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Revisiting the Physics of Buckaroo Banzai 163

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the blast-from-the-past dept.
serutan writes "Shortly before the release of 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension' in 1984, physicist Carl Sneider of U.C. Berkeley wrote a surprisingly interesting essay on the physics behind the movie. Since the essay is not widely available on the web and I could only find it in plain text, I posted a more readable HTML version on my site. Among the more interesting points Sneider makes are that the oscillation overthruster is the result of decades of research instead of the usual laboratory accident, and its development corresponds surprisingly well with the evolution of particle physics from the 1930s to the 80s."
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Revisiting the Physics of Buckaroo Banzai More

Revisiting the Physics of Buckaroo Banzai

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  • Weird science (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @03:34AM (#17297758)
    Consider this, if you were to disrupt the particle behavior of an object so that its molecular bonds were permeable (since they are mostly made of space in the first place), you'd end up with the particle either collapsing on itself or blown to bits due to repulsive charges of neigbor particles. So Banzai wouldn't be able to fly through a mountain because the mountain would have collapsed upon itself. If he used the oscillator on himself and his ship, he wouldn't be able to recover from the damage.

    There's no doubt a lot of fun speculation to be made here, but if you're going to get your science from the web, it's best to stay away from Slashdot.

    • Re:Weird science (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IdahoEv ( 195056 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @03:41AM (#17297786) Homepage
      On the other hand, not knowing much about particle physics, I had always assumed that the "science" in Buckaroo Banzai was just so much vapid technobabble.

      The fact that phrases like "intermediate vector bosons" tossed around in the movie actually have a connection of any sort at all to the issues being discussed puts BB already a few parsecs ahead of the typical S.F. junk that hollywood puts out.

      I'd always thought of BB as a camp fantasy classic. It's refreshing to know that the writers actually knew a little science and applied it, even if the final product was entirely improbable.

      • Re:Weird science (Score:5, Funny)

        by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @05:33AM (#17298228) Journal

        All the I know, is that The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (Across the Seventh Dimension), was the worst thing that I ever ever got in charades once. My sister got Jaws!

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by azuravian ( 850674 )
          Seems like that would have been hard in charades. Especially since you're trying to get people to guess a movie that doesn't even exist.

      • Re:Weird science (Score:5, Interesting)

        by JabberWokky ( 19442 ) <slashdot.com@timewarp.org> on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @07:14AM (#17298708) Homepage Journal
        For what it's worth, if you like it, it's pretty much a direct lift from the classic Doc Savage, "Man of Bronze" pulps of the 30s and 40s. They weren't camp at the time, just from a different era, both in terms of literature and science. This was before physics was considered a major branch of science, so much of the wizz-bang new inventions are through the modern miracle of cutting edge chemistry. The characters were painted in bright, broad strokes, just like Buckaroo's sidekicks. One even carries around a long eared pig. Ethnic stereotypes and slurs weren't considered politically incorrect, and women had only had the ability to vote for ten years, so you have to take some things with an understanding of the era (i.e., if you're offended by such things, don't read 'em).


        Fun stuff, and highly recommended if you really like Science Fiction, as you can see where much of it came from. The Philip José Farmer take on the characters later in the century is a different beast (enjoyable, but not what we're talking about). Things like ice bullets and enzymes are the high tech weapons, plus a little dabbling in the (even at the time) classics of SF like hollow world theory. (There was an official Doc Savage movie that was done to be camp and sucked monkey balls).

        --
        Evan

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ucklak ( 755284 )
          I loved that movie (Doc Savage) as a kid. I've only seen it on the spanish channels recently. As horrible as it is, I'd still like to see it again uncut and in english.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dpilot ( 134227 )
          I was glancing through the shelves of the video store the other day, and saw the "Doc Savage" movie there. One of these days when I have some lifespan to waste, I'd like to watch it. Any comments, to move it up or down on my priority list?
          • It doesn't suck as much as the movie of The Shadow.

