Second Term Paper

Newton's Second Law and Deep Space

         An object in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by another force. This is Newton's Second Law of Motion. There is no better place to illustrate this law than in deep space. The lack of friction and air resistance in space makes this law very easy to demonstrate. In space, if a pen were thrown down a hallway of a spaceship, it would travel at a uniform speed, not speeding up nor slowing down, until it hits the opposite end of the ship, at which point it would change direction and keep traveling.

     The movie industry has always been interested in depicting stories in deep space. This is because space is a frontier that is mostly unknown to people. One can only imagine what mysteries that space contains. Space could be wacky, lonely, or terrifying. The following movies: Wall E (2008, Andrew Stanton), Gravity (2013, Alfonso Cuaron), and Apollo 18 (2011, Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego), all depict space in a different way. All of them break Newton's Second Law of Motion, but only most of them do so in a believable way, as a choice to further the story.

     Wall E is Disney Pixar's animated movie that features a love story of two robots in space. There is only one scene in which both robots, Wall E and Eve, are free floating in deep space. Eve is a high tech robot with technology that allows her to move around as she pleases. Wall E, on the other hand, is quite primitive, and can only move through space with makeshift thrusters in the form of a fire extinguisher. 

     Newton's Second Law of Motion is broken when Wall E uses his fire extinguisher to blast himself through space, but an imaginary friction slows him down. One blast from the extinguisher should propel him along through space unless he uses another blast to change direction, or unless he encounters another object. Instead, he uses a blast to chug him along, and when he slows down, he uses another blast, and so on.

(The white smears show that Wall E has used the fire extinguisher to propel himself. He has multiple blasts because after each one, he was propelled forward and slowed down, thus giving him the need to use another blast.)

(The white specks show that Wall E has used the fire extinguisher to propel himself. In this shot, Wall E has actually slowed down in the background and he is about to give himself another blast to propel him towards Eve.)

         This law of motion was broken intentionally to illustrate a humorous contrast between the primitive robot and the sleek, high tech robot. This scene is a character piece that depicts the two wildly different robots, and how they interact with each other. The broken law of motion can be dismissed mainly because the movie is a visually stunning animated movie, and it does not paint itself to be steeped in realism, but it is also dismissed because it takes the time to understand how objects do behave in space, and it breaks the law in a way that is not jarringly wrong. Wall E still has the feeling that he is gliding along through space, even though he slows down, it is not enough to where viewers would feel like he is not in space.

     On the other hand, the movie Gravity is a successful suspense-thriller that takes place in deep space because the realistic quality of the film evokes true feelings of being utterly lost and alone in unknown terrain. The film is live action, and it makes good use of modern computer graphics to create deep space like viewers have never before seen. Most of the movie pays great attention to the details of the physics, but Newton's Second Law is indeed broken.

     Two astronauts, Dr. Stone, and Matt Kowalski, are hit by a storm of debris. Dr. Stone becomes entangled in some ropes that are connected to a large mass. She grabs hold of Kowalski who is being flung around by the storm of debris. When she grabs Kowalski, it is as if his momentum is pulling her towards him, and the ropes that she is connected to become taut.

(This promotional poster shows the scene in which Dr. Stone is tethered to a large mass off screen, and the rope holding her is taut. She is also holding another taut rope with Kowalski at the other end of it.)

         In the movie, there is a scene which would accurately portray what should have happened. In this scene, Kowalski has Dr. Stone tethered to his body. He uses thrusters to propel himself through space, and as he  moves along and changes direction, Dr. Stone experiences nauseating jerks as she is pulled along after him. Kowalski would propel himself, and once the tether became taut, Dr. Stone would follow abruptly after.

(Kowalski is in front, with Dr. Stone tethered to him, and following in the back.)

         Back to the scene that breaks Newton's Second Law, instead of Kowalski pulling Stone away from the heavy mass, Stone should have been able to easily pull Kowalski towards her, especially when the ropes became taut. It is true that Kowalski was floating through space and would have continued to do so, but he encountered another force and that was of Dr. Stone tethered to the large mass. The force of her grabbing hold of him should have been enough to stop him and pull him back towards Stone.

     As like in Wall E, the decision to break Newton's Second law was done in a way that can be believable. The entire scene is hectic and perhaps non physicists can believe that Kowalski's force was so great that he pulled Stone towards him instead of the opposite. Much more believable is the fact that this scene heightened the tension and created suspense, as well as raising the danger of the situation for Stone's character. The makers of the movie must have decided that they could in this scene, sacrifice authenticity of physics for heightened drama that would further the story of the film.

     These last two movies purposefully broke Newton's Second Law in order to further the story. This next movie demonstrates how breaking Newton's Second Law can take viewers out of the moment. Apollo 18 opted to depict deep space through found footage. In the first scene that shows the astronauts in space, the footage is simply too unbelievable to feel immersed in the story. The camera films sideways, and upside down, in order to create a sense that the astronauts are in zero gravity, however this does not change the fact that many things are still not behaving as they would in space.

(The astronaut has just spun this pen that is floating in zero gravity.)

     One astronaut takes a pen and spins it, marveling as it keeps spinning in midair before him. However, the hair on his head is very static, it is clear that he is still being affected by earthly gravity. Whenever the astronauts move about, their hair does not swish and sway as it would in zero gravity. It is moments like these that do not further the story, but instead it is a detail problem that detracts from the overall environment.

( The astronaut in the foreground is moving upwards in this shot. His hair is static upon his head, but it should be pushed backwards as he propels himself upwards.)

     Because Newton's Second Law is so obvious when demonstrated in space, it is always clear to viewers whenever it is broken. Apollo 18 is a case in which it pulls viewers out of the moment and keeps them from feeling immersed in the movie. Gravity and Wall E are both movies in which Newton's Second Law was more bent, than broken, which allowed it to still retain the feeling of deep space, while allowing the story to move forwards. Although deep space is a terrain unfamiliar to most, attention to detail will inevitably declare whether or not the film will convince viewers or not.

(My previous outline was done incorrectly in that I used only one movie and three examples from that movie. In this essay, I have added two more movies, and have written about one scene from each movie.)