Ice Princess: Physics Blunders

In summary: Sorry, I'm not sure where the article you're talking about is from. Are you sure you're looking for something published in a journal? If so, I can't find it. Maybe you're blind? If so, let me know and I can provide a link for you. In general, I think that people who are into science fiction or comic books are more likely to be critical of the physics in movies. It's an escape from reality, after all. I can't speak for everyone, but I believe that the reason why people believe the physics in movies is because the producers try to get it as correct as possible. But as Siddharth has demonstrated
  • #1
siddharth
Homework Helper
Gold Member
1,143
0
I was browsing through some movie channels on TV, and there was this movie called "Ice Princess" where Michelle Trachtenberg's character was talking about the physics of ice skating and said "tucking in your arms will increase your moment of inertia and make you spin faster"

If they're going to go to all the trouble of including physics talk on the conservation of angular momentum in a movie, atleast make it right?
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #3
lolzzzzz they are movie stars. they are suppsed to be dumb
 
  • #4
awesome pdf link zapper. all the movie stuff is crap. movie people think that they know more. well they dont.
why look so far for mistakes?? think of superman. dude flying high, running like light, beating up a thousand thugs alone, fire coming out from the eyes and all crap. what's the physics behind it?
 
  • #5
now the latest one i saw.
spiderman 3, first that experiment which turns sandman into "sandman". what is it?? so large machine in open?? what are they doing??
n if you spin something very fast around you, you end up being of the same material lying around you?? guess i ll try water myself, lolzzz
how could the producers even think of us believing that crap??
how come so many people believe it?

(i am sure there is a lot more physics involved in this, haha)
 
  • #6
ank_gl, there is a difference between science and science-fiction. :wink:
 
  • #7
neutrino said:
ank_gl, there is a difference between science and science-fiction. :wink:

Wrong. Science fiction gets the science as correct as it can be while still allowing for the story. If it doesn't, it's fantasy.
Anyhow, as Siddharth demonstrated, there's more bad science in 'mainstream' movies than in science fiction ones. Just check out any of the Die Hard series, or anything with a car surviving a jump.
Thanks for the link, ZZ; now I have something to do with the rest of my day.
 
Last edited:
  • #8
Danger said:
Wrong. Science fiction gets the science as correct as it can be while still allowing for the story. If it doesn't, it's fantasy.
Sorry. I may have used incorrect terminology, but I was just telling ank_gl not to take Superman and Spider-man too seriously. :smile:
 
  • #9
True. In that regard, I think that 'mainstream' movie errors are potentially more dangerous than those in a comic book or fantasy genre. People expect something that they see in an action movie to be realistic because there's no hint that it's impossible without special effort, such as the aforementioned car jumps. Several people per year are injured or killed as a result of trying to duplicate stunts that they see in the theatre without understanding what's really going on. I can't cite a source on that, but I keep reading and hearing about them.
 
  • #10
ZapperZ said:
I hope you've read this to add to your collection of movie physics mistakes. :)

http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1167

Zz.

Zz,

Where is this article from? Was it published in a journal. I can't seem to find anything that tells me where it came form. Maybe I'm just blind... Can you help me out?
 
  • #11
What about the TV show Jeopardy lately? Man, they usually have high standards for info, but just in the last two weeks they've had a couple science bloopers.

** They show a picture of eight encyclopedia books in a stack, where each book overhangs the one below it by about a third. They want to know that the structure is called a "cantilever". But the answer starts out, "Over half of the weight of these books is on the table..." Over half?! Well yeah, 100% is over half I guess!

** The question they want is "What is a refrigerator?", But the answer is "The coils inside this keep the contents cold..." Inside?!
 
  • #12
ank_gl said:
now the latest one i saw.
spiderman 3, first that experiment which turns sandman into "sandman". what is it?? so large machine in open?? what are they doing??
n if you spin something very fast around you, you end up being of the same material lying around you?? guess i ll try water myself, lolzzz
how could the producers even think of us believing that crap??
how come so many people believe it?

(i am sure there is a lot more physics involved in this, haha)

:uhh: What makes you think you're supposed to believe it? Really, I don't think anyone walks out of a spiderman or superman movie thinking, "Gee, I wonder if I spin around really fast, if I can do that?" At least nobody over the age of 6 would think that. It's entertainment, an escape from reality. If you want reality in your entertainment, stick to documentaries...you're allowed to complain if those get their facts wrong. But the entire reason something is called "fiction" is because it isn't real, and doesn't pretend to be.
 
