Artistic License Physics: Difference between revisions

Often [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] with "[[How Is That Even Possible?]]" Contrast [[Reality Is Unrealistic]] and [[Cartoon Physics]], as they have their own laws and modus operandi, which is entirely [[Rule of Funny|played for laughs]].

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* [[Arbitrary Maximum Range]]

 

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== Anime & Manga ==

** Admiral Aokiji, who can instantly, and probably completely to the bottom, freeze part of the ocean. Even waves that come crashing down on him are frozen in place.

** And Admiral Kizaru, whose Light powers frequently cause unexplainable explosions.

** Also that, [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief|since the football often leaves an intense yellow trail behind itself]], the laws of thermodynamics prove that in Asteroidal Japan, leather is fire-resistant. Why Asteroidal Japanese firefighters don't use it for their uniforms is [[Wild Mass Guessing|anyone's guess]].

* The same applies to ''[[The Kickers]]'', another soccer anime. Particularly a certain group of 3 people, whose trick shot includes jumping up, then doing multiple somersaults while staying in air for sometimes multiple anime minutes, somersaulting dozens of times in the process.

* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' is indecisive on whether rubber conducts electricity or not (specially when you remember Team Rocket wears rubber gloves and boots and still gets fried quite easily).

** On top of this, they're also capable of jumping from high places without leaving any form of impact wherever they land, and they can climb over a chainlink fence without bending it even a little. Nobody questions how a machine of it's ''size'' is capable of defying such common physics.

 

 

 

 

'''Note that this is not a trope so much as a series of things that may be goofs, may be a one-time use of artistic license for [[Rule of Cool]], or may be a "proto-trope" in its larval stages, which will one day be common enough to be a trope of its own. As such, please list examples by "type" of physics violation, so we can catch these proto-tropes as they form.'''

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* In ''[[Sliders]]'', after launching a nuclear rocket at a comet to destroy it before it hits Earth, Quinn is surprised when it doesn't explode on impact, however Arturo explains the delay is down to the limited speed of light. However, the light coming from the rocket approaching and hitting the comet should be delayed too, so it should still appear to explode on impact.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

 

 

 

== Films - Live-Action ==

* Likewise, Indiana Jones in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'' can survive being hurled hundreds of feet because he's inside a refrigerator.

* ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'': Tony Stark survives a fall from hundreds of feet in his Mark I. Granted, some people have survived falls from that height but they typically didn't have an horizontal velocity to combine with the vertical from an arced blaster jump. He doesn't even seem to be injured.

 

== Films - Animated ==

** The phrase ''cubic pounds of air'' is used. Twice.

 

 

== Literature ==

** Though it is mentioned that, of the thousands of arrows fired at the Wall over the course of one battle, only ''one'' actually managed to hit anybody, and that guy only died because he fell off the edge.

* In Iain M Banks' ''Consider Phlebas'' a crew are about to land on a ringworld, and the Captain tells them not to use their antigravity units: "Anti-gravity works against mass, not spin." Never mind what new physics they have to accomodate warpdrive and antigravity, acceleration by gravity and acceleration by movement are still functionally identical, and what works on one must work on the other.

* Only every shonen fight, ever. Look at any big super powered fight from your favorite long running shonen anime ([[Bleach]] is a huge offender {{spoiler|Ichigo vs Aizen comes to mind}}) and take note of home many times somebody uses an attack that could break mountains. Then take note of how there isn't a deafening sound, a bone breaking, or insane knockback from the attack. Also, there shouldn't be any light produced by an attack, no matter how strong it is, nor should the energy from the attack be rooted to where it actually should go (a body, an arm, the mountain, or simply the ground itself. Lastly, note how despite thousands upon thousands of cracks appearing from these moves, no deafening, ear-splitting earth-cracking is heard!

* ''Project Blue: Earth S.O.S'' has a glaring example of not knowing their sciences. In the third episode, they launch an old fashioned space shuttle using oxygen and solid fuel. However, the observers are watching this craft take off from a few hundred meters away and are out in the open. Even ignoring the fact that the heat from the engine would likely fry everyone at that range, there is the rather large problem of sound. Space shuttle engines when taking off are loud, really really loud. Literally they are loud enough to stop liquid from being able to flow - NASA discovered they when one of their electrical generators stopped working during takeoff. The sheer volume of the engine stopped the fuel from flowing. That level of noise would kill a human being for various reasons - including all their blood not being able to flow anymore.

** Bear in mind that there is also angular kinetic energy (rotational energy) to consider, since a coin flicked at Mach speeds likely tends to spin like mad. But however much angular kinetic energy Misaka's railgun can realistically possesses, the destruction caused by it does still exceed any attainable limits.

 

* Between the combined weight of the engine, the aforementioned extravagant amounts of fuel, and the water required to make a boiler function, steam powered flying machines are a flat impossibility (there is no way to make a steam engine efficient enough to overcome all that extra weight). There's a reason that hot air balloons were the only form of human flight until the internal combustion engine.

* Steam power is dangerous. The steam pressure and boiler levels must be constantly monitored to keep the whole thing from exploding.

* Most of this pertains to some historic implementations, steam technology is quite open-ended. Any source of heat will do, even fossil fuels can be burned much more cleanly without the constraints of internal combustion engines. Inefficiency also isn't necessarily bad, otherwise we wouldn't use steam technology in power plants or nuclear-fueled ships.

** In point of fact, the reason steam is used in power plants is that it is very nearly the only way to convert heat into motion, and that motion to electricity is pretty damn efficient, upwards of 80%. This is also why wind and water power are so popular; they convert directly from motion to electricity. The conversion from coal to heat to steam, however, is something much less efficient, about 30% efficient. The reason steam power is used is because it works anywhere and on any fuel, not because inefficiency is a desirable thing.

 

Specific examples:

* The spider, the wheelchair, and many other gadgets from the 1999 ''[[Wild Wild West (film)|Wild Wild West]]'' film are stated to operate on steam, but do not appear to have any provisions for carrying and delivering fuel and water.

* The three fireplace-sized logs that Doc gives to Marty in ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]] III'' would ''not'' be sufficient to run a steam locomotive for a mile or more. This example overlaps with [[Just Train Wrong]], because the idea behind a steam locomotive is to produce a steady, even source of heat and raise the water/steam temperature incrementally. Since there's such a large volume of fluid [[Oven Logic|a significant, but short burst of heat]] probably wouldn't be sufficient to raise the pressure in any significant way.

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