Whelp . Might as well pack it up now guys . Physics , the ever awesome scientific field that is also theoccasional party - pooper of papa culture , has found Bard ’s Black Arrow to be awful lacking when it come to killing Dragons . At least , so says Rhett Allain , Physics Lecturer and Wired Blogger !
Allain wrote an in depth postover at Wiredlooking at the science behind Bard ’s pointer and the Ballista he fires it out of in next calendar month ’s last entry in the Hobbit saga . look at specifically the picture version of event ( in the original novel , Bard shoot his arrow from his fore , rather than out of a Ballista ) , Allain made a harsh figuring of both the pot and size of the Arrow we see Bard catch in Desolation of Smaug , and then the speed at which it flies out of the Ballista as show in the flashback to Smaug ’s first onslaught on Dale .
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/black-arrow-actually-kill-dragon/
Using a few formulae and through some pretty graphs , he find the Arrow … well , let ’s say need :
From these graphical record I get an decade - velocity of 12.4 m / s and a y - velocity of 6.66 m / s. The order of magnitude of this velocity is 14.08 m / s ( 31.5 mph ) and at an slant of 28.2 ° above the horizontal . This is not very firm for an arrow . If I include the uncertainty from the duration estimate , I get a launching fastness of 14.08 + /- 1.48 m / s. Really , this is more like the speed of a nerf dart ( yes , I measured the upper of a nerf flit ) than a actual weapon that could kill an genuine firedrake . Maybe this is why Smaug put down the dwarves – their weapons sucked .
Allain comes to the finis that the Arrow speeds we ’re show up in the motion-picture show are so dull for the interest of us being able-bodied to see them fired on screen door – arouse it a decent speed would make it much invisible normal framerates . And while okay , it ’s unsurprising that the physics of a fantasy epic movie based on a children ’s novel might not be the most accurate thing in the world , it ’s still somewhat cool to see the science behind it . Head on over to Allain ’s web log and show the rest at the link below .
[ wire ]
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