclips -
They've definitely tried a number of them - They did an entire 2 hour special, and a couple of separate episodes about busting Hollywood myths. The jumping cars, the exploding cars, the sparking bullets, the flying impact from guns, as well as things like meat and ice bullets, breaking into a secure location and stealing things out of a safe have all been busted by them. That's not even a full list of them. Those were really awesome episodes, I have to say. - copeland3300, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5He's mostly right about #3, except for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
Also, low energy electrons, like those found in your TV and aren't considered to be a radioactive particle, will cause phosphor to glow. Like in your TV. - darkecho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4They missed one. The fact that in some movies people tend to have "unlimited" ammo in their guns. We have all seen those movies where the guys have machine guns and constantly spray for like 10 minutes and never run out of ammo in the clip they had in the gun.
- Silencer7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The other thing (and this is a big one) is making it look like big, slow fireballs are more 'powerful' explosions than fast ones. The faster the explosion, the more powerful, destructive and deadly the shock wave becomes.
But with movies, instead, we have action heroes going all goggle-eyed at the flame ball coming towards them, but they still have time to jump away from it before it flips over cars and downs helicopters. - figec, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I was a fireman for 11 years. I can tell you that burning cars can explode, though not in the Hollywood fasion. If a car does not have a gas tank with a cap that can relieve pressure, and the car catches fire, the tank can become over-pressured by the boiling gasoline and the tank can burst. Under these conditions, the fumes will likely eventually dispurse to the right air mixture and ignite.
If there is enough manpower and the situation warrants it, you'll see one team attack the fire and another cool the tank down until the fire is out. We'll do this with tankers. - Gizza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Firefly doesn't have sound in space. Unfortunately Hollywood ruined it when it came to Serenity.
- Anigav, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Hey, McFly, you bojo! Those boards don't work on water!
- captjc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@rasterbator
Mr. T does not obey the laws of physics. The laws of physics obey Mr. T. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They forgot to add that dogs can't really talk.
- Zera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Correct, space has no up or down. Up and Down on earth are merely dictated by gravity in that area. (Down direction on one side of the earth is up on the other side) In star trek, each ship has its own means of creating artificial gravity. That gravity in essence creates a ship wide relative 'up and down'
Star Trek aligns ships for ease of viewing for the average viewer (not to waste time with the viewer wondering why the other ship is upside down) The fact that Star Trek is based in space isn't so much to be space science fiction, but science fiction with other civilizations. The point of Star Trek is the exploration of human issues, shortcomings, struggles, etc and done in such a way that the viewer is disconnected from his worldly biases, and is allowed to look at the given social issue from a disconnected viewpoint. - Caiman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4http://mirrordot.com/stories/cf9b10a62111181de30448780a278260/index.html
- futility, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2When did people ever begin to equate any sort of entertaining medium with reality. It's an educational standard in kindergarten to be able to tell the difference between fantasy and what is real.
- clinefx1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2From Wikipedia-
Twelve buses were used, including two which exploded; one for the freeway jump; one for high-speed scenes; and one used solely for 'under bus' shots.The bus jump scene was done twice, as the bus landed too smoothly the first time. The bridge was actually there, but erased digitally. - zonk3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm surprised nobody mentioned the most ignored law of physics in Hollywood: Gravity. Ever wonder how those faces, boobs and asses don't droop over the years? It ain't technical VFX wizardry I can tell you that much...
- da_bradler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2what drives me crazy in space combat movies and book and everything is for one the ships are stream lined(don't really need to worry about airflow in space) and the huge mistake they always manage to have breaks that slow them down faster then they speed up, which is stupid why wouldn't you just accelerate with the breaks if they are more powerfull(there is nothing to slow you down in space so for every second you accelerate you have to spend a second decelerating"
In space combat games you almost always slow down if you let off the trottle, well that wouldn't happen you would continue to coast in exactly the same direction at exactly the same speed. so if you go full speed for 10 seconds let off the gas then need to turn one 180 you would have to accelerate for 10 seconds just to come to a stop then another 10 seconds to get back up to your orginal speed.
I'm saying all this assuming there is no strong gavity force around and that your speed is relative to a none accelerating point in space. soon as you start to really understand einstein laws of relativity and netons laws of gravity all space movies will be ruinned forever.
anybody know of any good space combat books that actually use physics? - AReallyGoodName, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Point 3 is also false for another reason.
Radioactive materials can glow on their own if they are active enough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation - tkstock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1James Earl Jones
- DforSpiD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I guess his voice will be too low for our pathetic human ears to comprehend
- MindTrigger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Oh the space / sound one, wouldn't we assume a person is in space with a space suit on? One that is, perhaps, equipped with a communication device, and has air inside it to breath? I don't remember any space movies where someone was talking while floating weightless in space. I'm sure there are some out there, but I don't think this is something we see regularly as the article says.
