Hello, and welcome to a slightly-late-because-of-President’s-Day presentation of The Monitor, WIRED’s look at all that’s good (and sometimes bad) in the world of pop culture. What’s up for today? Well, Netflix just cancelled its last two Marvel shows, the creator of #OscarsSoWhite is going to the Oscars, and there still isn’t gender parity in Hollywood. Go figure.
So Long, Jessica Jones and The Punisher
In a decision that most observers figured was inevitable, Netflix announced Monday that it’s cancelling Jessica Jones and The Punisher—the last two Marvel shows left on the streaming service. The cancellations come on the heels of Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and The Defenders getting the axe last year. Marvel parent company Disney is planning to launch its own streaming service, Disney+, later this year, and will—presumably—be consolidating all, or most, of its content onto one platform.
The Creator of #OscarsSoWhite Is Going to the Oscars
April Reign, the woman who created the #OscarsSoWhite movement in 2015 in response to the lack of diversity amongst Oscar nominees, has accepted an invitation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to attend this year’s ceremony on Sunday. “I feel immense pride and a sense of coming full circle, back to where it all began,” Reign told The Hollywood Reporter. Yes, indeed, it’s about time.
Women Led More Films in 2018, But…
And finally, some encouraging (and disappointing) news about the state of women in Hollywood. According to a new report from the San Diego University Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, 31 percent of the movies released in 2018 were led by women. That’s up from the 24 percent of movies with female protagonists in 2017, and 29 percent in 2016. But, there’s a catch: The study also found women only had 35 percent of the speaking parts in the 100 top-grossing movies of 2018, up just one percentage point from 2017.
Hello, and welcome to a slightly-late-because-of-President’s-Day presentation associated with the track, WIRED’s look at all that’s good (and sometimes bad) in the world of pop music tradition. What’s up for today? Well, Netflix just cancelled its final two Marvel programs, the creator of #OscarsSoWhite will the Oscars, and there ‘s stilln’t gender parity in Hollywood. Get figure.
Way too long, Jessica Jones and The Punisher
In a choice that many observers figured had been unavoidable, Netflix announced Monday it’s cancelling Jessica Jones and The Punisher—the final two Marvel programs left on the streaming service. The cancellations think about it the heels of Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and The Defenders having the axe last year. Marvel moms and dad business Disney is planning to launch its own streaming solution, Disney+, later on this season, and will—presumably—be consolidating all, or most, of its content onto one platform.
The Creator of #OscarsSoWhite will the Oscars
April Reign, the woman whom created the #OscarsSoWhite movement in 2015 responding on insufficient variety amongst Oscar nominees, has accepted an invite through the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to attend this year’s ceremony on Sunday. “personally i think enormous pride and a sense of coming back to where it started, back again to in which it all started,” Reign told The Hollywood Reporter. Yes, indeed, it is about time.
Females Led More Films in 2018, But…
And finally, some encouraging (and disappointing) news in regards to the state of females in Hollywood. Based on a brand new report through the San Diego University Center for the learn of Women in Television and Film, 31 percent associated with the films released in 2018 were led by women. That’s up through the 24 per cent of movies with feminine protagonists in 2017, and 29 percent in 2016. But, there’s a catch: The study additionally discovered ladies just had 35 % of this speaking parts in 100 top-grossing movies of 2018, up only one portion point from 2017.
Behold the Large Magellanic Cloud! This mesmerizing gathering of neon-beer-sign blue gas near our Milky Way is full of newly forming stars. The European Southern Observatory’s Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer instrument captured this photo during its Digitized Sky Survey 2, and then created a color composite image using data collected over several years. If you’re able to divert your eyes from the big show in the upper right, take a look at the object in the center of the image: That blue cloud is LHA 120-N 180B, likely an active star-forming region.
Zooming in a bit closer with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, this colorful nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud appears to be bubbling with star formation. As the newborn stars grow, the instrument on the ESO’s Very Large Telescope allows us to see glorious details of gas and dust being pushed out into space.
Jupiter’s atmosphere always has a showpiece, namely the Great Red Spot, which peeks out from the upper left. Yet the planet also has a few other storms that are relatively new, like counterclockwise-rotating (but less impressively named) Oval BA.
In the outer reaches of the Large Magellanic Cloud lies NGC 1466, this globular cluster of stars. Globular clusters like these are so enormous that their own gravity holds them together; this one has a mass equivalent to 140,000 of our suns. Scientists are very interested in NGC 1466, because it is almost as old as the universe itself—13.1 billion years. On top of that, its luminous stars are key to astronomy’s cosmic distance ladder, and their brightness is used as a gauge to measure distances to astral objects.