            That doesn't really tell you much, though, does it.
            • The Shadow has my very favorite-of-all-time dialogue in it. Margo: Oh, God I dreamed. Lamont: So did I. What did you dream? Margo: I was lying naked on a beach in the South Seas. The tide was coming up to my toes. The sun was beating down. My skin hot and cool at the same time. It was wonderful. What was yours? Lamont: I dreamed I tore all the skin off my face and was somebody else underneath. Margo: You have problems. Lamont: I'm aware of that.

        • Re:Weird science (Score:4, Interesting)

          by mbourgon ( 186257 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @09:28AM (#17299606) Homepage
          Agreed on the Doc Savage reference. Buckaroo is an updated version of the old pulps - and the novelization of the movie (written by the script writer) is written like a pulp, complete with references to other adventures. FWIW, Evan, someone took the old movie and replaced the "songs" with the original (instrumental) John Philips Sousa tunes, and it makes the movie MUCH more watchable. Still not great, but it holds up a whole lot better this way than I would've imagined.

          Here's hoping that Raimi does wind up doing Doc (he recently got the rights to do movies based off of Street & Smith characters).

        • ...pulps of the 30s and 40s. ...This was before physics was considered a major branch of science,
          So Einstein was just working on minor science? (1905 was his big year)

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
            It really was science with no practical applications then. The sad thing is just as WWI was the fought with chemistry war WWII was the war fought with physics.
            • It really was science with no practical applications then.
              Oh right, I forgot. That silly old thing we called a "steam engine" wasn't a practical application. After all, no practical result from physics could have so thoroughly changed the world...

              Thermodynamics is very much a part of physics, and it very definitely had practical applications long before then 1930s.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
                I was speaking about public perception. Heck the cannon and the long bow where practical applications of physics.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by steveha ( 103154 )
          If you enjoy pulp adventures, I highly recommend Aaron Allston's "Doc Sidhe" books. Sadly there are only two so far, but I'm eager for more. The first one is available completely free from the Baen Free Library:

          http://www.baen.com/library/aallston.htm [baen.com]

          Enjoy!

          steveha
        • Well, since I got modded as "flamebait" for my previous post, I'll try again with a little bit less sarcasm. Physics was most certainly considered a major branch of science by the 30s and 40s. It was considered a major branch of science long before chemistry and biology, in fact. Physics dates back all the way to Archimedes, Aristotle, Lucretius, and friends. Chemistry and biology did not so much as exist in the classical period. During that time, what we call science pretty much included physics and n
          • Physics as a *distinct* branch of science. Einstein had done his tango in the field, but the mainstream world didn't really know about physics as a its own field or think it had any relevance to the world. That comes pretty much from Feynman's stories about the work on the Manhattan project and how they were treated. Of course physics the field existed through antiquity: ever since people noticed things fall down. Up through Newton and possibly Maxwell, it was all just lumped in under the general term "
      • As an ex-laser-freak, I note that the physics and math in the background of "Real Genius" -- the stuff written on chalkboards and equipment on the benches -- was all good science. It was just the stuff in the foreground that sucked. I think that's often the case with movies intended for the camp/dork crowd, that they get people with some experience in the subject to at least try and prop it up.

        One of the things I found most charming about BB (which might be my favorite movie) was precisely the sense of ti

    • I dunno (Score:3, Funny)

      by deft ( 253558 )
      On slashdot sure I see some morons, but there's usually some people on here so smart I don't understand a thing they said to smack down the moron, and somehow I say that's expertise.

    • Re:Weird science (Score:5, Interesting)

      by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdougNO@SPAMgeekazon.com> on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @04:00AM (#17297868) Homepage
      Bear in mind that the article was written in the spirit of making the movie more enjoyable for people who are geeky enough to understand something about particle physics. The point was not to prove the feasibility of the oscillation overthruster, but to show that the science thread that runs through Buckaroo Banzai is a cut above standard movie technobabble. Sneider sort of addressed the mountain-collapsing issue by mentioning that the area of effect was small and short-lived, which is why the jet car had to travel 700 mph to keep up with it. It's all in fun.

      • Re:Weird science (Score:4, Insightful)

        by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @08:01AM (#17298978)
        "The point was not to prove the feasibility of the oscillation overthruster, but to show that the science thread that runs through Buckaroo Banzai is a cut above standard movie technobabble."