  • #13
Moonbear said:
:uhh: What makes you think you're supposed to believe it? Really, I don't think anyone walks out of a spiderman or superman movie thinking, "Gee, I wonder if I spin around really fast, if I can do that?" At least nobody over the age of 6 would think that. It's entertainment, an escape from reality. If you want reality in your entertainment, stick to documentaries...you're allowed to complain if those get their facts wrong. But the entire reason something is called "fiction" is because it isn't real, and doesn't pretend to be.

Well, there's wacky fiction, like superman flying and all that. But there's also really bad physics even allowing for all the fiction.

For example, superman flying is ok in an entertainment movie, cause it's clear it's fiction. However, later in that movie, the director tries to use the principle of conservation of angular momentum when superman flies around the Earth the other way to slow it down and then somehow relates it to time going backwards.

That's the stuff I don't like, explicitly trying to use physics as a plot element, and then botching it up so bad that you can only laugh.
 
  • #14
Spiderman and Superman are comic books turned into movies. That makes them fantasy. Talking about physics in a fantasy film/comic book shouldn't be taken to imply that it is no longer fantasy.
 
  • #15
G01 said:
Zz,

Where is this article from? Was it published in a journal. I can't seem to find anything that tells me where it came form. Maybe I'm just blind... Can you help me out?

The Comment say:

"Comments: includes 28 pictures; invited article for the German journal Praxis der Naturwissenschaften Physik "

So that's all we have.

Zz.
 
  • #16
ank_gl said:
now the latest one i saw.
spiderman 3, first that experiment which turns sandman into "sandman". what is it?? so large machine in open?? what are they doing??
n if you spin something very fast around you, you end up being of the same material lying around you?? guess i ll try water myself, lolzzz
how could the producers even think of us believing that crap??
how come so many people believe it?

(i am sure there is a lot more physics involved in this, haha)
So...you're OK with a guy that is part spider, that walks on walls and shoots webs out of his wrists, but these details are just too far fetched? Is that what you're saying?
 
  • #17
One of my favorite websites is http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/" [Broken]

I am a proud owner of a second-hand copy of "The Core," one of the finest accidental comedies known to mankind.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #18
The only good part of that movie was the 5 seconds of footage of CH-47s. Other than that, the movie was horrible.
 
  • #19
nah. i am not really ok with all those superhero movies. i just had to watch spiderman 3 coz of some reason. they all really suck.
as moonbear pointed out, i stick to documentaries(fahrenheit 911(not trying to offend any US people) and blood diamond being my fav)
 
  • #20
FredGarvin said:
So...you're OK with a guy that is part spider, that walks on walls and shoots webs out of his wrists, but these details are just too far fetched? Is that what you're saying?

now i can't take names of every superhero. they all equally suck
 
  • #21
I think if your going to watch a fantasy film, then you have to suspend your sense of belief, after all we don't watch Wile E Coyote and think there's no way he could of fallen that far and survived, and then been hit by that rock afterwards, and appear in the next scene, alive but flat as a pancake. Same if I watch Batman or Spider man, I don't say aw come off it that's just silly the gravitational force would mean that for Spiderman to...

I didn't watch the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the Balrog and falls for days through the mountain, without acknowledging that if he had he would probably end up some distance into the upper mantle. No I watched it and enjoyed it because I was caught up in the story not the details.

Not that I don't mind thinking about the details, but I think they can wait until after reality has reintroduced itself :smile:

Thinking about it I'm pretty sure when Gandalf falls they don't spend the whole time falling, after all the Balrog can fly, and don't get me started on the laws of gravity: a 30 tonne monster flying :rolleyes: :smile:

Why doesn't Gandalf get burnt up by the Blarog (it's magic)? And after all that it is on fire and how can a creature be on fire and survive intact?
 
