Eraser

Eraser

       In the movie Eraser staring Arnold Schwarzenegger, there are some unrealistic physics that are going on within some of the scenes where people are shooting railguns. While railguns are a cool idea and can be created there is no possible way for them to work in the way that they did within the movie. If I were to rate this movie I would rate it RP for retch physics because, most of the movie seems to be a compilation of people firing a railgun while being unaffected.

       The Scene that I will be analyzing is a scene from the end of the movie where Arnold is carrying two railguns, one under each arm and sending people flying as they are being hit by the shot from one of the railguns.

          In this scene after Arnold has taken out the first two bad guys, he takes the railguns and begins to fire upon the people waiting outside for him. As Arnold is shooting his newly acquired railguns, he seems to not be affected at all by any sort of recoil while all of the people that he has hit go flying. This scene is not physically correct at all when you look at the law of conservation of momentum. However it is true that a person would be sent flying if the were hit by a railgun due to the momentum of the shot being transferred to that persons body. The part that defies physics is that Arnold is not shot backwards after firing his guns once. When you use a lot of force to shoot an object in one direction you receive that same amount of force in the opposite direction due to collision. The recoil of the railgun is the conservation of momentum in the opposite direction of the round fired. Taking this into account, when Arnold fires his railgun he would be sent flying just like the person he shot. 

In reality if you were to be hit by a railgun it would probably destroy your body and nothing but chunks would be sent flying and the same could be said about the person who fired it but that would be to gruesome to put into a movie. Another problem is that you would need a lot of energy to fire the railguns and the battery packs that they are carrying could not possibly provide enough energy to fire the small aluminum rounds that the movie says that the gun fires.


Comments

  1. Prof. Chris FragileSeptember 26, 2019 at 10:21 AM

    This is a pretty good post and hits the major points. Be sure not to confuse physics principles, though. For instance, don't confuse force with momentum. They are related, but THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. There is no law of conservation of force, though there is Newton's 3rd Law.

    About the battery powering the gun, it's important to point out that it shoots the rounds at close to the speed of light. A battery pack might be enough if it were to fire the bullets at a more realistic speed (this is just an application of conservation of energy).

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