IAmNietzche
07/25/08, 08:28 AM
Pretty good list. Some of the better explanations are below...
Independence Day
That mammoth mothership hovering over the earth in geostationary orbit would be doing more than just freaking out the world's population. Because of its close proximity and mass -- 1/4th that of the moon, according to the film -- the flying saucer's gravitational pull would cause massive tidal waves, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The aliens wouldn't even have to roll out their anti-matter ray to blow up the White House -- it would already be underwater.
The Core
In the movie, the Earth's inner core -- a nickel-iron mass about 1500 miles in diameter -- stops rotating, causing the planet's magnetic field to collapse and microwave radiation from space to blast through the atmosphere. But microwaves aren't affected by magnetism, and the radiation that comes from space is too weak to damage anything here. What's more, if the core did stop rotating for whatever reason, we'd have more to worry about than that. The energy stored in the core would have to go somewhere, and the effect on the planet would be equivalent to five trillion nuclear bombs going off at once.
Jurassic Park
Having a wildlife park full of dinosaurs would be a really cool idea if it weren't for a few problems. No, not imperfect security or the possibility of spontaneous lizard sex changes. The problem is that it would be almost impossible to clone the dinosaurs based on DNA pulled from the guts of a 25 million-year-old mosquito. The dinosaur DNA's double helix most certainly would have been broken down into individual chunks, mixing together with whatever else the mosquitoes might have eaten along with some of the insect's own genetic material. Any creature constructed from that mess might be the stuff of nightmares, but probably wouldn't look like a T. Rex.
http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/903/top-10-scientific-inaccurate-movies#photo10
Independence Day
That mammoth mothership hovering over the earth in geostationary orbit would be doing more than just freaking out the world's population. Because of its close proximity and mass -- 1/4th that of the moon, according to the film -- the flying saucer's gravitational pull would cause massive tidal waves, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The aliens wouldn't even have to roll out their anti-matter ray to blow up the White House -- it would already be underwater.
The Core
In the movie, the Earth's inner core -- a nickel-iron mass about 1500 miles in diameter -- stops rotating, causing the planet's magnetic field to collapse and microwave radiation from space to blast through the atmosphere. But microwaves aren't affected by magnetism, and the radiation that comes from space is too weak to damage anything here. What's more, if the core did stop rotating for whatever reason, we'd have more to worry about than that. The energy stored in the core would have to go somewhere, and the effect on the planet would be equivalent to five trillion nuclear bombs going off at once.
Jurassic Park
Having a wildlife park full of dinosaurs would be a really cool idea if it weren't for a few problems. No, not imperfect security or the possibility of spontaneous lizard sex changes. The problem is that it would be almost impossible to clone the dinosaurs based on DNA pulled from the guts of a 25 million-year-old mosquito. The dinosaur DNA's double helix most certainly would have been broken down into individual chunks, mixing together with whatever else the mosquitoes might have eaten along with some of the insect's own genetic material. Any creature constructed from that mess might be the stuff of nightmares, but probably wouldn't look like a T. Rex.
http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/903/top-10-scientific-inaccurate-movies#photo10