1. Movies Vs. The Law of Conservation of Mass
- Matter cannot be created or destroyed, but can be changed from one form to another
- Changes in volume of objects is only possible through increase of mass, the quantity of matter
- In various films, changes in size and volume is possible, but often lack explanation that does not violate conservation of mass
- Short description of premise and fictional universe: MAGIC! But still, the science?
- Prof. Minerva McGonagall, on her first day of instruction, transforms from a cat to her human form
- Change in mass (along with biology and chemistry)
3. Transformers (2007 film)
- Describe the film's robot characters.
- Most were giant robots who transform into machines (mostly cars and other vehicles)
- Describe comparisons of mass of the robots against the mass of their disguise
- Antagonist robot Frenzy: loses its body, and its living head shrunk and transformed into a Nokia 8800 phone
- Later gets his body back by the Allspark cube, creating new matter from unknown source
- The Allspark cube itself shrinks from several yards in height, length and width, to a size (and weight) carried in a human's hands.
- Discuss possible magical properties
4. Marvel Cinematic Universe
- Brief description of fictional super heroes and the characters, Captain America, the Hulk, and Ant-Man, and their application of muscle change
- Captain America has more muscle mass than real world body builders much bigger than himself
- Discuss his feats of superhuman strength
- Discuss possibility/plausibility of compressed muscle mass
- Bruce Banner (AKA the Hulk) can change from average human to giant hulking behemoth
- As the Hulk, his muscle gain comes from no where (maybe from his anger?)
- As Banner, his giant super muscles apparently disappear, but he should still have them in a human-sized shrunken state. Where does his strength go?
- Ant-Man: the worst offender of them all
- Shrinks and grows in size by changing distance between atoms
- No evident change of mass, but explicitly changes volume, weight and density
- Shrunk to below size of an atom
- Many other objects maintain mass, but change in size, volume and density: ant, toy, tank
- Discuss the realistic impossibility or consequences of such changes in size without the matching changes in weight and density
- In fiction, there is science, fantasy, knowing which is which, and what happens when they meet.
- Sometimes entire universes are a fantasy and follow different rules, and other times, it's magic disguised as science for the untrained eye, or confused as science for the untrained writer.
- How far can writers change sizes and mass and convince their audience that it's still science?
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