Physics in Movies: Realism vs. Entertainment

[JaredJames]

You can often find any number of small problems which can be rather amusing. When you hit after the big problems its so easy to just say that they are taking artistic license or perhaps in this fictional world they found some way around the problems that are believed to prevent such things.

I read a book by Dan Brown called Deception Point. One of the major subplots revolved around a man running for president against the sitting president. I didn't even realize until after I finished the book that he never mentions a vice president or a running mate for the other candidate. It had little to do with the story and there were certainly bigger mistakes in the major plot line but this smaller thing when you notice it seems to become a rather glaring and rediculous omission. Like lasers in space making noise.

Well, I don't know how anyone else feels on this, but scientifically correct or not, a space battle with no sounds would be boring. What I really like is in Battlestar Galactica (new series) where they mute the guns slightly so it's more like you can here them through the hull inside the ship. Even though our view was outside, it still made things more 'real'.

 

[Moridin]

Physics in movies? Where?

This is very similar to my position. There are many, many hilarious misuses of physics (and other sciences) in movies. Getting knocked back by getting shot by a pistol, cars blowing up when you hit the gas tank etc.

One question I think is worth exploring is exactly how many sins against science should be allowed for the purpose of entertainment.

 

[JaredJames]

This is very similar to my position. There are many, many hilarious misuses of physics (and other sciences) in movies. Getting knocked back by getting shot by a pistol, cars blowing up when you hit the gas tank etc.

One question I think is worth exploring is exactly how many sins against science should be allowed for the purpose of entertainment.

I think the biggest problem with 'movie physics' is that people believe them. Or if they see something enough in many films (getting knocked back by a pistol shot) they begin to believe that is what happens.

 

[mgb_phys]

more a problem with the destruction of it with two rather small guns (energy no where near that of the drill)

<geek> there was probably an unshielded thermal exhaust port just below the main port that led directly to the reator </geek>

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Well, I don't know how anyone else feels on this, but scientifically correct or not, a space battle with no sounds would be boring. What I really like is in Battlestar Galactica (new series) where they mute the guns slightly so it's more like you can here them through the hull inside the ship. Even though our view was outside, it still made things more 'real'.

I've mentioned it in another similar thread but there is an awesome scene in a book I read where the author describes a fairly realistic laser rifle battle in a vacuum. All hell is breaking loose but with no visible beams and no sounds except the crackle and voices of radio traffic over the characters earpiece. It was a very sureal scene to imagine though I agree that such a thing would be difficult to translate to film.

 

[JaredJames]

I've mentioned it in another similar thread but there is an awesome scene in a book I read where the author describes a fairly realistic laser rifle battle in a vacuum. All hell is breaking loose but with no visible beams and no sounds except the crackle and voices of radio traffic over the characters earpiece. It was a very sureal scene to imagine though I agree that such a thing would be difficult to translate to film.

I suspect it would be a bunch of ships just sitting there in space, slowly showing signs of melting/burning. With an overlay of 'frantic distress calls'. Then some spontaneous looking explosions.

 

[Anticitizen]

Yeah, it is funny to see some of the old stuff in this regard. My wife and I were browsing the old game shows on TV one night and noticed that they often gave away a carton of cigarettes as a consolation prize! This because some shows were sponsored by tobacco companies. But it was a different world back then. Smoking was seen as being fashionable and relatively harmless.

I remember the first time I was admitted to a hospital for surgery. They asked if I wanted a smoking or non-smoking room.

I can't help but be slightly alarmed whenever I take a commercial flight and see an ashtray embedded in my armrest. 'Just how old IS this plane!?'

I'm barely old enough to remember fast food restaurants like Wendy's and Burger King having smoking sections, with those stamped tin disposable ashtrays.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

To avoid the grandfather paradox, you would have to believe that you were creating a parallel universe when you traveled back in time. But because of conservation of mass, you couldn't just disappear from the original universe, so only a "clone" would be sent "back".

At this point you went right over a cliff. As I said, this is not physics, this is a philosphical argument. If you are claiming this as science then you are guilty of crackpottery.

 

[junglebeast]

At this point you went right over a cliff. As I said, this is not physics, this is a philosphical argument. If you are claiming this as science then you are guilty of crackpottery.

