31 Myths About Science and Technology Perpetuated by TV and Movies

This tipped over desk can stop bullets, right? Right?!?!
31 Myths About Science and Technology Perpetuated by TV and Movies
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It’s times like these that we’re glad the brainiacs of the world are sitting and reviewing movies. We want to know which movies we can trust, but we don’t have the time (or mental capacity) to study stuff like astrophysics.

It’s pretty important information to have too! Like, we don’t want to be stressing about which wire on a bomb to cut when we could just shoot the thing with a shotgun-style energy disruptor thingy. 

You’ll see.

Melting Ice Caps

In Waterworld, melted ice caps have covered all land with water. If the ice caps melt totally, that'll mean sea levels will rise 216 feet. We'll lose many coastal areas, which hold some of the most important cities in the world. But the vast majority of land will remain comfortably above water. CRACKED.COM

Nerve Agents

The Rock introduces us to VX gas, a deadly bright green nerve agent. As the film's writer David Weisber later put it, Unfortunately, chemical weapons are very boring because essentially they're a two-chamber cell with two odorless and colorless gases in each chamber ... There was no way to do that on the screen with any kind of excitement. CRACKED.COM

EMP

Ocean's Eleven gives us an EMP that wipes out all lights on a Vegas block. Any real electromagnetic pulse would radiate beyond the movie's tiny area of attack. But it would also do less damage. Even a huge one from a solar storm would just force us to tinker with stuff to restart it, not usher in a new Dark Age. CRACKED.COM

Magnetic Fields

The Core has stopped rotating, leaving no magnetic field to shield us! Leaving aside how preposterous the basic idea is, Earth's magnetic field doesn't block solar radiation. The atmosphere does. The planet's magnetic field has weakened or reversed in the past without leading to any mass extinctions. CRACKED.COM

Air Pressure

31 Myths About Science and Technology Perpetuated by TV and Movies

Laws of Physics

31 Myths About Science and Technology Perpetuated by TV and Movies

Spacecraft

In Star Wars (and basically any film taking place in space), destroying a spaceship forces it to stop. In reality, when a spacecraft's engine suddenly dies while in motion, it won't stop; in fact, it can't stop. The lack of friction in space will make the spacecraft move basically forever, well until it hits something, that is. CRACKED.COM

Nuclear Power

In Pacific Rim, they destroy the bridge to Kaijus' lair by detonating the nuclear reactor that powers Gipsy Danger. In reality, a nuclear power reactor can never be detonated. In fact, it doesn't even use the same radioactive material as a nuclear bomb. Atomic bombs use radioactive materials that are enriched to 90% while the materials used in reactors are only enriched to 4-5 percent. CRACKED.COM

A Lack of Pressure

Lack of pressure can kill you as quickly as lack of oxygen. An oxygen mask is not sufficient equipment to explore an asteroid. CRACKED COM

Light Speed

Faster-than-light travel would not be streaks of light. W According to physicists at Leicester University, space travelers would see a central disc of bright light. CRACKED.COM

Bullets

Sofas and tables only stop bullets in movies and TV shows. As seen in Psych and countless others. In real life, you'd have better luck hiding behind a full bookcase or large box of kitty litter. CRACKED COM

Dying in Space

George Clooney's character in Gravity doesn't really need to die. In the movie, he sacrifices himself by cutting the cable so that Sandra Bullock's character won't drift along. It's stupid considering he is not pulled by anything, not even gravity. When the cable stops him, a gentle pull by Sandra Bullock's character is all that was needed to bring him back. CRACKED.COM

Mars

60-mph winds can HELP IS ONLY 140 MILLION MILES AWAY do a lot of damage here on earth... MATT DAMON MARTIAN THE GERE asics BSB 10 FIT 150 E DE Meals BIDL - DER STREET IN CINEMAS SEPTEMBER 30 -3D OF WT Chocolate But on Mars, the atmosphere is only 1% as dense. Dust storms are a problem for real Mars missions, but mostly because the dust covers up solar panels. CRACKED.COM

The Human Brain

If you could use most parts of your brain, instead of only 10%, you would... not acquire god-like mind capabilities like Lucy. You would stay the same, apparently, because we do use most parts of our brains. CRACKED.COM

Nebulas

You can't hide in a nebula, because they're very thin. Battlestar Galactica If you were in one, you'd just see black space around you. CRACKED.COM

Antimatter

CRACKED.COM In Angels and Demons (2009), the bad guys attempt to use antimatter, stored in vials, to destroy the Vatican. While the effect of antimatter is accurately shown in the film, scientists said that the real-life production of the amount of antimatter used in the plot would take billions of years.

Immense Strength

CRACKED.COM If you focus immense strength against a very small area of a large object... you wouldn't move it. You would pierce it.

