Costas Efthimiou Archives | �鶹ԭ�� News

�鶹ԭ�� Physics Professor: Yes, The Rock’s ‘Skyscraper’ Jump is Possible

Heather Smith — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 10:34:53 +0000

In the soon-to-be-released film Skyscraper, a war veteran with a prosthetic leg sprints across the arm of a construction crane, launching himself in a seemingly insane jump toward the broken, open window of an adjacent building. The building is ablaze, and his family is trapped in a 240-floor building, above the fire line.

“Most scenes and many entire movies defy the laws of the current universe. In this case, the movie’s director was either lucky or had done his homework.”

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays the hero in the epic leap, and his movie Skyscraper already has the internet talking. After the release of earlier this year, skeptics immediately began to question the jump’s feasibility and had everyone asking: Is this humanly possible?

�鶹ԭ�� Physics Professor Costas Efthimiou had the same question — along with strong initial doubts. Efthimiou teaches a popular class, Physics and Film, in which he examines science at work in science fiction, thriller and superhero movies. His classes have included studies of well-known scenes from flicks such as Armageddon, X-Men and Black Panther.

Running the Calculations

When Efthimiou sat down to carry out the calculations from Skyscraper, he was surprised to see the laws of physics do, in fact, allow a window of opportunity.

A jump like the one in Skyscraper requires a very specific combination of horizontal and vertical speeds, says Efthimiou, whose work on the topic is published in Physics Education. “Most scenes and many entire movies defy the laws of the current universe. In this case, the movie’s director was either lucky or had done his homework,” Efthimiou says.

“Given the character’s peak physical conditioning, professional discipline, mental strength, personal motivation and determination, the laws of physics assert that he has a real shot at making this jump.”

Efthimiou estimated the crane in the movie to be roughly 20 meters in length, enough distance for a person to reach a horizontal speed of 9 meters per second, or approximately 20 miles per hour, before leaving the platform. Efthimiou found that if vertical speed reaches between 3.667 meters per second and 5.467 meters per second, which implies that the peak elevation is achieved between 0.686 meters and 1.525 meters above the crane, the jump is humanly possible.

Efthimiou asserts that the horizontal and vertical speeds needed for the jump would be comparable to a professional sprinter and a professional basketball player, respectively.

“There are a number of factors working against our protagonist in this scenario: his age, psychological stress, not having proper running shoes, not having past training for this particular jump, to name a few,” says Efthimiou. “However, given the character’s peak physical conditioning, professional discipline, mental strength, personal motivation and determination, the laws of physics assert that he has a real shot at making this jump.”

Reviewing the Formulas

Efthimiou intends to be among the first to watch Skyscraper following its July 13 release, and he plans to review his formulas once additional footage becomes available. He’ll include the Skyscraper study in his fall classes.

“People feel excited when they can explain what they see,” says Efthimiou. “However, when I teach my students physics I always tell them that science is objective and should not allow their feelings to dominate over reason. They must scientifically verify any claim.”

Is a Metal like Vibranium Possible? What We Can Learn from Black Panther

Robert Stephens — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 14:00:13 +0000

It’s a superhero movie. So during opening week of Black Panther, moviegoers entered theaters for reasons more predictable than the plot. To turn off the cellphones and turn on the imagination. To escape work, school, and routines. To enter a bubble of wonder. When the film was over, the crowds walked out with a question that privately lingers every time we exit a fantasy: is it … possible?

Sourced from a meteorite that landed in Wakanda many centuries ago, Vibranium provides the superpower in the main character’s suit, absorbing energy and redistributing it.

The drone used for transportation in Black Panther? Sure, it’s possible. The flowers that are said to take on unusual properties while basically growing in a cave? Perhaps. But what about Vibranium, the fictional metal used in Captain America’s shield that hails from Wakanda, the fictional African nation at the heart of Black Panther?

Sourced from a meteorite that landed in Wakanda many centuries ago, Vibranium provides the superpower in the main character’s suit, absorbing energy and redistributing it — a nice feature when it’s time to fight the bad guys who want to steal the precious metal.

But how far-fetched is this Vibranium?

