{"id":269,"date":"2007-08-27T07:21:12","date_gmt":"2007-08-27T11:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=269"},"modified":"2008-08-05T19:04:40","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T23:04:40","slug":"everything-i-needed-to-know-about-physics-i-learned-from-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=269","title":{"rendered":"Everything I needed to know about physics I learned from Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, not really. But that does seem to be the case for many people. Of course, there are plenty of areas where audiences can draw a clear line between entertainment and reality. Superman shooting heat rays from his eyes? I think everyone would agree that is fantasy.<\/p>\n

But there is a subtle level right below the surface that people swallow without thinking, and then go through life accepting as fuzzy fact. The speeding bus did clear the gaping chasm, didn’t it? That’s possible, right? Even that might not be a good example for what I’m talking about. This newspaper article<\/a> describes a scene from a Spiderman movie that better illustrates the point. The audience\u00c2\u00a0probably\u00c2\u00a0isn’t even remotely thinking about how the bad guy is holding everything, but that right there is the point. It doesn’t strike anyone as odd. Thus Costas Efthimiou’s class\u00c2\u00a0at the University of Central Florida about movie physics. I’m not sure about the point in the newspaper story concerning people having a “fear” of science, but I do agree that movies featuring bad science do contribute to the dumbing down of the public.<\/p>\n

Apparently, Efthimiou has even tangled with vampires<\/a>. Brave, isn’t he? I’m not sure if he has anything to do with this movie physics website<\/a>, but he has written papers about his courses here<\/a> and here<\/a>. I love the idea and wish I had an opportunity to sit in on one of his classes.<\/p>\n

And while we’re on the subject, here’s a writeup about movie monster biology<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, not really. But that does seem to be the case for many people. Of course, there are plenty of areas where audiences can draw a clear line between entertainment and reality. Superman shooting heat rays from his eyes? I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-4l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":975,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=975","url_meta":{"origin":269,"position":0},"title":"A bit of confusion, but all is good","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There was a flurry of activity yesterday started by the initial confusion of a Tampa Tribune reporter, but the end result is actually good news. First, I sent out a news release early yesterday morning announcing that the Florida Academy of Sciences issued a statement condemning Florida senate bill 2396.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"ID Creationism\" bills '09"","block_context":{"text":"\"ID Creationism\" bills '09","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=27"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":845,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=845","url_meta":{"origin":269,"position":1},"title":"Evolution: It works","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Nature magazine provides for us 15 clear examples of evolution. Given that the concepts and realities of Darwinian evolution are still challenged, albeit rarely by biologists, a succinct briefing on why evolution by natural selection is an empirically validated principle is useful for people to have to hand. We offer\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":332,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=332","url_meta":{"origin":269,"position":2},"title":"Good read: Of Science, Faith, and Feelings","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Henry Neufeld has a good analysis up concerning the strange world we find ourselves in when we trust science with one hand but then discard it with the other. These first few paragraphs of his are posted here with Henry's permission: Practically everyone today is heavily dependent on the results\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":214,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=214","url_meta":{"origin":269,"position":3},"title":"Why are science FCAT scores low?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Low science FCAT scores (see previous post)\u00c2\u00a0were mentioned in many news stories yesterday and today, and a few even made that element the story\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hook. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But scientists they are not.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) There is no in-depth analysis of the problem, though, that I have found. Mainly, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all about reading, writing and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":720,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=720","url_meta":{"origin":269,"position":4},"title":"One More Homeschooled Kid Lost To Science.","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"September 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I have to admit to being some what saddened after reading a letter published in the Lakeland Ledger newspaper today. The letter was written by a \"homeschooled\" fourteen year old girl named Kelly Freed and it was in response to FCS board member Dave Campbell's article from the New York\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 36 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 36 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=720#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1216,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1216","url_meta":{"origin":269,"position":5},"title":"Good grief, Alachua!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We learned earlier that some candidates for various Alachua County school board seats had no problem with teaching creationism in the public schools. However, that article was unclear who exactly thought what. A Gainesville Sun article today gives us a much clearer picture. Wow ... just wow. Bonnie Burgess: \"To\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 8 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 8 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1216#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}