From: http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/index.html http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/matrix.html Movie Physics The Matrix (1999) Rated: [RP] (R for Retch) Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano Directed by: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski Written by: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski Humanity has been imprisoned by an evil computer system. People now live their lives confined to clear slime-filled bathtubs inside a giant tesla coil tended by gargantuan mechanical spiders. However, imprisonment isn't all bad. Everyone's connected to a sophisticated computer simulation of the late 20th century. This certainly beats a life of contemplating slime. Unfortunately, people are still restrained by the same old societal norms, petty rules, and laws of physics, that is except for a few enlightened hackers who've discovered reality, and are trying to free the rest of humanity. It's hard to argue with the physics of a movie like The Matrix. Considering the action takes place mostly in a computer simulation, flaws in physics can usually be dismissed as bad programming. It's positively diabolical. We're forced to accept gung-fu B-movie physics and can't argue because the action takes place in a computer simulation. Even so we can't resist a few comments. For instance at the beginning of the movie Trinity (one of the hackers) jumps five feet off the ground and pauses in mid air before kicking a policeman just below his neck. The policeman is swept off his feet and translates straight backwards into another cop. The two continue translating until they slam into a wall. A kick this far above the policeman's center of gravity would have caused him to rotated backwards. The slightly downward direction of the kick would not have swept him off his feet. What's more, since Trinity was about half the cop's mass and the collision of her foot with him was largely elastic (it didn't stick to him) Trinity should have bounced backward to conserve momentum. Okay, okay, we are forced to admit that Trinity is one of the enlightened hackers who can bend a few laws of physics inside the simulation. But the cop was just a regular joe and should have rotated. We could go on with minor criticisms of simulated events but our chief objection is not the simulation. We just can't buy the explanation of why the computer system bothers to maintain not only the simulation but humanity. Supposedly, the computer system needs people as a power source. This makes no sense. The food fed to humans would have far more energy content than the meager power available from humans. It would require even more energy to run the food delivery system not to mention maintain the slime tubs. Why would the machines bother? Surely there'd be a more effective way to extract energy from the food. But wait! It gets worse. Liquefied dead humans are fed back to the living ones. The movie comes dangerously close to implying that the computer/energy system is a giant perpetual motion machine. This is clearly impossible according to the second law of thermodynamics and likewise impossible for us to dismiss lightly. To cover itself, the movie throws in a quick mention that the human energy source powering the machines is combined with a source of fusion. This is like getting on a 747 and having the captain explain in great detail that the plane is rubber band powered, then add that it also has four jet engines. Guess which power source gets it off the ground, duh. The Matrix had real potential as a cerebral thriller. The pacing, suspense, and sense of tension in the first half are masterful. We would have preferred less oracle mumbo jumbo. We'd have also been more excited at the start of the great rescue scene if the characters had said they needed a bajillion terabytes of RAM and a case of K-7000 processors to fight the evil computer system instead of saying they needed lots of guns. We do concede that shooting and gung-fu are more fun to watch than keyboarding but isn't the point of sci-fi to push the boundaries of science? The Matrix fails to meet its potential because it just can't leave the artificial science in the computer simulation along with the artificial intelligence. It had a great start which unfortunately evolved into another mindless action piece. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'