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I really enjoyed this book: Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics: Hollywood’s Best Mistakes, Goofs, and Flat Out Destructions of the Basic Laws of the Universe by Tom Rogers. It’s a fast, funny read, and focuses mostly on sci-fi movies, so I think it would be perfect for teenage science fiction writers who want to get an entertaining overview of some of the knowledge that science fiction writers need to be familiar with. And I think everyone will probably find a few nuggets in here that’ll make them say, “Oh yeah, I never really thought about it, but yeah, that is pretty dumb.” For example, in the movie Independence Day, a big deal is made over whether or not it’s reckless to deploy nuclear weapons against the alien invaders. Eventually the alien ship hovering over D.C. is destroyed by other means. But, the book points out (crediting the numbers cited to physicist Lawrence Krauss), if you actually shot down a fifteen-mile-long alien saucer, the saucer would plummet to earth, releasing in the process “10,000 times as much energy as the nuclear bomb used on Hiroshima.” Another example: In the movie Armageddon, a ragtag team of drillers/astronauts uses a nuclear bomb to blow apart a Texas-sized asteroid that’s on a collision course with earth. But the book asks you to imagine: What if you dug a big hole in the middle of Texas and set off the largest nuclear bomb ever made — 100 megatons? The resulting explosion will seem big to us but will barely make a dent in Texas. And finally: During the Zion siege scene in The Matrix Revolutions, The Kid uses his trusty wheelbarrow to keep the APUs (giant gun-toting robot suits) supplied with ammo. Only: “Let’s assume a firing rate of six hundred rounds per minute for each APU cannon, and a cartridge similar to the 30 x 113-millimeter round used by the U.S. military in Apache helicopter gunships. Each cartridge has a mass of 447 grams. The total mass of ammunition required for one minute of sustained fire by an APU with both cannons blazing is a whopping 1,180 pounds. A box containing one hundred rounds would weigh over 98 pounds. With both cannons firing, the box would last a mere five seconds.” |
Geeks Guide to the Galaxy
Geek's Guide to the Galaxy is a podcast hosted by author David Barr Kirtley and produced by Lightspeed Magazine editor John Joseph Adams. The show features conversations about fantasy & science … Read more
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