The Helicarrier: When Movies Ignore Natural Law

Episode 22 September 26, 2023 01:11:28
The Helicarrier: When Movies Ignore Natural Law
Big Compute
The Helicarrier: When Movies Ignore Natural Law

Sep 26 2023 | 01:11:28

/

Show Notes

We’ve all been there – Sitting inside a movie theater, fully engrossed in the film, when suddenly something happens on screen that is so far-fetched that we suddenly remember we’re sitting in a theater seat. This is the experience Rescale’s Edward Hsu had back in 2012 when he was watching the movie, The Avengers. As an aviation enthusiast, everything was well and good until he saw the epic sea structure called the Helicarrier take to the skies, and it was blatantly clear to him that the incredible piece of high budget visual effects would probably – in fact – kill its own jet pilots.  And while it was just a movie, the scene lingered in Edward’s mind for years, until the day Sandeep Urankar – an engineer with a knack for computational investigations – was able to run simulations to prove if Edward’s hypothesis was true, and consequently fueling the question – how accurate should big budget movies really be when it comes to natural law?

Other Episodes

Episode 21

July 06, 2023 01:13:19
Episode Cover

A Better Life: The Case for Cloud

With high performance cloud computing usage expanding quickly in research & development, there are still some organizations who hesitate to dip a toe. In...

Listen

Episode 0

April 25, 2019 00:41:32
Episode Cover

Quantum Computing

Gabriel Broner hosts Steve Reinhardt to discuss Quantum Computing. Listen to the conversation covering what are quantum computers, what problems can be solved orders...

Listen

Episode 17

December 21, 2021 00:55:10
Episode Cover

How to Tell Your Family About HPC

For those working with high performance computing in any capacity, sometimes talking about it with your family can be a little… confusing.  And with...

Listen