        Right. It's basically an inside joke. Most people think Buckaroo might as well be reversing the polarity of the neutron flow but a few people out there are really going to appreciate the effort put forth in creating the technobabblish scenes. And this sort of inside joke is a lot harder to pull off than throwing Gil Garrard's name into a Family guy episode.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Piquan ( 49943 )

          reversing the polarity of the neutron flow

          He only said that ONCE [wikiquote.org], for crying out loud! Why does everybody make such a fuss?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hal2814 ( 725639 )
            The only one making a fuss here is you. Pertwee did say it and it is technobabble at its finest (or worst depending on your point of view). That's why I used it as an example. Reversing the polarity of a neutron? That's fantastic.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by redblue ( 943665 )
      ...but if you're going to get your science from the web, it's best to stay away from Slashdot.
      Whereever you go, just not there.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by paiute ( 550198 )
      Consider this, if you were to disrupt the particle behavior of an object so that its molecular bonds were permeable (since they are mostly made of space in the first place), you'd end up with the particle either collapsing on itself or blown to bits due to repulsive charges of neigbor particles. So Banzai wouldn't be able to fly through a mountain because the mountain would have collapsed upon itself. If he used the oscillator on himself and his ship, he wouldn't be able to recover from the damage.

      Going thr

    • Re:Weird science (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mengel ( 13619 ) <mengel@noSpAM.users.sourceforge.net> on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @10:35AM (#17300226) Homepage Journal
      Actually, as long as you did it for a really short period of time, the main effects would be:
      • particles would fall due to gravity (unless this effect also weakened gravity, but current theory wouldn't support that). But it would take a signifigant portion of a second for the particles to move much due to gravity.
      • particles vibrating due to brownean motion would possibly continue past each other possibly rearranging crystaline structures
      Once you turned the field back off, the forces between the atoms would reappear, and most of the molecules would snap back into place.

      If you left the field on a long time, yes you would possibly get a tunnel, as the particles would fall to the bottom of the region at which point their fields would turn back on, and there would possibly be... fusion? an explosion?

      Disclaimer: I am not a particle physicist, but I do talk with them in the cafeteria...

  • Cool car mod (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timberwolf0122 ( 872207 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @03:37AM (#17297774) Journal
    I for one would love an oscilating overthruster on my car, it would enable me to drive through traffic jams. My only consern is that if I can pass through solid matter what is to stop me passing throught the crust of the earth? I drive a MR2 Roadster and I don't think the canvas soft top is rated to magma.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MaGogue ( 859961 )
      If you project your intermediate vector bosons accurately, you'll obtain a tunnel through the mountain with solid floor just below the wheels, and a collapsing yet transparent core in front.
      Move fast enough, and banzai!, you tunnel through.
      It is interesting to note that 'electron tunneling' is an actual term used in quantum physics.

      Only make sure you don't use up your batteries too soon.
    • traffic jams, 700 miles an hour? Don't think it will work.
  • WHERE ARE WE GOING?!

  • Just remember (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stox ( 131684 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @03:59AM (#17297866) Homepage
    "No matter where you go, there you are!"

  • This was already discussed by Londo Molari (Score:3, Informative)

    by rogerborn ( 236155 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @04:18AM (#17297940)

    He discussed it a long time ago in the far off, but rather close future.

    Here is the link -

    http://www.rogerborn.com/commentary/a-walk-among-t he-atoms.html [rogerborn.com]

    ""These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."
  • Mandatory link [uoregon.edu] to the best quote of the movie.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gramie2 ( 411713 )
      "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!"

      Indeed a timeless line. I sometimes use this on my 9-year-old son (who watched the movie with me), and as often as not, my nickname for him is "monkey boy".
      • I also like:
        Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife. Doomed is your soul and damned is your life. - Lord John Whorfin

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        Assuming your son is not adopted, does he say "Yes _dad_" to that?

        He have any uncles? ;)
  • ISTFM (I Saw the Fucking Movie)

    Since BB was a Adventurer/surgeon/rock musician like most of us, he was easy to identify with.

