We've
been covering some heavy topics lately and I thought this might be a
break. Having a little knowledge of science doesn't make it easier for me
to watch science fiction. I just saw the trailer for
"Downsizing", a satire in which Matt Damon's character and his wife
are shrunk down so they can live well for less. One scene in the trailer
has
their shrunken selves wondering at the detail in leaves since they are
shrunken and can see smaller things. No, no, no, no, no! The limit
of resolution is set by the wavelength of light and the diameter of the pupil
. 1.22 times the wavelength of the light half a micron) DIVIDED by the diameter of the
lens which in this case is the human eye (2 to 8 mm). That means the resolution of the eye or any optical imager gets bigger the smaller the diameter of the pupil. Bigger is worse. You need to place two objects at greater angular separation so they don’t blur together.
This means Matt Damon with his pupils shrunken by a factor of twelve would have 12 times
worse eyesight. He would barely be able
to see the big E on the eye chart let alone the veins in a leaf. Antman would be ten times worse. There’s a reason why telescopes with aperture
diameters of a few meters can see greater detail on Jupiter than the human eye
at around 3mm pupil diameter or small telescopes. Bigger is better. That’s why mice eyes are so big for their
size and their black pupils are so large. They are trying to get as much
resolution as possible. So anyway, that’s
the optical engineer’s kvetch. Just
suspend belief and watch the movie (Warning, the reviews are negative) on Netflix. Shut
up, Stan! But then there’s the glint off
the actor’s glasses that tell me they are flat panes of glass and have no power
at all. Fake glasses! Here I go again.
Rave on, man. I love b.s. science fiction lingo, and want to collect it in a book.
ReplyDeleteMy brother and I used to spend hours making this up:
"My God! I think his exposure to the elastic dyleriumated sacerdotal antidote put this cadet into permanent spasmodic shock! Check him, doctor!"
"He's dead, Jim."
I remember Kirk saying "Increase sensitivity by one to the tenth power" which of course is one and no increase at all. Stick to the technobabble, Cap'n.
DeleteHahaha! I wonder if those were just Easter eggs for science nerds to find.
DeleteLOL, "Bad science in science fiction movies"! A fun way to spend some time, thinking about the science bloopers in some of the flicks we have seen over the years. I wouldn't have known about the optics, so thanks for your optical engineer's info. Remember " Honey I Shrunk the Kids"? Or "Fantastic Voyage" where they shrunk the submarine crew to get in some guy's brain to fix it? But according to what you're saying they couldn't see well enough to do the job. One of my favorite awful sci fi flicks was "Night of the Lupus", starring the young DeForest Kelley, with the giant rabbits that sounded like horses running.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Katherine, I saw that classic. What did they do with all the giant killer bunny suits?
DeleteThey didn't bother with suits. They just magnified real rabbits about 50x. But no bunnies were harmed in the making of this film. We watched it with our kids when they were about middle school age, thinking they might enjoy it. But they were like, "Mom and Dad, seriously? Are we going to watch this to the end?"
Delete" Remember " Honey I Shrunk the Kids"?"
DeleteYep, or just about any episode of "Magic School Bus". And that one was supposed to be educational! Stan, I think you should hire an agent and build a retirement career as a film adviser.
Jim,
DeleteMoviemakers aren't usually interested in accuracy or authenticity. My friend's daughter teaches history, is a Civil War re-enactor and is a total expert on Civil War clothing. She's worked on Civil War movies but she gets bugged by whether the woman is wearing such a color or shape of button when they wore no such thing in 1861, not until 1862. Sometimes you just have to accept that it's just a movie.
Almost everything I know about science has come from movie and tv science fiction ;) One of the films that tried hard but started off with big errors was The Martian. The dust storm on Mars that blew away the main character, even at 100 miles per hour, would only have been like a breeze because the atmosphere is so thin. And they just didn't even go to the place where the gravity would have been different.
ReplyDeleteI've read that parrots have really amazing eyes that weigh more than their brains and can see the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum.
Crystal, birds do have a fourth receptor that peaks in sensitivity in the ultraviolet. Whatever could their subjective experience of color be like? Our color experience can be mapped onto a two dimensional chart. They would need three dimensions to map out their sensations.
DeleteDoes anybody know if those devices MacGyver used to make with three thumb tacks, a piece of film, one burned out light bulb and some M&Ms would have really worked? I mean, we always figured that if duct tape was involved the thing would work, but sometimes he was where he couldn't get duct tape and had to improvise.
DeleteTom, I never watched Macgyver but you have me curious. I can get it in Amazon Video so I'll take a look.
DeleteLoved MacGyver and watched all the episodes. Richard Dean Anderson then went on to star in Stargate SG1 ... I learned all about parallel universes and alternate timelines and Schrödinger's cat from watching that show :)
DeleteSchrödinger's cat ... wanted: dead and alive.
DeleteWish I could put pictures in comments. Have an image of a funny placard at the Science March representing that cat with a reference to what our president likes to grab.
Delete