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Ask Ethan: does the climax of the movie ‘Gravity’ violate simple physics? (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]
“You’ve got to learn to let go.” -Matt Kowalski, Gravity
Objects in motion remain in constant motion unless acted upon by an outside force. That’s Newton’s 1st law of motion, and that’s why you’d expect an orbiting satellite and two astronauts orbiting with it to have absolutely no relative forces.
Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures / Alfonso Cuarón, of the poster for the movie Gravity.
Yet if you watched the movie Gravity, you saw that the two astronauts, Stone and Kowalski, definitely experienced forces relative to the International Space Station when they were hanging onto it by a tether. Is this a violation of the laws of physics? Analysis shows that adding a small but simple rotation to the ISS could have caused exactly the effects shown in the movie, which is a perfect — if retconned — explanation for what you saw.
Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures / Alfonso Cuarón, from the movie Gravity.
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2016/04/02/ask-ethan-does-the-climax-of-the-movie-gravity-violate-simple-physics-synopsis/