    • For completion's sake, Buckaroo was a Half Japanese/Rockstar/Neuro-Surgeon/Particle Physicist/Adventurer and part time crime fighter. Like me.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by KORfan ( 524397 )
        He had it easy. Back when I was a musician/physicist/adventurer/crime-fighter, we built our own instruments and our cars were crank starters. We didn't have any of this automatic transmission nonsense, and we reloaded our own bullets, too! This guy would have to struggle to make his own vacuum tubes.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jafac ( 1449 )
        The movie was certainly about 10 years ahead of its time.

        (I can't stand watching it now, because of the nasty 1980's rock-video hairstyles and costumes. But the dialog was some of the funniest stuff in cinema history - - big boo TAY!)

  • Buck-A-Roo! (Score:4, Funny)

    by beezly ( 197427 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @05:39AM (#17298250)

    Curse that headline. I thought this was going to be an article about the inner workings of some extreme version of Buckaroo! [firebox.com].

    I was so disappointed when I found out it was about a sci-fi film.

    Buck-A-Rooooo!

  • This is yet another jab at intelligent design that scientists attempt so gingerly. Really why do the miracles of Buckaroo B have to be broken down w/ the unimaginative Scientific Method?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pla ( 258480 )
      This is yet another jab at intelligent design that scientists attempt so gingerly. Really why do the miracles of Buckaroo B have to be broken down

      Sometimes, even normally staid scientists can derive some pleasure in terminating the trajectory of anaerobic-decompositionally accelerated projectiles into cylindrically confined ichthyoids.

      Or in this case, taunting the laughably ignorant fundies.
  • Three cheers for B.Bonzai or there would be no oscillation overthruster flag in BZflag.
    Kinda' makes ya think,donut?

  • "The machine which finally enables Buckaroo Banzai to move through matter is based on decades of research that are shown to the audience through home movies and flashbacks."

    Dr. Sneider must have seen an early edit of the film in 1984. The home movie segment wasn't widely available until the recent DVD release.

  • Lesson to be learned (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lord Grey ( 463613 ) * on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @07:53AM (#17298928)
    Not only did Buckaroo's car go wicked fast -- so fast that the on-board camera shook alarmingly -- and was able to drive through a mountain, it had turn signals . And Buckaroo used them . This Half Japanese/Rockstar/Neuro-Surgeon/Particle Physicist/Adventurer sets a good example for all of us!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by smellsofbikes ( 890263 )
      >Not only did Buckaroo's car go wicked fast

      Yeah, but one heat-seeking missile and he's *history*.
    • I also love that the truck dieseled (ran on) when he shut it off. Thanks to the incredibly cool MSG for pointing that out to me.
      Perhaps I didn't notice it at the time because it was a common bug in US made gasoline engines of the era.
  • Now I'm gonna have that closing music stuck in my head all day long.
    • Could be worse.. as is widely known among fans, the music wasn't finished yet when they were filming that scene. On set, the cast had to walk in time to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," which happened to have the same tempo.

      And now, you've got that stuck in your head instead. Bahahahaha!!!

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I just watched it recently, too. I like that end credits music. I'd like to have that as my ring-tone.

      This is one of my all time favorite movies. Stylist wardrobe, excellent cast, fun characters, campy but a true classic.
    • I have a "Happy Music" playlist on my iPod that I listen to once or twice a week. That song is on it, which means that I probably haven't gone more than 4 days without hearing it in about 2 years. All of Michael Boddicker's music is fantastic and well ahead of its time, but the opening and closing themes are really something special.

  • Copyright? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @08:25AM (#17299136)
    Doesn't the original writer have copyright over this essay? Is it legal for it to be posted to the web without his authority? I know we don't care so much about copyright on /., but this is a bit rediculous.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by serutan ( 259622 )
      Actually I thought about that. The text copies that are on the web have been there for years, and were not marked "reprinted with permission..." so I figured it was probably a non-issue. The article was part of the press kit for the movie, so presumably the studio holds the copyright. If anybody's lawyers ever complain I will sadly but promptly take the page down.

  • Only on Slashdot... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Can you post this story between two stories about copyright infringement, and see no irony whatsoever.

