Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

The Laws of Inertia in a World where there are Titans

     Hollywood does a remarkable job of telling amazing and unbelievable stories and making them real for us. We sit in darkened theaters for sometimes upwards to over 3 hours, lost and immersed in worlds where the impossible become possible. We've long had an infatuation with the idea of giant robots, whether they are invading aliens, dueling giants or the saviors of our world. And ever since the first giant robots graced the pages of comic books (manga) in Japan during the beginning of the boom of their technology, we've been willing to believe that such titans could be reality. It’s easy to accept the idea of giant robots mainly due to the fact that we want these behemoths to be part of our future, however there are glaring physical problems with their existence. The sheer mass and inertial energy of giant robots are never truly portrayed accurately in animations and movies.

Fig. 1

     What studios never take into account and what make the existence of a Pacific Rim sized robot impossible is the square cube law. When one is calculating the area of a surface, say a square, you multiply the length with the width, or you square it. Now take those same dimensions and apply it to a cube and try and get the volume of it; length times width times height, or cubed. The square cube law simply states that as something grows in size, the volume increases at a much greater rate than its surface area. The square cube law has ramifications with both biological and mechanical constructs. It's why animals never got to be larger than the dinosaurs and the most massive of creatures live in the ocean where buoyancy can help negate the pull of earth's gravity. As a creature grows in size, the supports required to hold its weight needs to increase as well. Take for example a mouse and an elephant and compare their leg structure. The elephant requires thick trunk like legs to support its girth versus a mouse only needs spindly thin ones. If you were to expand a mouse to the size of an elephant, it would break its legs instantly as soon as it tried to stand. Can you imagine what a being of several magnitudes greater than an elephant would require?

    But let’s say scientists developed an alloy or some sort of material strong enough to support the sheer mass of a giant robot, two elements on how they are portrayed in movies are quite unbelievable. Firstly, they usually move fairly quickly… some are actually quite agile. And secondly, their impact upon the environment are never as destructive as they should be. A Pacific Rim sized robot cavorting about a metropolis would be absolutely catastrophic. Some examples of this are below.

Tetsujin 28:

     Giant robots first appeared in Japan in the 1950’s; the very first manga to feature one was printed in 1956 called “Tetsujin 28.” It was made into an anime series and made its way to America in the sixties under the name “Gigantor.” From there it spawned an endless amount of animes and cartoons based on giant robots. One of the first mainstream American cartoons to feature giant robots and definitely one of the most iconic is “Voltron”, which featured 5 robotic lions that combined to form a huge humanoid robot. Their mission was to defend earth against alien invaders. The protagonist robot, Voltron is massive, standing 197 feet tall according to the attached chart (fig. 1). That’s about 2/3’s the height of the Statue of Liberty. In the show, Voltron is able to dodge, roll and leap like an Olympic gymnast. Something so massive cannot move that quickly. Going back to the mouse versus elephant comparison; a mouse can move quickly because it has very little mass to move. An elephant however, though extremely strong and powerful, still cannot move like a mouse. It has too much bulk to first, get going quickly and also to stop or change directions in any sort of rapid manner.  That and the blazing sword Voltron conjures out of nothingness is simply preposterous. But extremely cool!


Voltron and the five lions:

     The extremely popular franchise, Hasbro/Takara’s Transformers, shared its humble beginnings with Voltron as a cartoon in the 80’s. An animation is far easier to suspend one's disbelief in terms of giant machines moving among us but Transformers made the leap from after school cartoons to the live action big screen in 2007. They're of a much more manageable mass than Voltron, being the size of cars and trucks but in the movie they continue to move like much lighter beings, agile and quick. We already addressed how something so large cannot move that fast, but these are aliens with much more advanced technology right? Perhaps they are just inordinately strong and adapted to move their bulk in the manner portrayed in the movie. That aside, what was unbelievable in the movie was the amount of damage they caused as these titans moved among us. In the final battle within a city, the transformers leap and dodge on and off buildings doing minimal damage as they use them as giant jungle gyms. The Transformers were able to make huge leaps and were hurled into buildings with tremendous force, yet they simply bounced off of most structures. There is one scene in particular where Optimus Prime takes a direct blast from Megatron and he flies what appears to be 2-3 blocks before crashing into the side of a building. Instead of going through the building like he realistically should’ve, he instead shattered some windows and slid down the side, also somehow missing all the pedestrians underfoot. This was a trend throughout the movie, with the Transformers’ physical mass coupled with their inertial energy, never really being portrayed realistically.


