Mission Impossible III: Is it Possible?
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to analyze three scenes from the movie, Mission Impossible III. To do this, you must read this blog, and interpret whether or not the scenes follow the laws of physics.
Scene 1: The jump between buildings in Shanghai.
Analysis: The question that we are trying to answer here is whether or not Ethan Hunt could have actually made that jump between the two buildings in Shanghai. In order to determine the plausibility of the jump, we need to find out the height of both of the buildings, as well as the distance in between. When watching the scene, they give us everything that we would need to know, such as the height of the first building (226 meters), the height of the second building (165 meters) and the distance in between (47.5 meters). The angle at which he starts is 0 degrees, since the roof on which he is starting on is flat, and thanks to the technology and which we watched the movie, we can see that he completes the swing in about 28 seconds. It is indeterminable whether or not that this swing could be completed in real life, because we are still missing some variables.
Scene 2: The run through Shanghai
Analysis: During the movie, Ethan has to run to a location in Shanghai to rescue his wife. He has to run around a mile (or 1.61 kilometers). Thanks again to the technology with which we watched the movie on, it is found out that he runs this mile in a minute and 12 seconds. Let's compare that to the world record time for the mile, which is 3 minutes and 43 seconds. The movie is really trying to convince us that Ethan Hunt not only is faster than the world record holder for the mile, but is faster than him by a good two-and-a-half minutes.
Scene 3: The climb up the wall in Rome
Analysis: One scene that takes place in Rome has us see Ethan Hunt run up the wall to get into the Vatican. He shoots something onto the security camera to disable it, so that he can run up the wall to disguise himself. He manages to run up the wall in 6 seconds, and thanks to the internet, we can find out that the wall surrounding the Vatican is 11.9 meters. He would have to be running really fast in order to actually make it up the 11.9 meter wall in 6 seconds.
OVERALL GRADE: PGP-13
Better late than never. Couple things - we showed in class that the pendulum swing between buildings is possible, other than the injuries he would have sustained. And as for your last point, running at 2 m/s is actually pretty slow. Now, you might say he was running almost straight up, but remember, he had a mini winch pulling him along.
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