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20 Blockbuster Movies That Got Their Science Totally Wrong

Pardon us for pulling a Neil deGrasse Tyson.

20 Blockbuster Movies That Got Their Science Totally Wrong

September 25, 2020

Hollywood is notorious for trying to pull fast ones on the public. Fortunately, we live in the internet age, so anyone can investigate the nonsensical version of science that movies posit. Pardon us for pulling a Neil deGrasse Tyson, but in our continuing effort to cleanse the world of the lies Hollywood likes to propagate, we'd like debunk some of the worst offenders.

20

No human could survive Shawshank Redemption's sewage pipe crawl. Ammonia would sting Andy's eyes to the point of blindness, and methane would kill him — Source: Reuters

19

In Die Another Day, Bond tricks a scanner with a severed hand. But biometic scans don't just read your palm print, a very inexact ID method. They chec — Source: FBI

18

If a you shrink 10,000 times smaller, air molecules won't shrink too. Oxygen and water you ingest to survive remains the same size. An air or water mo — Source: National Center for Biotechnology Information

17

Superman can't lift a continent or the Moon, no matter how strong he is. We're not questioning super strength. But he's still just the size of a man, — Source: MIT

16

In invisible man movies, invisibility gives you a big edge when fighting. But if you are truly invisible, you'll also be blind. Sight works through wa — Source: MIT

15

Ocean’s Eleven

Ocean's Eleven gives us an EMP that wipes out all lights on a Vegas block. Any real electromagnetic pulse would radiate beyond the movie's tiny area o — Source: Washington Dept of Health

14

Pacific Rim detonates a nuclear reactor to destroy a portal. We don't care about the magic portal-we're fine with that. But nuclear reactors can't det — Source: MIT

13

Martian Storms

The Martian has 60 mph storms. Sounds super dangerous, right? On Earth, sure. But on Mars, the atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense, so those same fa — Source: NASA

12

In Waterworid, melted ice caps have covered all land with water. If the ice caps melt totally, that'll mean sea levels will rise 216 feet. We'll lose — Source: USGS

11

In Gravity, orbiting debris destroys the space station and comm satellites. But the space station is in low-Earth orbit, with an altitude of just 350 — Source: NASA

10

Armageddon gives the dino-killing asteroid the force of 000 nukes. The real asteroid strike they're talking about (the Chicxulub impact) had the ene — Source: Lunar and Planetary Institute

9

In Panic Room, Jodie Foster lights propane then lies flat as It burns over her. Don't try that in real life. Propane happens to be heavier than air (a — Source: Department of Energy

8

The Lost World

The Lost World's Tembo says, predators don't hunt when they're not hungry. We guess he never met cats of any kind. Or dogs. Or bears, weasels, or ho — Source: NY Times

7

The Core has stopped rotating, leaving no magnetic field to shield us! Leaving aside how preposterous the basic idea is, Earth's magnetic field doesn' — Source: NASA

6

In Dante's Peak, they drive their truck over slightly cooled lava. Lava like that would still be around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is slightly ho — Source: USGS

5

Sharks and Cancer

The entire premise of Deep Blue Sea is sharks don't get cancer. But they do. The myth of sharks not getting cancer spread in part due to a 1992 book c — Source: Scientific American

4

It looks like the neutrinos coming from the Sun have mutated, sAyS 2012. They're heating up the Earth's core. They certainly act like microwaves. — Source: Scientific American

3

The Rock introduces Us to VX gas, a deadly bright green nerve agent. As the film's writer David Weisber later put it, Unfortunately, chemical — Source: The Guardian

2

Fight Club offers a choice: wash away caustic lye with water or vinegar. Water will make it worse, while vinegar will neutralize the burn. Guess T — Source: Northeastern University

1

Sunshine says the Sun is running out of hydrogen, SO Earth faces an ice age The Sun really will use up its fuel one day, but that won't cool it. First — Source: NASA

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