artificial gravity

Heeding a suggestion from one of our readers, let's follow up on our discussion of artificial gravity. As we described last week, although the film Armageddon attempts to portray artificial gravity aboard a rotating space station, it does not take into account the fact that unless the radius of the station is very large compared to the height of a person, anyone on board will feel significantly different forces acting along the length of their bodies. The result: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, disorientation, and nothing similar to the sense of gravity as we experience it on Earth.

There are certain movies that wreak such havoc with the laws of the universe as we know them that, despite the risk of irate readers who only want to enjoy the fantasy, and despite the fact that they may not care about accurate science (after all "we all know it's just a movie), we have to deconstruct them anyway as a public service. Now Armageddon (along with The Core and The Day After Tomorrow) forms part of a "trifecta" of bad movie physics, and, although it's not a new release, it epitomizes its genre.