HW7: Outline for First Term Paper.

 

Bad Physics of "Armegadon"

I. Introduction – After an asteroid the size of Texas on a collision course with Earth is detected by NASA an expedition of astronauts and oil well drillers is organized to destroy it before all life on the planet is exterminated by the impact. The following items will be discussed.

• Laws of gravity as it how it relates its artificial creation in the ship that travels to the asteroid.
  
  

  • Laws of gravity as it how it relates its artificial creation in the ship that travels to the asteroid.
    The creation of artificial gravity is much more relevant to the while the ship is docked at the Mir space station. The station is put in to a spin to create a force equivalent to gravity and allow the crew to run around the ship and the the station. This is much more interesting then the down thrusting rockets on the crew suits while they are aboart the ship when it is not attached to the station so I will concentrate on these sequences.
• Acceleration and the forces needed to split an asteroid the size of Texas and divert it from hitting the earth.

• Momentum and inertia and how they effect characters in free fall.
• Thesis statement
  

II. Laws of gravity and its artificial creation – the speed with the ship would have to rotate to create the effects in the movie are much faster then what is shown.

III. The momentum of characters in the movie and their sudden changes in velocity would cause great personal damage.

IV. The strength of the explosion required to destroy the asteroid would be monumental and much greater then the size of the nuclear bomb used in the movie.

V. Conclusion

• Restate thesis.
• Examination of the new laws of physics required to create the incidents depicted in the movie.
• Explore other possible explanations for the actions observed.
  
• Summarize the hypothesis and conclusions reached.