The example of a force that will be discussed in the paper comes from the movie “A Wrinkle in Time” produced in 2018. The movie genre is a mix of science fiction and fantasy, with numerous scenes employing scientific concepts. The scene selected from the movie shows the main characters soaring through the sky on a flying creature but one of the characters loses his balance and falls. The boy is saved by a swarm of sentient flowers that slow his fall gradually until bringing him on the ground completely safe (DuVernay, 2018).
In the law of gravity, a free-falling object’s velocity increases as it gets nearer to the surface. The reason behind this increase in velocity is that the gravitational pull gets stronger and the force or resistance of the object is zero while in the air. So when this object reaches the surface then the force with it will hit the surface will be proportional to the force generated by the gravitational pull. The heavier the falling object the more damage it will sustain upon hitting the ground. For instance; suppose two objects are falling from the building one is a wooden box and the other is a feather. The surface area of the box is bigger thus the gravitational pull will be greater as opposed to the feather. The box will shatter upon contact with the surface but a feather will not sustain any damage. Similarly, the bones in a free-falling human body will also shatter on impact. To slow down a body if force equal to but opposite in direction to gravitational pull is applied then again the bones in the body will shatter from the impact of the force. So to safely slow down a free-falling body small amount of force in the opposite direction of the gravitational pull is needed to be applied. This will not only decrease the velocity of the object but also increase the time of the fall until it hits the surface. By the time the body reaches the surface, it will have slowed down significantly to either receive less damage or none at all (2.7, 2015). In many movies, the scene where a falling human is being saved is shot inaccurately but in “A wrinkle in time” this scene is shot accurately from the point of view of physics.
References
2.7: Falling Objects. (2015, November 1). Physics LibreTexts. https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/College_Physics/Book%3A_College_Physics_(OpenStax)/02%3A_Kinematics/2.07%3A_Falling_Objects
DuVernay, A. (2018). A Wrinkle in Time [Sci-fi, Fantasy]. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. https://movies.disney.com/a-wrinkle-in-time