Conservation of mass is crack-pottery?

 

[JaredJames]

Conservation of mass is crack-pottery?

No, just the entire premise of what you suggested, you made an unfounded claim, which although sounds good, doesn't mean anything.

 

[redargon]

I like how all the spaceships are always traveling in one horizontal plane. Whenever a bird of prey pitches up it is always on the same "altitude" as the enterprise and the are always face to face. Why would they not attack from a little from above and to the left and upside down? :)

Also the sound of the explosions not traveling through the vacuum of space. and how you can see the little beams of light from the laser guns (also the baddies seem to favour red lasers and the goodies usually prefer blue or green)

 

[EnumaElish]

I like how all the spaceships are always traveling in one horizontal plane. Whenever a bird of prey pitches up it is always on the same "altitude" as the enterprise and the are always face to face. Why would they not attack from a little from above and to the left and upside down? :)

You mean, as seen from the outside (as it appears to a third party outside of either ship)?

Because if it's an inside shot (the way things appear through the windows or on the video screen), that can be explained as corrective optics/computer representation of the "outside reality."

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I like how all the spaceships are always traveling in one horizontal plane. Whenever a bird of prey pitches up it is always on the same "altitude" as the enterprise and the are always face to face. Why would they not attack from a little from above and to the left and upside down? :)

Also the sound of the explosions not traveling through the vacuum of space. and how you can see the little beams of light from the laser guns (also the baddies seem to favour red lasers and the goodies usually prefer blue or green)

It was funny in the last episode of Star Trek the Next Generation when the Enterprise came barreling up at another ship from underneath. Obviously no one was expecting that! I bet the wondered where he came up with that manuever for days.

 

[EnumaElish]

It was funny in the last episode of Star Trek the Next Generation when the Enterprise came barreling up at another ship from underneath. Obviously no one was expecting that! I bet the wondered where he came up with that manuever for days.

All of this relates to (IMO) the Star Fleet ships clearly having an "up" side and a "down" side, which is in turn related to the artificial gravity effect that is assumed throughout the series and the movies. Had there been no gravity, there would not have been an "up" and a "down."

When I look at Apollo, there is no "up" side or "down" side.

The NASA shuttles do have an up and a down, but this is because they are essentially earthbound vehicles: they are always within the gravitational pull of the Earth. In addition, they have a pre-set atmospheric descent position that requires the "down" side to be covered with a different type of ceramic tile than the "up" side, for example.

 

[JaredJames]

All of this relates to (IMO) the Star Fleet ships clearly having an "up" side and a "down" side, which is in turn related to the artificial gravity effect that is assumed throughout the series and the movies. Had there been no gravity, there would not have been an "up" and a "down."

When I look at Apollo, there is no "up" side or "down" side.

The NASA shuttles do have an up and a down, but this is because they are essentially earthbound vehicles. Which means they are always within gravitational pull of the Earth. In addition, they have a pre-set atmospheric descent position that requires the "down" side to be covered with a different type of ceramic tile than the "up" side, for example.

I always thought it was to do with the alignment to the galaxy, a galaxy has a top and bottom plain which you could align ships to.

 

[slider142]

Well, I don't know how anyone else feels on this, but scientifically correct or not, a space battle with no sounds would be boring. What I really like is in Battlestar Galactica (new series) where they mute the guns slightly so it's more like you can here them through the hull inside the ship. Even though our view was outside, it still made things more 'real'.

Not really. There are minimal sounds in the series "Babylon 5" and no sounds at all in "Firefly" during exterior shots and they have some huge and moving battle scenes. Only on the interior do you sometimes hear debris impacting the walls, the sound carried by the air in the ship. Unfortunately, they decided to use "amazing sounds in space" in the new Star Trek movie, although I don't think it added anything to the space scenes that couldn't be achieved orchestrally.

 

[JaredJames]

Not really. There are minimal sounds in the series "Babylon 5" and no sounds at all in "Firefly" during exterior shots and they have some huge and moving battle scenes. Only on the interior do you sometimes hear debris impacting the walls, the sound carried by the air in the ship. Unfortunately, they decided to use "amazing sounds in space" in the new Star Trek movie, although I don't think it added anything to the space scenes that couldn't be achieved orchestrally.

