Portside

Hello people in media – mostly I am aiming at television shows, but this might apply to many different areas. So, I hear you are putting together a show with SCIENCE for people who like SCIENCE. That sounds great. Let me give you a little hand.

First, a preemptive statement. Yes, I have worked with some shows before and yes I also try to explain things at a level that a general audience can understand. I know that this is always a tough thing to do. You can’t always give a full explanation of some phenomena, but you also don’t want to just say it’s magic. There are always constraints as well. You might need to write something without any equations or maybe in just one paragraph. Perhaps you only have 30 seconds in a show to give an explanation. Yes, it’s tough.

There is also a conflict of sorts. The goals of the media people might be a little different than the goals of a science person (promoting science vs. promoting entertainment). However, I think with a few guidelines we can all get along. Here are some of my tips for creating explanations. They are just tips because you don’t have to follow them. If you look carefully, you will probably find that I have violated each of these suggestions at some point.

Don’t Be Wrong

It’s really difficult to be completely correct in a short amount of time. However, you can clearly be wrong. Here is an example. Suppose there is a motorcycle driving inside a vertical circular wall (like the wall of death). Of course you want to create a graphic to explain why it doesn’t fall down. Suppose you have something like this:

A similar diagram may or may not have been seen in a science show.

This would not be a great choice of diagrams. It doesn’t give a good explanation and it is in fact wrong as well as misleading. What are those arrows pointing towards the wall? If you don’t know, I don’t know either. Friction is indeed important, but this seems to indicate that friction is some type of area. Oh, one more thing. Technically, the bike has to lean up a little bit in order to stay on the wall.

It’s Better to Say Nothing Than to Be Wrong

Let’s go back to the motorcycle on the wall of death. Yes, it is a super cool thing. Yes, it is also quite complicated to give a complete explanation. However, do you actually have to say anything? No. The universe is interesting enough on its own without our explanations. It’s like an art gallery. Do you have to have some background and narrative to go along with each piece of art? Not really. Just enjoy it for what it is.

Making a useful explanation for some of these events is quite difficult. Even the MythBusters get things wrong. Here is an older post looking at some of their older errors.

Don’t Be Misleading

Let’s look at another completely made up example. Suppose you take a fire extinguisher and fire it to propel you forward on a skate board. In order to explain this, you create a diagram that looks something like this:

Another diagram that might be based off a real science show. I said “might”.

What’s wrong with this? First, there are two arrows that are used for two different things. This sort of implies that both “motion” and “CO2″ are both objects. But “motion” isn’t actually an object. Oh, maybe they are both supposed to be forces. I guess you could say that the escaping CO2 exerts a force, but that arrow is in the wrong direction. Also, if you say these are forces, then is motion a force?

You might be able to successfully argue that this diagram isn’t wrong – but the average human being will interpret this as something that you did not intend (unless you actually think motion is a force).

This reminds me that I should create a nice explanation for why this fire extinguisher type rocket would work.

Focusing on Comparisons and Numbers

This is usually what producers of shows want.  Here is some crazy event.  Maybe it goes something like this:

“We have this video of a guy getting punched by a Ninja Shaolin Monk Robot.  What value would we put on this force?  Or better yet, if this person was hit by a 57 Chevy how fast would the Chevy have to drive?”

I understand why you would want something like this.  If you could say that the Robot Monk punches with 5,000 POUNDS OF FORCE, that would look very nice.  Unfortunately, you really can’t make these types of calculations.  Also, you can’t compare collisions between two different things.  I will avoid all the details, but I talked about comparing collisions before.

The point is that just because you would like a nice number to represent some event doesn’t mean that is the best thing to do.  Maybe it isn’t even possible.

Don’t Get Out of Control Crazy

I don’t see this mistake too often, but it can happen. What if you have a show that looks at a motorcycle on the wall of death (same as above)? Now, you want to do something with the leaning of the motorcycle so you calculate the the torque on the bike like this:

That’s probably not going to be too useful (yes, this was from my blog post on the same subject). Even if that is a correct expression, it’s not so simple that someone could understand it by just glancing at it. Oh, maybe you want to just put it there as a code word for “science”? Yes, that’s fine. However, you also have a code word for “science is very difficult” (which it is) and maybe you scared some people away. I suspect that was not the original intention of the show.

What Is a Science Adviser Worth?

If you have a science adviser for your cool new show, that person might be able to avoid some of these mistakes. Oh, you don’t have a science adviser? Maybe you should get one.

It seems that the common mode for shows is to just ask for free advise from experts. I understand that there are many people out there that both know what they are talking about and are willing to help for free. However, don’t you think they might be worth more than zero dollars and zero cents for their contribution?

If your show pays for food catering but not for a science adviser, that seems a little odd to me.

You can think of paying a science adviser as a form of internet protection. Without this protection, you might get bullied by some science blog for your mistakes. Not saying I would ever do this, I’m just saying the internet is a dangerous place.

Rhett at Dot Physics departed ScienceBlogs before National Geographic fully took over, but still managed to connect with their book division for a physics text. This is part of a series they’re doing tied in with the folks from Rovio, makers of the world’s most popular smart-phone time-waster, and, as the title suggests, it uses Angry Birds as a jumping-off point to talk about physics. Rhett was, of course, an obvious choice for this, given the amount of time he’s spent doing video analysis of Angry Birds to extract the underlying physics.

This is a book that can’t really be reviewed just as text, because images are pretty integral to the whole thing. Here’s a screenshot of a fairly representative page:

Spread from Angry Birds, Furious Forces

This is indicative of the format: a page of text, and a big splashy image, often with Angry Birds characters added digitally. The text is very characteristically Rhett– this might be the most blog-like book I’ve ever read, and that’s a good thing. The approach to physics is very much in the Matter and Interactions sort of terms he uses, and the text features lots of little asides in his usual style.

I was a little surprised to find that this covers more than just the physics that’s in the game. In fact, it’s a quick survey of all of physics, from basic mechanics up through the Standard Model. As a result, the connection to the game gets a little strained at points, but then, it would be hard to do a whole book with just mechanics without getting into the math. And while there are occasional equations included as design elements, this is not a mathematical treatment.

So, what’s the target audience for this? Well, the day my review copy arrived, it was lying on my desk when SteelyKid came bopping in. “What’s this?” she asked, noticing the eye-catching cover (reproduced as the “featured image” above”).”

“It’s a book about Angry Birds, and science,” I told her.

“Hey!” she said, “I like science! And I like Angry Birds! I should read this!”

So, to the design folks at National Geographic books: Well done.

I’ve long maintained that Dot Physics is one of the best blogs around, and this carries that basic flavor over into book form. It’s not something that will help you get a 5 on the Physics AP exam, but it should appeal to anyone who enjoys, say, the Basher book on Physics. Plus fans of Angry Birds. And there’s a lot to be said for catching potential science fans young.