Transformers G1 mural:

     Finally, in 2013, the most egregious slight against the believability of giant robots, the movie Pacific Rim made its debut, taking the idea of giant robots vs giant monsters to an amazing new level. The Jaegers are even more massive than Voltron and fight monsters as large or even bigger in an attempt to defend our world. The Jaegers are unbelievable for all the reasons stated above but also for this one slightly comical element. We see these titans battle in cities and though they accurately do tremendous damage to the surrounding buildings, they should not even be able to stand on the streets they are running on. Gipsy Danger, the hero jaeger in Pacific Rim would, according to the chart, weigh over 12 million pounds and stands as tall as skyscrapers. Modern buildings require a massive foundation on which to stand, and their weigh is distributed evenly over it. Gipsy Danger has two legs, which are small focal points on which all that weight is centered on and become even more focused when he starts to walk, placing all that weight on one foot. In real world earth gravity, Gipsy Danger would literally sink into the pavement as if it were quicksand.


Pacific Rim poster:

     Unfortunately for the giant robot fanboy or girl in all of us, these metal monsters almost certainly can never exist on this world under the ruling of Earth’s gravity. They are just too big to move the way they do in our minds; some are too big to even stand up lest they crumple under their own weight. Perhaps in the future, on other worlds where the pull of gravity is greatly lessened or to shield us from the crushing pressure of the depths of the ocean where we can use water’s natural buoyancy to support their bulk. For now though, they’ll have to continue to exist on screen and in our imaginations.


Resources:


http://www.technewsdaily.com/18529-giant-robots-possible-pacific-rim.html

http://io9.com/5925549/could-we-actually-build-a-robot-the-size-of-pacific-rims-massive-jaegers

http://movieline.com/2013/01/09/pacific-rim-vs-real-world-physics-giant-robots-guillermo-del-toro/

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/07/15/your-brief-history-of-giant-robots-adi-tantimedhs-look-it-moves/

Outline for the Second Term Paper

The Laws of Inertia in a World where there are Titans.

I. Intro

A. Hollywood does a remarkable job of telling amazing and unbelievable stories and making them real for us.  We sit in a darkened theaters for sometimes upwards to over 3 hours, lost and immersed in worlds where the impossible become possible.  We've long had an infatuation with the idea of giant robots, whether they are invading aliens, dueling giants or the saviors of our world.  And ever since the first giant robots graced the pages of comic books in Japan during the beginning of the boom of their technology, we've been willing to believe that such titans could be reality.  Though it's easy to accept the idea of giant robots, there are glaring physical problems with their existence.  The sheer mass and inertial energy of giant robots is never portrayed accurately in animations and movies. 

II. The square cube law

A. What is it - What studios never take into account however is the square cube law which states that as something grows in size, the volume increases at a much greater rate than its surface area.

B. How it applies - The square cube law has ramifications with both biological and mechanical constructs. It's why animals never got to be larger than the dinosaurs and the most massive of creatures live in the ocean where buoyancy can help negate the pull of earth's gravity.  As a creature grows in size, the supports required to hold its weight needs to increase as well. Compare the legs of a mouse to an elephant. Can you imagine what a being of several magnitudes greater than an elephant would require?

C. Even if we were able to construct metal monsters of materials strong enough to support the sheer mass of them, their impact upon their environments would be catastrophic. 

III. Voltron

A. One of the first mainstream American cartoons to feature giant robots, featured 5 robotic lions that combined to form a huge humanoid robot. Their mission is to defend earth against alien invaders.  

B.  Voltron is massive, standing 197 feet tall, yet he can jump and leap as if he were spiderman.  

IV. Transformers

A. an animation is far easier to suspend one's disbelief in terms of giant machines moving among us but Transformers made the leap from after school cartoons to the live action big screen in 2007.  They're of a much more manageable mass than Voltron, being the size of cars and trucks but in the movie they moved like much lighter beings, agile and quick. 

B. In the final battle within a city, the transformers leap and dodge on and off buildings doing minimal damage as they use them as giant jungle gyms.  

V. Pacific Rim

A. in 2013, the movie Pacific Rim made its debut, taking the idea of giant robots vs giant monsters to an amazing new level. The jaegers are even more massive than Voltron and fight monsters as large or even bigger in an attempt to defend our world. 

