{"id":2577,"date":"2009-12-18T16:36:29","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T16:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/whiplash-cosmic-variance\/"},"modified":"2009-12-18T16:36:29","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T16:36:29","slug":"whiplash-cosmic-variance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/whiplash-cosmic-variance.php","title":{"rendered":"Whiplash | Cosmic Variance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My favorite example of a recent Hollywood blockbuster that scientists should like is <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0371746\/\"><em>Iron Man<\/em><\/a>. Yes, it&rsquo;s implausible that a prisoner in a cave in Afghanistan could build a lethal flying suit out of scrap metal, etc. But plausibility should never be the criterion for judging a science-fiction\/fantasy scenario; sometimes you just have to bend the rules of the real world to get the required dramatic effects. Consistency, on the other hand, is crucial; the non-real world you invent should follow some set of rules, even if they veer away from the actual world. (Nobody complains that the <em>Enterprise<\/em> travels faster than light, but there are plenty of complaints about the bizarre use of time travel in the <em>Star Trek<\/em> franchise.)<\/p><p>Even better is when a film does a decent job at reflecting the <em>practice<\/em> of science. And that&rsquo;s why I loved <em>Iron Man<\/em> &mdash; the whole second act revolves around Tony Stark in his lab, engineering designs and using trial-and-error to determine experimentally what works and what doesn&rsquo;t. It makes for compelling viewing, which should be a lesson to people.<\/p><p>So we&rsquo;re all excited about <em>Iron Man 2<\/em>, right?<\/p><p>The <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scienceandentertainmentexchange.org\/\">Science and Entertainment Exchange<\/a> had a small hand in this one &mdash; apparently they needed a particle physicist to help get some of the scenes right. I don&rsquo;t think it was the scene with the whips.<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/Gjof93TtNaJZp9zvVgBVOGUrit0\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/478fb_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/Gjof93TtNaJZp9zvVgBVOGUrit0\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/478fb_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/478fb_VDVZpntAfpI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/478fb_H7rh-DuMxR8\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My favorite example of a recent Hollywood blockbuster that scientists should like is Iron Man. Yes, it&rsquo;s implausible that a prisoner in a cave in Afghanistan could build a lethal flying suit out of scrap metal, etc. But plausibility should &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/whiplash-cosmic-variance.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}