Movie Physics: "slime-filled bathtubs inside a giant tesla coil"

[R. A. Hettinga]

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.

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at 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'