“I’d never heard of Vibranium until I was asked to do this interview,” says �鶹ԭ�� Professor of Engineering Surya Challapalli, who has studied metals for 50 years. “We didn’t have Marvel comic books when I was growing up in India. But when I researched Vibranium this week, I thought, ‘Hmm, it is actually similar to utopium.’ ”

Utopium is yet another fictional metal. Challapalli himself dreamed up the concept more than a decade ago. He first introduced it to a �鶹ԭ�� class as a way to inspire creative and critical thinking. Utopium (named for the perfect world of Utopia) would be strong, light, stiff, corrosion-free, and able to withstand fracturing and high temperatures. It would be Vibranium-ish, only much more accessible and much less expensive.

“The challenge is to determine how its conflicting properties could work together, like high strength and ductility [fracture resistance],” says Challapalli. “I would say it’s possible that someday there could be something like utopium. Not anytime soon, but who knows about the future?”

Challapalli points to recent advances in metallurgy and materials science, unrealistic concepts a few decades ago that are now reality. Things like nanotechnology and metallic glasses and quasicrystals and Kevlar and graphene.

“Some people many years ago figured out how to make steel stronger through ‘quenching,’ where it’s heated and quickly cooled,” says Challapalli. “I So maybe someone could figure out a roadmap for [vibranium]. However, it would not be naturally-occurring.”

“It’s amazing to think that nanotechnology and Kevlar are now considered commonplace,” Challapalli says. The key to making them happen? Not archaeology or rocks from outer space. It is all about ingenuity.

“Think about it. Some people many years ago figured out how to make steel stronger through ‘quenching,’ where it’s heated and quickly cooled. So maybe someone could figure out a roadmap for utopium. Unlike Vibranium in the movie, however, it would not be naturally-occurring.”

That’s one of the issues Costas Efthimiou, �鶹ԭ�� associate professor of physics, has with Black Panther. Efthimiou created a class at �鶹ԭ�� in 2002 called Physics and Film. It became one of the most popular physics classes on campus because of the critical application of science and movies. Students showed up and paid attention.

“The movie writers would not have passed my class,” jokes Efthimiou, who watched a pre-screening of Black Panther with his 11-year-old son (he liked the movie). “I do not go to movies to say ‘Aha! I’ve got you!’ And I understand artistic freedom and fantasy. But I do think the science could have been closer to reality without changing the story.”

Like Challapalli, Efthimiou says for the sake of a little authenticity Vibranium should not be a written as a pure metal derived from an enormous meteorite.

“For one, at that size it would have obliterated the area around the crash point and have created global devastation on Earth for a long, long time. If it had to be a meteorite, though, it should have been composed of a new alloy, based on the known elements, or a mix of alloys in the meteorite with a variety of properties. Wakadians could reproduce them and stay undetected — almost. No advance in technology goes completely unnoticed from the rest of the world.”

His critique of Black Panther reminds Efthimiou of why he uses movies in his physical science classes. “It’s a great way to help students think their way through the believable and unbelievable.”

That, according to Efthimiou, is what so many people misunderstand about science. It is not static or boring. It stretches our minds. It’s what allows the unbelievable to become the believable. Through research, experimentation, and reality.

“In science, unless we do not think of something unimaginable,” says Challapalli, “we will not pursue something better. Culturally, we move from one mystery to another. That’s how our imaginations work and that’s how science works, too.”

So maybe not Vibranium. But maybe utopium? We can imagine.

�鶹ԭ�� Celebrates the Arts to Experience ‘The Warped Side of the Universe’

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 14:56:41 +0000

An out-of-this-world collaboration of music, science and visual effects will fuse when the story creator and artists of the science fiction film Interstellar will present a star-studded event with �鶹ԭ�� musicians April 9 at the �鶹ԭ�� Celebrates the Arts festival.

The multimedia performance, The Warped Side of the Universe, will feature composer and multi-Grammy winner Hans Zimmer, theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, and visual-effects artist and multi-Academy Award winner Paul Franklin as they weave phenomena into their show from space and time, such as supernova explosions and recently discovered gravitational waves that reach Earth. The evening will be experienced through music, video simulations, poetry and prose.

Joining in the performance at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts will be the musicians now on tour with Zimmer in Europe and a �鶹ԭ�� string quartet. This is the first time Zimmer, Thorne and Franklin have come together to present this production.

