[fr_freak]

First, any rational person pursuing science should be able to parse fiction (movies) from reality.

Second, a lot of science fiction past, is now science fact present. Think Star Wars and present day robotics.

You are missing the point. This professor isn't talking about the kind of movie magic that shows humanoid robots running around, or spaceships with laser cannons - he's talking about the basic laws of physics being violated routinely in movies, affecting students ability to understand how things really work and simple laws of motion. The example he gave of the bus in Speed is perfect: if there were no incline on the ramp, the bus would immediately begin falling downward and would never clear the ramp, regardless of how fast it was going. People, though they say "yeah I know it's just fiction", still believe subconsciously that a vehicle traveling on a horizontal line (relative to the Earth) can gain altitude if the speed is high enough. I have seen this kind of thing in action in people, and when you try to explain why it is impossible, they give you the "you're an uncool nerd" look.

My first physics professor, when we were starting kinetics, gave us an initial test to see how much of reality we really understood. An example of a question was: If two identical balls traveling in perfect paralell rolled off of a table, one at 1 meter/second and the other at 2 meters/second, which one would hit the floor first? The correct answer, of course, was that they would still hit the floor at the same time, but what he wanted to know was if we actually visualized it that way, even if we didn't understand why. The point of the article is that movies are reinforcing false notions about how even simple things work.

[ROP_RIP]

People, though they say "yeah I know it's just fiction", still believe subconsciously that a vehicle traveling on a horizontal line (relative to the Earth) can gain altitude if the speed is high enough. I have seen this kind of thing in action in people, and when you try to explain why it is impossible, they give you the "you're an uncool nerd" look.

Uncool nerds are well known for pointing out minor inconsistencies in movies and popular entertainment. Suffice to say this is not a way to win friends.

The speed of the bus does in fact matter since the distance it falls depends on how long it takes to jump the gap. It is unlikely to gain altitude without wings and a tail, but if it is traveling quickly enough it won't fall very far either.

[rwilson99]

>>>You are missing the point.<<<

I understand their point. However their premise is flawed.

Star Wars depicted space ships traveling beyond light speed through asteroid belts. The generation of scientists inspired by Star Wars didn’t get confused... instead they managed to separate science fiction from what could potentially be science fact.

Honestly... would you want to send you kids to a school where the science professors determined that the typical student was too stupid to understand Physics 101.

Would we accept this logic from English teaches... students watching Scarface can’t possibly learn how to speak and properly?

What about history teachers...That Gladiator movie was so popular... we can’t never teach about Roman Civilization.

It’s largely a joke... defeatist and useless.