    Dare I ask whether this person has Dr. Sneider's permission...?
  • I wish to thank the OP for the timely nature of his post. I had finally begun to forget the nonsense of "Buckaroo Bonzai" when this article caught my eye.
  • The metaphor that Buckaroo uses is something like tiny marbles in an orbit configuration. So an atom is a tiny cluster of marbles, neutrons and protons in the nucleus, and tiny electron marbles orbiting some distance from the nucleus, and mostly empty space. Even the author uses the metaphor of a bee in a cathedral when describing the nucleus.

    But aren't these tiny marbles actually just a sort of bundle of waves? That what we think of as tiny parts of matter that give the hardness to matter not really hard

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by SirGarlon ( 845873 )

      That an atom really isn't mostly empty space, but that 'space' is full of the wave functions of the electrons in 'orbit' of the nucleus?

      Yes and no. I am too lazy to go look it up in my quantum textbook (it's been more than a decade since I graduated) but I remember being surprised to find that, when you actually integrate the wave function, you still come out with a high probability of a particle being localized to a fairly small area in space. That is, in principle the wave function extends through the

  • Why is there a watermelon there?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MrPlastic ( 897702 )
      Though the movie answers with, "Er...I'll tell you later," ISTR that Earl Mac Rauch has said that the watermelon in the vise was part of a program under development at the Banzai Institute to create food that could be air-dropped into a famine area without parachutes or other special equipment: any bush pilot could fly over and drop a load of watermelons, and the starving masses would rejoice, needing only a sharp knife to get through the tough, drop-rated skin. (This idea is somewhat reminiscent of the wat
      • Additionally, the watermelons are engineered to be nutritionally complete.

        Now, if you want the other reason why it was there, watch the DVD with the commentary track. There was a lot of conflict going on over the movie, and they threw it in to see if the studio was even bothering to watch the dailies anymore. It turned out that they weren't. :-)
  • From the article:

    The basic premise of the Overthruster seems perfectly reasonable if we could just find a way to do this. How could we shorten the distance that virtual photons travel within the atom? Since virtual photons have no mass, they are able to travel the full distance between electrons and protons. What would happen if the virtual photons were given mass? If virtual photons had mass, they would be restricted to a very small region around the elementary particles that make up the atoms.

    Fair eno

  • Big Trouble in Little China (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jonah Hex ( 651948 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [smtodxeh]> on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @09:41AM (#17299716) Homepage Journal
    http://imdb.com/title/tt0086856/trivia [imdb.com]

    # The end of the movie invites the viewer to watch for the upcoming film "Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League". This was the real title for a sequel that Sherwood Studios planned to make if this film had been successful. Unfortunately, it was a box-office bomb, and Sherwood Studios went bankrupt. After its release on video and cable, however, BB became a cult favorite, much in the same way as Mad Max (1979) (which crawled from obscurity to spawn two sequels). Legal wranglings due to the bankruptcy prevented any other studios from picking up the sequel rights, and even years later MGM had to fight through a pile of red tape simply to get the OK to release it on DVD.
    # The script for the proposed sequel Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League ended up becoming the script for John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (1986).
    Since I read this I can't watch BTiLC without thinking of Buckaroo and crew going deep under Chinatown.
    Jonah HEX

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by silentounce ( 1004459 )
      "The script for the proposed sequel Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League ended up becoming the script for John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (1986)."

      That's false. I recently had the pleasure to view the recent DVD release of BTiLC. One of the special features discusses how the film was developed. There is no mention of BB in there. In fact, the original script was set in the Old West. My memory is vague. But I'm fairly sure that the trivia from IMDB is BS.
      • My memory is vague. But I'm fairly sure that the trivia from IMDB is BS.

        A good portion of the 'trivia' on the IMDB is bogus.
         
        Though I see they have finally deleted the claim that USS Blueback was used for Red October. (Though the Wikipedia, even when provided with evidence, merely replaces the claim with weasel words.)

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by silentounce ( 1004459 )
        I should have looked in the wiki before I posted that.
         
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Trouble_in_Litt le_China#Production_History
        http://en.wikipedia.o rg/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Banzai_Across_t he_8th_Dimension#Sequels
         
        Both of those explain what I tried to say much more clearly.
    • BTiLC is a fantastic movie and shares much of the same charm that makes BB special, but as others have mentioned the claim that Big Trouble was intended to be the sequel is incorrect.