“Many artists are motivated by science,” said Costas Efthimiou, a �鶹ԭ�� associate professor of physics who knows Thorne and was instrumental in asking him to be a part of the April 8-16 festival. “I tried to think of a topic that would allow us to create an event in which both sides – scientist and artists – could be part of.”

Thorne, science advisor for Interstellar, is a professor emeritus at California Institute of Technology, and is known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. The �鶹ԭ�� performance is built on his friendship with Zimmer and Franklin, and their collaboration on director Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster movie starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine.

“I hope that the movie Interstellar inspires viewers to appreciate the beauty and power of science, and stimulates them to go learn more about this marvelous universe in which we live,” said Thorne, who hopes one day to view Earth from space.

Zimmer, who will conduct the music for The Warped Side of the Universe, is one of the most successful film composers of all time. He has also created the music for more than 150 films, including The Lion King, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Gladiator, Rain Main, The Last Emperor, Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and Driving Miss Daisy.

Zimmer, who used to visit the planetarium as a child to watch the stars and listen to music, has assembled a touring band that shares his love of science and discovery, such as songwriter and guitarist Michael Einziger of the band Incubus, who studied the history of science at Harvard, and violinist Ann Marie Simpson, who has taught college conceptual physics and chemistry and has performed with Mick Jagger, Pharrell Williams and Ringo Starr.

Franklin, who has created visual effects for more 30 films – including Inception and Interstellar, both of which brought him Academy Awards – will help bridge science and music at the �鶹ԭ�� Celebrates the Arts performance.

Also on stage will be a quartet comprised of one �鶹ԭ�� graduate student and three faculty members, including Chung Park, �鶹ԭ�� director of orchestras.

Park said �鶹ԭ�� is just the place to present this kind of exploratory performance combining STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and the arts.

“This is exactly the kind of place it could work well. If it’s going to work anywhere, it’s going to work here,” he said. “Everyone is so STEM, STEM, STEM these days, but at �鶹ԭ�� we know we need to add some art to that.”

Park will play viola for the evening, along with faculty members Ayako Yonetani on violin and Laurel Stanton on cello, and graduate student Iryna Usova on second violin.

The Warped Side of the Universe will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 9, as one of the many events presented at �鶹ԭ�� Celebrates the Arts, which is all free and open to the public. Tickets are required for all performances, but no more advance tickets are available for this show. Anyone hoping to obtain tickets for this performance should register for a hall pass and wait in line before the performance. Seats not claimed by ticketholders 10 minutes before the show may become available at the discretion of the floor manager.

More than 1,000 university students, 100 faculty members and some collaborative programs with outside partners will showcase theatre, dance, orchestra, choirs, big band, chamber music, cabaret, concert bands, opera, visual arts, studio art, gaming, animation, photography and film.

This is part of a series of stories about the April 8-16 events at �鶹ԭ�� Celebrates the Arts 2016. All events are free, but tickets are required for performances and entrance into the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia Ave., Orlando. Ticketing and full schedule details are posted at .

�鶹ԭ�� Student Earns Goldwater Scholarship

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:00:35 +0000

A student at the �鶹ԭ�� has been awarded a prestigious scholarship that will help fund his education as he works toward a career in science and math.

Christopher Frye, a student in the Burnett Honors College, has been named a 2012 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar.

Frye is a double-major in Physics and Mathematics. Since Fall 2010 he has performed independent research in theoretical physics under the supervision of Costas Efthimiou, an associate professor of Physics.

This summer Frye will travel to Switzerland to participate in a Research Experience for Undergraduates at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

He hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics with a specialization in high-energy theory, conduct research in string theory and eventually teach at the university level.

The Goldwater Scholarship was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, who served the United States for 56 years as a soldier and statesman. The scholarship awards undergraduate college students who have been nominated by their college or university and who intend to pursue careers in science, math and engineering.

Each scholarship covers tuition, fees, books and room and board for up to $7,500 annually.

To learn more about the Goldwater Scholarship, visit .

At �鶹ԭ��, the Office of Prestigious Awards aids students throughout the scholarship application process. For more information about the office, go to .