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Reverse Polarity: Difference between revisions
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* [[Atomic Robo]]'s solution for sending the Vampires back the Vampire Dimension is to reverse polarity. Shockingly, the experiment that brought them into our world does not have a "reverse" option, causing Robo to declare that the feature is to be strict company policy from then on. Lampshade, thou art hung.
* In [[Marvel Comics]]' [[Comic Book Adaptation|adaptation]] of ''[[Transformers: The Movie]]'', the heroes' ship is targeted by Quintesson missiles. Kup's solution is to reverse the polarity, like he did against the Shrikebats of Dromedan. Hot Rod is afraid it will tear the ship apart.
** Decepticon missiles. And that was right from the movie, not just the adaptation.
* ''[[Buck Rogers]]''. [[Ur Example|Did it way more than]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' ever did, too.
* In ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'' Tails states lines involving this a few times, which is unusual since he isn't a [[Teen Genius|child genius]] in Fleetway's continuity.
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* In the 1996 TV movie ''Gulliver's Travels'' Gulliver reversed the big magnet in the flying island to counter the plot of the people on the ground to crash the island by using another big magnet that attracts the island.
* Self-inflicted in ''[[Casino Royale 1967]]'' when a henchman with a crude battery-powered pacemaker is unplugged by Joanna Pettet's character. He frantically reconnects himself and gets the leads wrong, running backward at high speed.
* ''[[Apollo 13]]'': Justified. Shortly before re-entry they needed "four more amps" to power up the Command Module. They used a circuit intended to provide power from the Command Module to the Lunar Module to do the opposite.
* In ''[[Superman II]]'', Superman reverses the chamber that takes away Kryptonian powers. Instead of taking away the powers of the person inside the booth, it removes the powers from the three Kryptonians (Zod, Ursa and Non) standing around outside with Lois and Lex Luthor while he was safe inside. Lex Luthor even comments that "He switched it...".
* Data literally uses the phrase "Reverse the Polarity" concerning the magnetic door in ''[[Star Trek Generations]]''. Course, reversing the polarity on a magnetically-controlled door ''would'' open it. Go figure.
* In ''[[Ghostbusters]]'', the Ghostbusters defeat Gozer by crossing the energy streams from their proton packs. This, we are informed, will "reverse the particle flow through the gate." Naturally it works.
* In ''[[Cars]] 2'', Holley says this while trying to escape a death trap in the Big Bentley clock tower. On one hand, they at least keep it grounded in reality: once reversed, the only effect is the clock's motor and gear system running in reverse. On the other hand, she does it by shocking the motor with a Taser...
* ''[[Forbidden Planet]]''. Commander Adams orders a subordinate to "Stand by to reverse polarity" during the initial landing on Altair 4.
* One of the many reasons [[Fantastic Four (film)|Fantastic Four]] was criticized was its wham-tastic use of this trope. Reed is constantly spouting technobabble, and quite literally, his plan to return the Four to normal is to reverse the polarity of the cosmic rays that gave them their powers.
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** The [[Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game]] has a similar card: ''Rainbow Life''.
* ''[[Paranoia]]'' adventure "'The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues''. The Maxwell-Effect Moleculokinesic Field Device is basically a Pyrokinesis gun (e.g. it acts like a flamethrower). 50% of the time it fires at reverse polarity and freezes the target.
* ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' adventure ''Hot Rods of the Gods''. If a Ghostbusters fires his proton pack at Meera at the same time as Meera shoots at him with the red devolvo ray, it will reverse the polarity. The devolvo beam will affect Meera and the Ghostbuster will evolve into a superior being with increased intelligence and [[My Brain Is Big|a large head]].
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* Reversing the polarity of energy sources was one of the many plot convenient things Penny's computer book could do on ''[[Inspector Gadget]]''.
* IQ in the ''[[James Bond Jr.]]'' cartoon also reverses the polarity all the time. He once took control of the bad guy's helicopter with a simple remote control and some polarity reversal.
** One episode had James himself perform probably the most ludicrous variation ever: In the beginning of the episode, James berates IQ for not fixing his digital watch which for some reason has started counting ''backwards''. Later, James is locked in a room with a doomsday device set to go off. What does he do? He uses some ''pieces of wire'' to ''connect the watch to the device's timer'' and lo and behold, the watch starts working normally ''and the timer starts counting backwards''.
* It also happened in ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' all the time, and probably plenty of other cartoons where people tinker with electronics.
** A particularly memorable from ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' occurs when some ghosts get their hands on a proton pack -- the standard Ghostbuster weapon -- and try exacting some revenge. With the Ghostbusters busy elsewhere, it falls to the Ghostbusters' secretary Janine to corral the ghosts. She does this by using tools at hand and no formal technical training whatsoever to reverse a second proton pack's polarity so it will neutralize the ghost's weapon. Then, with a small twist of a screwdriver, she re-reverses the polarity and uses the pack to capture the disarmed ghosts.
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* In the ''[[Kim Possible]]'' episode "Clean Slate", reversing the polarity on a memory-enhancement device causes it to erase Kim's memories.
** The device adapted to switch heroes and villains between good and evil is even called the "Reverse Polarizer".
* In ''[[The Tick (animation)]] Vs Reno, Nevada'', Arthur is asked to reverse the polarity on a fish magnet. He finds two cables, blue and red, and a box with two similar a big label saying "Observe Correct Polarity. Use AC current", and two colored sockets. Arthur puts the cables in the wrong sockets, which seems to work, despite the obvious AC current issue.
* In ''[[The New Adventures of Superman]]'', reversing the polarity of an electric charge transferred the powers of the episode's villain (and some other guy) back to Superman... After they got them from him through an electric shock.
* This is the solution to many a kink in Jimmy's machines in ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'', [[Did Not Do the Research|whether it makes sense or not]].
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== Real Life ==
* When a phone exchange fails to hang up on a land line, what do you do? Polarity Reversal!
* A certain model of text message pager made by Motorola and [http://content.arch.com/userguides/guides/UnicationP900UserGuide.pdf Unication] can be cleared from certain faults by removing and re-inserting the single AA battery in reverse to the normal installation for about 15 seconds, then removing it and installing it normally again.
* [[Antimatter]] is normal matter with [[Reverse Polarity]]. The charges of protons and electrons are switched.
** Every particle also spins into the opposite direction as their normal counterpart. Combining both gets you a real-life [[Yin-Yang Bomb]].
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* The Earth literally reverses the polarity of its magnetic field every couple of hundred thousand years. Scientists are not entirely sure what happens to life when it happens, but you can bet it will be the solution to ''somebody's'' problem.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_electrophoresis
** Similary, the magnetic field of the sun itself rearranges itself so that at any point, in eleven years it'll be the exact same pattern, only backwards (and when it goes another eleven to twenty-two years, it gets back to where it started).
* Diode will work different depending on the direction of current.
* Thermal optics can also reverse polarity. Doing so switches between White Hot and Black Hot (Meaning that heat shows up as white or black, respectively.)
* In an MRI, the spinning dipoles slowly come out of sync with each other over time, which makes it difficult to observe them. The solution is to use a burst of radiation to reverse the polarity of the spin, which means that all the dipoles will sync up again after the same amount of time between the initial burst and the polarity reversal. This process can be repeated until other sources of error eventually overwhelm the signal.
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