Pirate Physics

I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean yesterday in 3D yesterday and it was a really great film for many reasons:

1. Good plot, great characters, a few laughs and plenty of action - what more could you ask for!

2. There was a part where Captain Jack Sparrow is climbing up a tree that he is tied to and my Mum was like 'that's not possible, he can't do that!' and my first response was 'of course he can, he's amazing!'. And then I started to think of it as a free body diagram and this is what I came up with (Sorry for my awful drawing! Googling 'Captain Jack Sparrow tree' didn't work!)

I think it worked because the force he exerted through his feet was enough to overcome his weight and create a resultant upwards force when he converted it to a vertical force by straightening his legs.

3. It had Johnny Depp in it! And it was even better by not having Orlando Bloom as a distraction!

4. It was in 3D, which was great even if it left me a little dizzy after! So it made me wonder how this new 3D technology works and how it is different to the old ones. Both methods use the fact that we have something called 'binocular vision' which means that we see two separate images and then our brains put the two images together. They both use this fact to create the three dimension effect. In the old glasses only red light is allowed through one lense and only blue/green light is allowed through the other. In the new glasses only light of one direction is allowed through one lense and a different direction is allowed through the other lense. Both of these glasses trick our mind into thinking there are 3 dimensions by giving each eye a slightly different image. I'm not sure what the benefits of the new methods are exactly but it definitely allows better colour presentation.