Friday, September 12, 2014

Physics in Entertainment

Watched the latest Entertainment movie of Akshay Kumar last week. So in one of the scenes, Akshay Kumar wants to kill the dog (named Entertainment) and Sonu Sood wants to kill Akshay Kumar. Akshay and Entertainment both are standing on thin ice. So Akshay throws a ball and directs Entertainment to fetch it. When the dog is running towards the ball, Akshay hits the thin crust of ice and the ice starts breaking perfectly following the dog. At the same time, Sonu breaks the ice which moves towards Akshay. This was interesting as the precision with which Akshay and Sonu control the direction of breaking of ice. So I did some research on how thin ice crust breaks.  The theory is quite complicated. Considering thin ice crust as an elastic plate, apply a force F on it and based on various stiffness properties and how the ice plate is that point, the direction of cleavage will be decided and then in which direction the cleavage will move will again depend on material property at every iteration. I was impressed with Akshay and Sonu both in terms of understanding the complicated Physics and actually applying to such a precision. Being some background in Mechanics of Crack, I have some appreciation of how crack works. You have all those residual energy and J integral type of things, but kudos the guys got it perfect.

Anyway, it's an interesting movie. The high points are reaction of Johny Lever, meanness in the eyes of Akshay and the ease with which Prakash Raj dissolves into any role. But the Physics beats me.

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