Yeah, but I like the Galactica way of muting the sound so it's like you are hearing the sounds internally. Just adds something. Although I love a good orchestral piece to a soundtrack, certainly makes a scene much better, I do still like the sound effects to some extent in the way I say above. So it isn't so much external sounds but internal. You just here them on the outside views (sound weird I know, but that's what I like).

 

[slider142]

Yep, I still enjoy Farscape, sounds-in-space and all. :D A few things I liked about the soundtrack to the new Star Trek: after having read "Countdown", the prequel comic, which ends pretty much right where this movie begins, the threatening repetitive crescendo of the brass section over the opening production tags was a great herald to the intruding monstrosity (good design) of Nero's ship on the "cherished" Trek past timeline (and poked fun at later with the tongue-in-cheek "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, perhaps also chosen because of a famous outtake of William Shatner's pronunciation of "sabotage" in an original series episode).

 

[EnumaElish]

I always thought it was to do with the alignment to the galaxy, a galaxy has a top and bottom plain which you could align ships to.

How do they know which side is "up"?

 

[JaredJames]

How do they know which side is "up"?

Not entirely sure, but on the most basic level it would be that all federation ships are told which side is up or all ships have a common knowledge of the up side. Given the galaxy has quadrants you would then have a reference for horizontal, vertical would be judged given what I said above. This in itself would give you basic navigation. A sophisticated computer should be able to track star patterns and give reference from them.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I guess more interesting to me would be to ask what advantage there would be to aligning all ships that way.

 

[JaredJames]

I guess more interesting to me would be to ask what advantage there would be to aligning all ships that way.

Makes navigation a lot easier. Stupid question really.

If you have one ship aligned so the top is facing the top of the galaxy and one ship aligned with the top facing the bottom of the galaxy, and then provided them with a vertical elevation and a horizontal one, they would end up flying away in a mirror image from each other (shall we say 10 degrees starboard and 10 degrees ascent). For example, one may move up towards the top of the galaxy and right, but the other would mirror this moving down towards the bottom of the galaxy and left (from a single viewpoint). The ships would think they are going the correct way from their point of view. A simple gyro would do the job if you aligned it with the galaxy fairly well. No matter what you did within the ship it would always be true to the galaxy allowing perfectly good navigation (at least to some extent).

All charts of the space could be standardised, if a ship was to invert itself in flight (fly upside down) you would have to flip the chart, failure to do so would be a major problem.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Makes navigation a lot easier. Stupid question really.

If you have one ship aligned so the top is facing the top of the galaxy and one ship aligned with the top facing the bottom of the galaxy, and then provided them with a vertical elevation and a horizontal one, they would end up flying away in a mirror image from each other (shall we say 10 degrees starboard and 10 degrees ascent). For example, one may move up towards the top of the galaxy and right, but the other would mirror this moving down towards the bottom of the galaxy and left (from a single viewpoint). The ships would think they are going the correct way from their point of view. A simple gyro would do the job if you aligned it with the galaxy fairly well. No matter what you did within the ship it would always be true to the galaxy allowing perfectly good navigation (at least to some extent).

All charts of the space could be standardised, if a ship was to invert itself in flight (fly upside down) you would have to flip the chart, failure to do so would be a major problem.

Nav could likely easily be accomplished using reference points without need of any "up" or "down". That would probably just make it more confusing.

 

[JaredJames]

Nav could likely easily be accomplished using reference points without need of any "up" or "down". That would probably just make it more confusing.

In star trek they use coordinates or something like that so the space is effectively mapped out. Not sure what what they use to judge where they actually are though.

 

[physicsnoob93]

I have seen Star Trek the (current) Movie twice, and I think it is going to look to future people just as Far Side of the Sun looks to me now. A huge spaceship traveling interstellar distances -- yet, no robots on board (torpedoes have to be loaded manually). When being attacked, with everyone on board facing an imminent danger of being drifted into space alive, shouldn't they all be wearing pressurized spacesuits? (Today's navy personnel wear life jackets, right?)

LOL! I thought the same!