B. We see these titans battle in cities and though they do tremendous damage to the surrounding buildings, they should not even be able to stand on the streets they are running on.  Gipsy Danger, the hero jaeger in Pacific Rim would, according to the chart, weigh over 12 million pounds and stands as tall as skyscrapers.  Modern buildings require a massive foundation on which to stand, and their weigh is distributed evenly over it.  Gipsy Danger has two legs, which are small focal points on which all that weight is centered on and become even more focused when he starts to walk, placing all that weight on one foot.  In real world earth gravity, Gipsy Danger would literally sink into the pavement as if it were quicksand.

VI.  Conclusion

Resources:

http://www.technewsdaily.com/18529-giant-robots-possible-pacific-rim.html

http://io9.com/5925549/could-we-actually-build-a-robot-the-size-of-pacific-rims-massive-jaegers

http://movieline.com/2013/01/09/pacific-rim-vs-real-world-physics-giant-robots-guillermo-del-toro/

Reverse Video Reference

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

I can really see the appeal of doing stop motion animation.  There's a certain texture that you can achieve that just isn't possible in 2d or 3d.  I learned quite a bit on how to capture stop motion this time around and looking forward to the next installment. =)

Title: You go, we go.

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

            When we watch movies there is always a bit of suspension of disbelief.  Suspension of disbelief is the acceptance of unbelievable, fantastic or non-realistic elements in a story.  However, film has to walk a fine line when creating the unbelievable.  If an element is too fantastic or pushes the physical laws of the world too egregiously, it can throw the audience for a loop and ultimately lose their interest.  An excellent example of a movie pushing the envelope of the fantastic, yet successfully doing it in a believable manner is the film "Iron Man" (2008).  Set in the Marvel universe, a world of super powered heroes and villains, the audience is already prepared for the fantastic and are therefore more accepting of it.  However, despite the existence of super-humans, the world otherwise appears to follow the laws of physics.  Following this logic, the technology based Iron Man suit should follow basic physical laws but instead borders on the magical and its superhuman feats do not seem possible. 

            One of Iron Man's most notable feature is his ability to fly.  Marvel superheroes such as Thor, Silver Surfer, and Dr. Strange all fly through some sort of mystical or magical means.  Thor has a magical hammer, the Silver Surfer has a cosmic surfboard.  Dr. Strange is a master of black magic.  Iron Man's flight however is a physical event, and should follow the law of action-reaction or that of simple aerodynamics.  Sustained flight requires one of two methods.  Either flight through the usage of an airfoil or that of a rocket.  An airfoil is a simple shape where when it passes through a fluid (air being treated as a fluid), it creates lift.  On conventional aircraft, the fixed wing is the airfoil which allows flight when pushed/pulled through the air.  You can even find more modern and experimental aircraft which lack wings and instead use a lifting body, where the whole vehicle is an airfoil.  The Iron Man suit possesses neither, and visibly, actually looks like it would perform more like a rocket or a missile.  And in a vacuum, he would actually work quite well since there is no atmosphere to affect stability, much like our own astronauts using small thrusters to propel themselves on their spacewalks.  Without an atmosphere, a box with a fire extinguisher can fly, as shown in Pixar's "Wall-E".  In an atmosphere though, rockets need large stabilizers, much akin to wings, to keep themselves flying true.  If we were to model an Iron Man suit and place it in a wind tunnel, I theorize that stable flight would not be a result, rather a tumble would ensue.

 

            Another example of action without reaction is Iron Man’s repulsor blasts.  A basic law of physics is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  In several instances in the movie, Iron Man uses his repulsors as firearms against many types of targets, humans, vehicles etc.  Most notably was in the final battle against Iron Monger where Iron Man fires a bolt out of his chest that blasts his opponent off his feet.  Iron Monger is significantly more massive than Iron Man and that kind of force should have propelled Iron Man backwards as well, but there was very little to no visible recoil. 

            The Iron Man suit not only allows Tony Stark to fly, but it also gives him incredible durability and protection through its impossibly dense and strong metal shell.  As seen in the movie, the suit is made up of a thin metal skin of incredibly tough makeup which covers the complex mechanics underneath.  In the film, a scene where Iron Man is flying what looks to be hundreds of feet off the ground, is knocked out of the sky by a tank shell.  