Last edited:
  • #22
Schrodinger's Dog said:
I didn't watch the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the Balrog and falls for days through the mountain, without acknowledging that if he had he would probably end up some distance into the upper mantle. No I watched it and enjoyed it because I was caught up in the story not the details.
...
Thinking about it I'm pretty sure when Gandalf falls they don't spend the whole time falling, after all the Balrog can fly, and don't get me started on the laws of gravity: a 30 tonne monster flying :rolleyes: :smile:

If you listen to the commentaries on the DVD, Peter Jackson himself laughs at the fact that Gandalf and the Balrog have fallen about 20 miles. He also explains the bit about Gandalf's staff, as in "why did he not use any of his magic during the battle?" Turns out the staff's batteries ran out, and there weren't any more in Minas Tirith.
 
  • #23
well that's why i laugh at wile E coyote. n so do i for all the other superhuman stuff
 
  • #24
fire in space is a perennial one. has anyone ever seen event horizon? folding spacetime? hell in between?

hey hey who could forgot the flux capacitor and Doc Brown's time machine? i wonder how they came up with 88mph, seems so arbitrary
 
Last edited:
  • #25
Chi Meson said:
One of my favorite websites is http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/" [Broken]

I am a proud owner of a second-hand copy of "The Core," one of the finest accidental comedies known to mankind.

I like that website.

Fortunately, one of my favorites, "Terminator", gets a fairly good rating (aside from the time travel aspect).

The write up on "Armeggedon" is hilarious. They provide a more realistic method of preventing armeddon than the movie did. That would have been a creative approach. :rofl:

Another movie I liked, "Road to Perdition", survived their critique fairly well. I went to high school with the sound editor.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #26
Chi Meson said:
If you listen to the commentaries on the DVD, Peter Jackson himself laughs at the fact that Gandalf and the Balrog have fallen about 20 miles. He also explains the bit about Gandalf's staff, as in "why did he not use any of his magic during the battle?" Turns out the staff's batteries ran out, and there weren't any more in Minas Tirith.

That's interesting, I've never got round to watching all the makings of videos. Hehe I love that film.

Balrogs are very resistant to magic anyway, being so immensely powerful.

I wanted to add earlier but I knew it would sound geeky, but Gandalf wears the Elven ring of fire Narya which is why he isn't burnt up, unlike the ring of power Frodo carries it becomes invisible when worn, you know Galadriel has air and Elrond has water as demonstrated when he drowns the Black riders at the Ford of Rivendel. Well this is what saves him from being incinerated, it grants him virtual invulnerability to fire, that and being an Istari: Wizards sent to middle Earth as protectors, well except Sauron who was Melkors servant(One of the Valar: Gods) and sent to continue the battle against Middle Earth(Gandalf is also a Maiar as are Sauron and Saruman, like faeries, beings of immense power, but in semi-mortal form, incidently the Balrog is also a Maiar which is why Gandalf says this foe is beyond all of you) His ring also has the power to inspire people to great acts of valour as well, like a sort of morale boost.

Three rings for the Elven Lords under the sky.

IIRC Elrond gifts Gandalf the ring of fire in the second age of Middle Earth, a thousand or so years before the story takes place.

I'll shut up now, God I'm such a geek :smile:
 
Last edited:
  • #27
Schrodinger's Dog said:
I'll shut up now, God I'm such a geek :smile:

yes you are:rofl::rofl::rofl::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:(hey i am just kidding, ok??)
 
  • #28
:rofl: no need to apologise, I am a geek about Tolkien and I know it, but then I grew up with it, I read Lord of the Rings when I was Seven and have read it about 8 times :eek:

Everyone's a geek about something, it's just my geekery is rather embarrasing, still at least I never learned to speak all the Elven languages as some do.

Did you know he was going to write the book in Elven(Sindarin) Until a friend persuaded him not to thankfully... Ahhhhh I know too much :smile:

Mind you he was a linguistics professor at Oxford. *bites tongue*
 
Last edited:
  • #29
yea i agree, everyone is geek about somethings. i admitt, i love to read halo books and play that game over and over again. i finished halo:combat evolved for the 19 times and halo2 three times. hehe
 
  • #30
ank_gl said:
yea i agree, everyone is geek about somethings. i admitt, i love to read halo books and play that game over and over again. i finished halo:combat evolved for the 19 times and halo2 three times. hehe

Borrowed my friends PS2 and played the first one 'til I completed it, a very accomplished game, I should get around to the second one, I only played the first levels where you are on the space ship; still that said best not to mention it in polite company unless prompted :biggrin:

I did love the plot though, for a game it was very well done, the idea of a device to kill all life to prevent a spread of a plague creature was quite novel, especially when you realized it was the computers doing all work, and the spawn levels were just so much blazing gun fun. :eek: they're everywhere!

