My Blog for Physics in Film

The movie contact almost gets it right which is surprising because the Palmer guy makes a correct statement earlier in the movie in which he states that if she traveled everyone she knew and loved would be dead. The movie gets it backwards. Elly would have been gone for 18 hours in Earth time and to everyone she would have appeared to stop or perhaps just vanish and reappear 18 hours later. She would have felt only a second or less of time passing.

What should have happened is that the passenger pod should have disappeared, or perhaps faded into disappearance, and remained gone for several years. The government, having hopefully prepared, would leave a small dispatch of rescue-scientists to recover her upon rearrival. The trip to her would have been only several hours or perhaps just a few minutes to her where she learned enough to continue to evolution of Earthican technology or at least learned what to do next. People she knew should be visibly older but only by a little bit and features like hair and accessories should vary. Her love interest should furthermore be equally as dreamy as he was in the past. However this ending would make the whole “you made it up” argument at the end a little less appropriate.

Perhaps an alternative last hump in the movie would have her be gone for a much longer period, like 50 years and having her come to terms with her new life in the future with everyone she knows dead.

The purpose of the warp drives was so the USS Enterprise and other space vehicles could circumvent the current limitations of space-time. Currently we have two problems: it is not possible to exceed the speed of light and the issue with relativity. It takes would take many years going at the fastest speed in order to reach even the closest star. The warp drive allows the crew to be moved long distances without breaking a sweat. Also, somehow, the warp drive allows the crew to avoid traveling to the future faster than they intend. Consequently the faster than light speed travel allows the ship to travel back in time by means of a slingshot around the sun and extend beyond its light cone. The technology also exists that allows communications instantly from light years away.

A second technology would be the beaming up device. Such a device must exist in order to show how one can move from space ship to ground and back again without aid of a smaller transport ship (parking would also not be a problem) as I think I read one of the books that most Star Trek ships do not land on planets. I am NOT an avid Star Trek fan but I do not have anything the show and have seen only tidbits. Therefore I am not that familiar with the transporter. My guess is that it meant to convert matter into energy as light or something. We would know how much energy we are and could theoretical calculates how energetic the beam would be. However the problem lies in how do we convert matter, how do we convert it back, control it as a beam, aim it, preserve life and the order of the matter ect…I bet in a thousand years if any survivors remain they will wonder why we never had beaming up machines as it was “so simple”. If the beamer worked as some sort of magic tractor beam then we could theoretically know how much work and therefore energy would need to be injected assuming 100%. But, once again, we are confronted with the myriad problems: how do they control it, keep the subject from dieing, make the subject essentially incorporeal, aim it, what happens if you get stuck during a power outage ect…In short, the transporter made things able to happen faster in the plot that would otherwise be interrupted by long scenes of people waiting or to simply allow heroes and heroines to get to the action quick.

I thought “Fat Man, Little Boy” was entertaining at least. Now that I think about it, it reminds me of “Pearl Harbor” because both seem to try to entwine a compelling love story with important and rather serious historical events whether its action or political drama. I don’t like it when movies try to make a movie out of events which should in my opinion be separate movies. If you have ever seen the mini-series “Band of Brothers” they make references to their “sweethearts at home” but it is never a dominant storyline and most of the series is mostly military drama.

Anyway, the idea of caged scientists both intrigues and scares me. I would probably be excited to be working on a top secret government project for the good of the country and would not notice I was signing my freedom away for a period of time. One could tell how excited the scientists were in the movie, like boys going to summer camp, boy were they surprised when the camp turned out to be a sweat shop. The scientist became upset when they were being censored, restricted, overworked and regarded as numbers rather than names. Scientists need exchanges of ideas in order to function. They were talking in the movie about how one important idea came out a free discussion.

Working impossible hours constantly for something would definitely make me think about what I was doing. So after the excitement died down, the researchers must have been starting to question in the implications of their research. It would be quite something to have direct involvement in the death of thousands.

As for Dr. Oppenheimer’s God complex, it does make him a effective confident leader. He is respected by his peers, accomplishes tasks and overcomes roadblocks. However, he seems to be difficult with whom to negotiate. General Groves seems a bit monarchial. He did not tell anyone that Germany didn’t have the bomb until way after he got the news and was obsessed with obtaining the device. The thing I do not understand is how come no one made light of the potential peaceful uses of nuclear energy.