Fuel Tanks

A FUEL TANK IS A BOMB SECONDS FROM BLOWING! EXCEPT, WOULD YOU BELIEVE ... GASOLINE ISN'T THAT EXPLOSIVE? In fact, if you drop a lit match into a barrel of gasoline in cold weather, the flame would go out before the fuel ignites. Gas stations and tanks are pretty safe from their liquid fuel exploding- rather, it's the fumes that pose a risk. CRACKED.COM

Space Explosions

SPACE EXPLOSIONS! FIREBALLS! A GIANT BOOM! WAIT. How CAN THAT HAPPEN WITHOUT AIR? In reality, a space explosion looks more like the object got up one morning and then gave up. And you know what else requires air in order to work? Sound. A space explosion would be more or less silent. CRACKED.COM

Fuel

PLANE OUT OF FUEL? IT'S ABOUT TO CRASH! 4 FUE PRES X I 2 RED LIGHT ON LOW FUEL 0 RESERVE EXCEPT NO, NOT FOR A WHILE. Planes are pretty good at gliding, even when they have no engines thrusting them forward. A jet cruising at 40,000 feet will probably glide 100 miles before it touches down, which gives pilots plenty of prep to land on ground or water. CRACKED.COM

The Sun

IN SPACE MOVIES, THE SUN IS YELLOW OR ORANGE. BUT IN SPACE, THE SUN ACTUALLY LOOKS WHITE. The Sun looks yellow to us because the atmosphere scatters the components of light that have shorter wavelengths. This is also why the sky looks blue. At sunset, the light scatters more, so it shifts even further from white and looks more red. CRACKED.COM

Truth Serums

MOVIE TRUTH SERUMS LOOK LIKE THEY'RE BASED ON REAL LIFE. SADLY, THERE'S NO SUCH THING. Various drugs make people more talkative and less inhibited (alcohol's maybe best), but none really manage to force the truth out of anyone. In real life, if interrogators inject a prisoner with truth serum, it's just to fool them into thinking they can't lie. CRACKED.COM

Radioactivity

You KNOW IT'S NUCLEAR. It's NEON GREEN! 12 II 10 3 9 4 8 5 7 6 UH, NO. RADIOACTIVITY DOESN'T GLOW. Maybe the idea comes from the old trend of using radium to make stuff like watch dials glow in the dark. But even there, the glow came thanks to special extra chemicals they added. Radioactivity is invisible. CRACKED.COM

Orbiting Ships

AN ORBITTING SHIP LOSES THRUST. WILL IT PLUMMET TO EARTH IN SECONDS? ssn NCO No. UNLESS YOU MEAN A MILLION SECONDS ... The Enterprise in Star Trek Into Darkness, for example, should have taken about 80 hours to fall into Earth's atmosphere. And if it was in stable orbit, it wouldn't lose altitude at all, because orbiting requires no thrust. CRACKED.COM

Bombs

LOOK, A BOMB! BETTER CUT THE RIGHT WIRE? NAH. THE REAL SOLUTION IS EVEN COOLER. The bomb squad often won't clip wires. Instead, they use a tool that works similarly to a shotgun. Or they use an actual shotgun, or a sniper rifle. This process is called energetic disruption, and it rarely makes the bomb go off. CRACKED.COM

Dinosaurs

WOULD A DINO DROP ITS FOOD TO CHASE YOU? NO. NOT IF IT'S LIKE ANY PREDATOR WE'VE SEEN. Animals, past or present, exhibit what's known as a Holling's Type III functional response otherwise known as biological common sense. If you're tucking into a big entrée at a restaurant, why throw it on the floor to chase a waiter carrying appetizers? CRACKED.COM

Zero Gravity

ZERO GRAVITY MEANS WE MOVE IN SLOW-MO? No. YOU'RE CONFUSING SPACE WITH SWIMMING POOLS. Gravity doesn't affect your horizontal movement. And if there's no atmosphere, you'll actually move slightly faster than on the ground. It's still wise to move slowly, but that's only to avoid crashing into equipment and breaking stuff. CRACKED.COM

Concealable Armor

A HIDDEN VEST THAT SAVES YOUR LIFE? NOPE. NOT FROM GUNFIRE LIKE THAT. No vest protects against machine gun fire. Concealable armor can only protect against handguns (and may still leave you with a fractured rib). Military armor's tougher, but each unit costs thousands and weighs 30 pounds. CRACKED.COM

Silencers

A SILENCED GUN SOUNDS LIKE QUIET SPITTING? SORRY, ASSASSINS: THOSE SILENCERS DON'T EXIST. Silencers suppress gunshots. They don't mute them. A silenced handgun's still loud as a jackhammer, as loud as you probably think an unsilenced one is. Silencers aren't about stealth-they're about stopping guns from instantly deafening you. CRACKED.COM

Lasers

COOL, FLASHY NEON SPACE LASERS? THOSE BEAMS SHOULD BE INVISIBLE. Never mind whether those exact weapons exist in real life (they don't). Lasers need a medium, like fog or dust, to be visible to us. Our atmosphere might offer that, depending on the type of laser. But in space? You'd see nothing. CRACKED.COM

Helicopter Blades

CRASHED CHOPPER RIPPING UP THE STREET? REAL HELICOPTER BLADES ARE FRAGILE. They're filled with foam and a light substance called honeycomb, because they're designed to slice through air, not concrete. When a copter crashes, the blades are the first thing to bend and fall apart. CRACKED.COM

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