This scene is preposterous on several counts.  Firstly, while it might be believable that the Iron Man suit could stop small arms, it is unimaginable that it would be able to stop a shell from a tank cannon.  Even if the metal skin were able to withstand the incredible impact, that does not mean the occupant would, which directly leads into the second point.  The suit is not only unbelievably durable, it also has incredible shock absorbing tendencies which is demonstrated both when Iron Man is hit by the tank fire but also when he leaves the giant crater in the ground.  Newton’s First Law of Motion is that objects in motion tend to stay in motion.  Our bodies are essentially bags of water.  Just because the Iron Man suit came to a stop does not mean that Tony Stark’s body did as well.  I recall reading an article where it detailed that the leading cause of death in head on collisions in automobiles is a torn aorta.  Essentially the car stops abruptly, the seat belt abruptly stops your torso, but your internal organs keep going.  According to the laws of physical motion, Tony should have been jelly after the impact with the ground. 

            A final example of questionable physics used throughout the film are simply inconsistencies in weight and strange arcs.  In the beginning of the film, Tony first tries out his armor and when he lands he falls through the roof and several stories of his house, crushing one of his many cars.  At the end of the movie however, he gets thrown onto a glass ceiling and does not fall through. 

In another scene, an unprotected Tony survives being propelled against the ceiling of his lab when he miscalculates the thrust of his rocket boots.  

And finally, when Iron Man fires his chest repulsor at Iron Monger when he was carry the car over his head, the car should’ve fallen straight down instead of launching forward into Iron Man’s arms. 

            In conclusion, the Iron Man film not only bends but severely breaks several laws of motion and physics to make the Iron Man character possible.  But even though the logistics of such a suit is unfeasible in our world, great storytelling and attention to detail make the impossible possible in the audience’s eyes and our suspension of disbelief is never truly tested.  This is further aided by the fact that the movie is set in the Marvel Universe where the viewer expects superhuman feats and elements.  All in all, Iron Man is an enjoyable and successful tale of a popular superhero. 

The Laws of Physics in an Animated Universe - Outline

I. Introduction

A. Iron Man (2008)

B. Thesis - Though the Marvel universe seems to follow our universe's laws of physics, the Ironman suit borders on the magical and its superhuman feats do not seem physically possible.

II. Reaction without Action - 

A. Aerodynamics - In the Marvel universe, many super humans can fly due to unexplained mystical powers, but the Ironman suit is supposedly technology based and therefore should follow the rules of aerodynamics and flight. The Ironman suit is not aerodynamically sound.

1. Airfoil - Sustained flight requires either wings or a body that creates lift and has a very distinctive shape; an airfoil, which the Ironman suit does not. 

2. Rocket - Another method of sustained flight is through rocket aerodynamics.  In a vacuum, rockets are strictly reaction/action since there is no atmosphere to affect stability.  But like in the previous point, I believe the Ironman suit would initiate a tumble w/o any fins for stability.   

B. Repulsor blasts

1. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction - Tony fires a shot out of his chest that blasts Iron Monger off his feet.  With that kind of force, he should've been propelled backwards as well, but there was very little to no kickback.

III. Impossible Structure - Incredibly dense/strong metal that the suit is made from.  The suit's is made up of a thin skin of impossibly tough metal covering the mechanics underneath.

A.  It might be believable that the suit could stop small arms, but there is no way that if it were built from conventional materials, could it stop a tank shell.  

B.  The materials are incredibly shock absorbing as well as it protected Tony from the impact with the ground after being shot out of the sky.   

IV. Inconsistent Weight and Impossible Arcs

A.  In the beginning of the movie when Tony first tries out his armor, he lands and falls through the roof and several stories of his house, crushing his car.  At the end of the movie, he gets thrown onto a glass ceiling and does not fall through.  

B. An unprotected Tony not being seriously hurt from the impact against his ceiling when he miscalculates the thrust in his initial testing of his rocket boots

C. When Tony fires his chest repulser at Iron Monger when he was carrying the car over his head, the car should've fallen straight down instead of launching forward.

V. Conclusion

A. The movie breaks the laws of physics to create the superhero Ironman possible.

B. Though the logistics of an Ironman suit is unfeasible in our world, good storytelling and an attention to detail make the impossible possible in the viewer's eyes.  

C. Lastly, the movie is set in the Marvel universe where the audience expects superhuman feats.  

Video Analysis of Path of Action

Video reference through Tracker

Original video reference