Mind you it's like Tomb Raider, some of the game plots were superb, the films sucked hugely IMO. Halo the film *shudders*
 
Last edited:
  • #31
yes that's what i liked about that game. plot is very realistic. no physics banging theory(but halo2 has some, like chief jumping with the bomb on to the covanent mothership and planting it over there and blowing it all up and landing successfully on In Amber Clad(its the ship name, like Pillar of Autumn in halo 1)). only spartan can do the unusual stuff, but that stuff is thoroughly explained in previous novels.
geez.. i am starting to sound like a geek!
 
  • #32
Schrodinger's Dog said:
and the spawn levels were just so much blazing gun fun. :eek: they're everywhere!

i just love killing the flood
 
  • #33
ank_gl said:
i just love killing the flood

Ah that's it the flood, I remember now, probably set the game above the mould because, when you got out of their alive you were genuinely breathing hard :smile: Sheez! I think I broke the fire button or my fingers gone numb one of the two.

Embrace your geekhood, at least you're not a train spotter :smile:
 
Last edited:
  • #34
Schrodinger's Dog said:
Embrace your geekhood, at least you're not a train spotter :smile:

:confused::confused:whats a train spotter:confused::confused:
 
  • #35
ank_gl said:
:confused::confused:whats a train spotter:confused::confused:

I don't know, but it certainly derailed this thread.
 
<h2>1. What is the premise of "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders"?</h2><p>The premise of "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is a fictional story about a young ice princess who discovers her magical powers and must use her knowledge of physics to save her kingdom from an evil sorcerer.</p><h2>2. Is the physics in the story accurate?</h2><p>No, the physics in "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is not entirely accurate. While the story incorporates basic principles of physics, it also includes fantastical elements that are not scientifically possible.</p><h2>3. How does the ice princess use physics in the story?</h2><p>The ice princess uses her knowledge of physics to control and manipulate ice and snow. She also uses concepts like force, momentum, and energy to create powerful spells and defeat her enemies.</p><h2>4. Can kids learn about physics from reading this story?</h2><p>While "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is not meant to be an educational resource, it can introduce kids to basic concepts of physics in a fun and imaginative way. However, it is important to note that the physics in the story may not be entirely accurate.</p><h2>5. Is "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" appropriate for all ages?</h2><p>Yes, "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is appropriate for all ages. However, younger children may need some guidance to understand the more complex physics concepts presented in the story.</p>

1. What is the premise of "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders"?

The premise of "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is a fictional story about a young ice princess who discovers her magical powers and must use her knowledge of physics to save her kingdom from an evil sorcerer.

2. Is the physics in the story accurate?

No, the physics in "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is not entirely accurate. While the story incorporates basic principles of physics, it also includes fantastical elements that are not scientifically possible.

3. How does the ice princess use physics in the story?

The ice princess uses her knowledge of physics to control and manipulate ice and snow. She also uses concepts like force, momentum, and energy to create powerful spells and defeat her enemies.

4. Can kids learn about physics from reading this story?

While "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is not meant to be an educational resource, it can introduce kids to basic concepts of physics in a fun and imaginative way. However, it is important to note that the physics in the story may not be entirely accurate.

5. Is "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" appropriate for all ages?

Yes, "Ice Princess: Physics Blunders" is appropriate for all ages. However, younger children may need some guidance to understand the more complex physics concepts presented in the story.

Similar threads

  • Other Physics Topics
Replies
4
Views
6K
  • Other Physics Topics
Replies
1
Views
1K
  • Mechanics
Replies
4
Views
2K
Replies
1
Views
3K
  • Sci-Fi Writing and World Building
Replies
1
Views
3K
  • Introductory Physics Homework Help
Replies
2
Views
5K
Replies
1
Views
726
  • General Discussion
3
Replies
90
Views
15K
  • General Discussion
Replies
1
Views
8K
  • Art, Music, History, and Linguistics
Replies
1
Views
1K
Back
Top