Rolling the Black PearlOver: Analyzing the Physics of a Movie Clip

• Autores: Carl E. Mungan, John D. Emery
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 49, Nº. 5, 2011, págs. 266-271
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In the third movie (�At Worlds End�) in the Pirates of the Caribbeanseries, Jack Sparrow and his crew need to roll their ship (the Black Pearl) over in order to bring it back to the living world during a green flash at sunset. They do so by running back and forth from one side railing to the other on the top deck. In addition, Captain Barbossa orders that 18 cannons and a pile of barrels on the lower deck be cut loose to add mass to the running crew. In the movie they overturned the ship, but would they succeed under the same circumstances on a real galleon? In this paper, a numerical analysis using simple approximations is developed that suggests that what occurs in the movie is in fact realistic. Analyzing a popular film clip in this manner is a good way to arouse student interest, to teach about physics and numerical methods, and to model scientific reasoning when a situation is not as neatly defined as in a typical textbook problem.