      Incidentally, if you can still find the Ernie Cline script for the sequel anywhere it's definitely worth a read. I was lucky enough to download a copy many years ago before it got pulled from his site, and it would make for a damn fine movie.
  • I was forced to watch this movie by my GF's housemate about 2 times a week for months until another housemate and myself hid the tape on him. I think it caused me permanent trauma. I started calling him John Smallberries.

    Home is where you hang your hat.
  • What's that watermelon doing there?

  • Alignment solves everything (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mattr ( 78516 ) <<mattr> <at> <telebody.com>> on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @11:05AM (#17300550) Homepage Journal
    I'm quite worried a lot of people will get the wrong idea about this movie, that it's all impossible. Of course the overthruster isn't disintegrating the matter on which it is focused, it is simply enabling a bidirectionally permeable interface to form naturally between two space harmonics.

    It has been long known that spacetime has a granular quality, in fact when you get small enough everything is spin networks (you can learn more about it on Wikipedia) which can basically be thought of as a quantum of space. in other words we are all just living on particles strung on lattices (see lattice theory). But since the granularity of spacetime is at a resolution of Planck units, there is obviously an infinity of other universes that can exist between the lines as it were, made of particles strung along a lattice just out of step with our own. If you can gauge the distances correctly along this string-net and apply a constant field to shift the center of gravity of space quanta a little to one side and perfectly coincide with the spin networks on a different lattice, then voila! you can continue motion over that other dimension, which is only confusing because we use the word dimension when clearly it is simply a spacetime superimposed on our own but with a topology ordered along a geometry that is slightly out of step with ours.

    This duality over the lattice may seem difficult to stomach but it will be invariably clear to anyone who has gotten used to the television version's compression of the entire x-axis into the tube's smaller aspect ratio (the ultra-cool credits scene). That, and if you can believe a key researcher is named Joan Baez.

    This is what the movie is trying to illustrate when the Buckaroo's nemesis gets himself stuck halfway through a wall. That probably happened partly because they were using an inefficient energy carrier (as TFA suggests), bosons not being known in the 30s, but mostly in fact due to insufficient speed, since if you lose momentum while in the interface you would have to push against quite a lot of knots in the spin network to extricate yourself. It is a kind of rigged Hilbert space, with the knots rigged along the lattices like a ship's rigging, and it is all so intertwined you really have to push with a lot of oomph.

    Hence the 700 miles per hour rocket. Obviously the characters are pushing through onto another lattice and not disintegrating the matter in front of them, because if they were destroying matter not only would things probably get quite hot, but also gravity would drag down the nose of Buckaroo's craft toward the center of the Earth! And that doesn't happen at all in fact.

    We shall soon see how well the movie predicts reality with the next generation of particle accelerators. TFA only makes one terrible mistake, in that they suggest the movie is wrong about magnitudes because Buckaroo is superhumanly able to miniaturize accelerators. In fact just recently research scientist Anatoly Maksimchuk and Donald Umstadter, and another team in Europe, have been able to focus high energies with table-top devices. Certainly as higher energies are reached there will be a manifold of possibilities to study. Just remember, wherever you go, there you are.

  • Blatant pitch (Score:3, Informative)

    by deblau ( 68023 ) <slashdot.25.flickboy@spamgourmet.com> on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @11:29AM (#17300814) Journal
    The oscillation overthruster was incorporated into BZFlag [bzflag.org], a tank-based FPS. It lets your tank 'walk through walls' and lay in wait inside buildings where you can't be shot by normal bullets. For the record, I'm an admin on a few servers, and I play regularly. Oh yeah, the game runs on Linux, BSD, Irix (where I first encountered it), and Windows of course.
  • From TFA [summary]
     
    Since the essay is not widely available on the web and I could only find it in plain text

     
    'Widely available' is a term without meaning on the web, either it's available - or its not. One copy is all it takes.

  • Just... just hold on... that's good. (Score:3, Funny)

    by VikingBerserker ( 546589 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @09:47PM (#17308582)
    This article reads like a truck.

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