Journal Entry #2: The Core

The Core Poster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Core_poster.jpg

Summary of the movie

For an unknown reason the earth’s core has stopped spinning; as a result strange incidents are occurring, for example, birds acting crazy and people dying because pace makers stopped working. Dr. John Keyes discovers that the earth’s core has stopped spinning and brings it to the attention of the U.S. military. The military organizes a crew of six people (Ed Brazzelton, Serge Leveque, Dr. John Keyes, Rebecca Childs, Commander Robert Iverson, and Conrad Zimsky) with the mission to travel to the center of the earth and detonate nuclear explosions to make the core spin again. The vessel they travel is called Virgil and it is made of unobtanium; an element that becomes stronger as it undergoes extreme heat and pressure. Ed Brazzelton
discovered this material as well as created a laser that can drill through rock very quickly. During their journey to the core, they drill through a bubble that contains diamond like crystals (thought to be caused by the carbon and quartz in the mantle). 

The Crew of "Terranuats"

From L-R: Ed Brazzelton, Serge Leveque, Dr. John Keyes,

 Rebecca Childs, Commander Robert Iverson, and Conrad Zimsky

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n611/watch32/Photo/07/

TheCore2003-08.jpg

One of the crystal gets stuck in the drilling mechanism and Commander Robert Iverson goes out of the ship to make necessary repairs. Once the repairs are complete, a falling crystal hits him and pierces his skull, killing him. As they get out of the bubble with the crystals, one crystal pierces the last compartment causing it to disengage from the rest of the ship. In order to save the nuclear codes (which were in the last compartment) Serge Leveque, another scientist, sacrifices his life. When the Virgil reaches the outer core, the scientists realize that the density of the core is different from what they expected and that their nuclear bomb would not work because it was too weak. After some calculations, they realize that by splitting the bomb into parts and releasing them by splitting the ship into parts they would be able to start the core. In order to do this, a safety switch needs to be manually turned off, but whoever will do it will not be able to return because of the extreme heat (9000°F) near the switch. Ed Brazzelton volunteers and sacrifices his life to turn off the switch. On the surface, Donald Finch, the computer hacker, finds out about the top-secret project DESTINI. According to Conrad Zimsky, one of the scientist involved in the project, was designed as a weapon to use the earth’s core to create earthquakes and that experimentation with DESTINI may have caused the earth’s core to stop spinning. The US government plans to restart DESTINI if the Virgil fails. (If they start DESTINI again, there will be massive earthquakes everywhere on Earth and the crew would be killed). After finding out about the DESTINI project, Keyes gets Finch to stall the project. As they continue with the journey and get to the second last bomb, turbulence causes Zimsky to get stuck with the bomb and he ends up dying. For the last bomb, Dr. John realizes that he will need to add the main compartment’s nuclear rod to the last bomb in order for the ripple effect of the nuclear bombs to work. Adding the main nuclear rod means that there was no power left for him and Rebecca Childs to escape the core and get out alive, but since it was the only way to save the planet, Keyes adds the rod to the last bomb and deploys it. Before the bombs blast, Keyes manages to use the earth’s heat to power the remaining command section and manages to get them both out of the core before the bombs blow (which restarts the core) and through an underwater volcano into the bottom of the ocean. Finch manages to track them by using whale songs and Rebecca and Dr. John are rescued. One week later, Finch releases all the information about the Virgil and project DESTINI, ensuring that everyone who lost their lives saving the planet were not forgotten.

Pseudoscience in the movie

In this movie, many scientific terms and ideas are presented; however, there is a lot of pseudoscience in this movie. For example unobtanium is not a real element which gets stronger as the heat and pressure increases. In fact, unobtanium is a fake element used in many Hollywood sci-fi movies to suit the purpose of the movie (i.e. in Avatar it was a solution to earth’s energy crisis and worth over $20 million/kg).

Behind the scenes look at The Virgil
http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article
_image_large/articles/sci0403core_A.jpg

The “gem bubble” that the Virgil crashed landed in was also pseudoscience. This is because the pressure of the mantle is 3.5 million times the pressure at Earth’s surface; at this pressure it is impossible for a cavity/empty space to form in the Earth’s mantle. The amethyst crystals portrayed in the gem bubble were also impossible because mantle rock doesn’t have the mineral quartz which is required to make the crystal in the first place. The scene with Brazzelton walking in core fluid with a temperature of 9000°F to turn of the switch was one of the most impossible things shown. His suit was built to withstand only about 4500°F, which meant that he was subject to 4500°F unprotected. The effects of that temperature and pressure would have destroyed the human body immediately.

The microwaves that melted and destroyed the bridge is impossible because most of the radiation from the sun comes in the form of visible light with little microwave radiation, definitely not enough to melt metal. In fact, the Earth’s magnetic field doesn’t even affect the incoming microwave radiation! 

There is a lot more pseudoscience presented in this movie, but this list is already big enough.

The melting bridge
http://media.disastermovieworld.com/2010/01/corebridge480.jpg

Thoughts about the movie

My thoughts about this movie were that it is very unrealistic and impossible. Many things were scientifically inaccurate which makes it difficult to believe what is being shown. Once you get to the middle of the movie, you begin to think that it is not worth watching the rest of the movie since you have seen most of the pseudoscience by then. Also, you know that since this is a Hollywood movie, the characters are going to succeed in restarting the core and it will be a happy ending.

For someone who is not very science literate, it may be a good movie because the ideas presented in the movie show creativity and the actors do a good job of playing their parts. However, it is only good if you can actually believe that the pseudoscience is somewhat close to possible, otherwise it takes away from the movie.

Information regarding pseudoscience in the movie was gathered from: http://geolor.com/The_Core_Movie-Facts_and_Fiction.htm