- DforSpiD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Women will sound like men, and men will sound like Henry Kissinger."
What will Henry Kissinger sound like then? - nevetando, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3to which I say, who give a crap? movies.. are after all, fiction.
- rebotfc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
Colonel Sandurz: Sir haden't you better buckle up?
Dark Helmet: AH! BUCKLE THIS! Ludicrous speed GO!
Dark Helmet: Whoaaa! What have I done?
Dark Helmet: My brains are going into my feet! - SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Right, I was a little confused when he said that about TVs and radiation. My concern is that someone will believe their TV causes cancer or radiation poisoning if they see that, not understanding how the EM spectrum works.
- Zera, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@sultantravi "Similarly, a bullet can cause someone to stagger or fall back since the person hit usually isn't ready for the impact. But getting blown into the air is ridiculous."
Staggering back? Nope. First of all a slug bullet (with any power at all) is going to go right through the victim, and will have exerted almost no net force on them. Like a needle going into pudding. And even a shotgun blast of bird shot at the closest of ranges (5 feet) is only going to impact the target with the same force it applied to the shooter's shoulder, and that force is equivalent (in a shotgun blast) of a pretty weak punch.
Now if the target is very tiny (30-60 pounds), then its possible it would stagger back, if they were already off balance. They demonstrated this on mythbusters, not that they needed to, this is a very simple concept. The reason they have actors stagger back in movies is to show the drama of the moment, show his final seconds, let him murmur something, for example, but mostly make it clear who got shot. But a lethal shot to the heart or lungs results in a near instantaneous death. There's no staggering at all, unless the shot only just barely grazed a lung, or hit elsewhere.
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One other major thing left off the list was blood. Almost no movie accurately depicts blood, except for the movies that REALLY make an effort to show realism. If flesh is hit by something like a sword, there will be blood on the sword, but certainly no resulting 'spray' from the hit. Blood will start to seep out of the wound, but certainly not spurt or spray. If a very major artery is hit, its not going to spray in almost all cases, and if a head is severed, you might get a fountain just an inch or two high, but only for a few moments. It will keep flowing, but not at a rate high enough to be a fountain. A rifle bullet to flesh makes nearly no entrance wound, and certainly no spray of blood. Blood can leak out of the wound fairly quickly, but not for a few seconds after the wound is made. Exit wounds are much more destructive than entrance wounds, because often, by the time the bullet is exiting, it has been deformed by bones, and tilted off it's axis, and it can leave a very surprisingly large wound.
Also, punches don't sound like they do in movies. The movie punch comes from boxing, where it actually almost sounds like what movies make every punch sound like. The boxing punch sound comes from the boxing glove, not the fist itself. A real punch is actually pretty quiet, (going to be tough to hear over very much noise) and it sounds like a slap. If you make a fist and hit the palm of your other hand fairly hard, that is what a punch sounds like (to flesh) To clothing it is far more muffled. The same of course goes with kicks. - Gizza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How bout superman IV. That takes it to the next level.
- Hellmark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1One that always gets me is that magazines in movies seem to spawn ammunition. Most movies, when a gun is fired, far more rounds are allowed to be fired than what the gun has a capacity for. The 5 shot revolver squeezing off a dozen rounds, or the 1911 with a 7 round mag firing 20rounds.
- da_bradler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what about the fact that the ships don't have to turn around to slow down(excluding warp because the agrument can be made that there not really moving in the traditional sense) but why are all the impluse engines on the rear yet they never spin the ship around to slow themselfs back down.
also it makes no sence to have the main weapons of a space ship mounted on the front everything should be mounted port and starboard since you for one have more room broadside and second would need to turn the ship around alot to slow down and such - HunterTV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"2. Sound that Moves at the Speed of Light - Hollywood always gets this one wrong. On film, thunder doesnt follow lightning (as in real life, because sound is slower); they occur simultaneously."
I remember watching the FX comments on the Attack of the Clones DVD where they talk about how shots on Kamino with all the thunder were time delayed so that the thunder came after the flash. I thought that was pretty amusing considering the source material. - captjc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It is a valid point.
Who cares if movies and TV shows are are completely accurate to the real universe. I watch to be entertained. Unless I am watching the News or a Science / documentary-type show, I could care less if every frame is meticulously checked to make sure it corresponds to every known continuity and law of nature. Television is a passive medium about story telling and getting a message across. If small inconsistencies like sound in space or radioactive glow really ruin the experience then perhaps you are missing the point of watching. - Zera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because alot of shows and movies are realistic portrayals of one thing or another. There are cases where everything in the show is realistic, except the physics, and then some people begin to believe that is true. That's where the article comes in.
- RTourn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Digg, maybe they will learn, it pulls me right out of a movie when I see this crap.
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