NASA’s Kepler mission to detect exoplanets was far and away one of the most successful space missions in the past 20 years. This spacecraft discovered more than 2,600 planets orbiting other stars, fundamentally changing our perspective on our sense of uniqueness in the universe. Kepler’s swan song image shows starlight dusted throughout each rectangular grid. After running out of fuel and becoming unable to point its telescope, Kepler was retired by NASA on October 30, 2018.
Have you ever wondered how a solar system gets made? Well, the ESO’s ALMA radio telescope in Chile can offer some answers. Consider this image of AS 209, which features what are known as protoplanetary discs around a central star. These discs made of dust and gas are what’s left over from the star’s formation. Eventually, the theory goes, material in the discs begins to coalesce, becoming larger and larger. Over millions of years, the dust and bits transform into orbiting planets.
Behold the Big Magellanic Cloud! This mesmerizing gathering of neon-beer-sign blue gasoline near our Milky Method is full of newly forming movie stars. The European Southern Observatory’s Multi device Spectroscopic Explorer tool captured this photo during its Digitized Sky Survey 2, then created a color composite image making use of data collected over years. If you’re able to divert your eyes through the big show in upper right, have a look at the object in the center of the image: That blue cloud is LHA 120-N 180B, likely an energetic star-forming region.
Zooming in somewhat closer with all the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, this colorful nebula into the big Magellanic Cloud appears to be bubbling with star formation. While the newborn movie stars grow, the tool on ESO’s Very Large Telescope allows us to see glorious information on fuel and dust being forced out into area.
Jupiter’s environment constantly features a showpiece, particularly the Great Red Spot, which peeks out from the top left. Yet the planet even offers added storms that are relatively brand new, like counterclockwise-rotating (but less impressively called) Oval BA.
Within the external reaches associated with the big Magellanic Cloud lies NGC 1466, this globular group of movie stars. Globular groups like they are so enormous that their very own gravity holds them together; this one has a mass equivalent to 140,000 of our suns. Boffins are enthusiastic about NGC 1466, since it is almost because old since the universe itself—13.1 billion years. In addition, its luminous movie stars are foundational to to astronomy’s cosmic distance ladder, and their brightness can be used as being a gauge determine distances to astral things.
NASA’s Kepler objective to identify exoplanets had been far and away probably one of the most successful space missions previously twenty years. This spacecraft discovered significantly more than 2,600 planets orbiting other stars, basically changing our perspective on our feeling of individuality in the world. Kepler’s swan song image programs starlight dusted throughout each rectangular grid. After operating out of gas and becoming unable to aim its telescope, Kepler was retired by NASA on October 30, 2018.
Perhaps you have wondered what sort of solar system gets made? Well, the ESO’s ALMA radio telescope in Chile can provide some answers. Look at this image of AS 209, which features exactly what are referred to as protoplanetary discs around a main celebrity. These discs made from dirt and gasoline are what’s left through the star’s development. In the course of time, the theory goes, material inside discs starts to coalesce, becoming bigger and bigger. Over an incredible number of years, the dirt and bits transform into orbiting planets.
I’m oddly attracted to The Titan Games. I think we can all agree that this is the newest incarnation of the popular ’90s show American Gladiators. It’s not the theatrics that I enjoy, it’s the crazy competitions. As you can imagine, there’s a bunch of cool physics to talk about for some of these events. Actually, if you use a little bit of physics you might be able to get an advantage over your opponent.
In this case, the event is the Herculean Pull. The main idea is to pull some horizontal poles out of a giant wedge. The two contestants are trying to pull the poles out from different sides. There’s a chance you could reach a pole before the other person and win the easy way. But if you’re both pulling on the same pole, you need to use some physics. Here, check out this clip from the show.
The physics trick is to not just pull out on the pole—but also UP! Yes, pull out and up. This is especially true if you are on the losing end as you can see in the example above. She makes the mistake of pulling out and down (because that seems more natural), but it leads to her loss.
Why do you want to pull UP? Let me draw a simple force diagram showing the pole along with the forces acting on this pole.
Rhett Allain
There’s a lot going on in that diagram. Let me break it down for you (that’s what I do). The most obvious forces are the two pulls from the contestants. I have labeled these “A” and “B” to be as generic as possible. In this diagram, both of them are pulling down a little bit. The next set of forces are the “normal forces”—labeled with the “N” for normal. These forces are a result of the pole pushing against the edges of the wedge hole. Since the pole doesn’t go into the wedge material, we know the wedge pushes back on the pole. This is essentially the same force that pushes up on a book sitting on a table. Without this force, the book would just move right through the table—and that would be super weird.
The last pair of forces are the frictional forces (I have labeled them as Ff1 and Ff2). The frictional force can be pretty tricky, but we can still make a fairly simple model for the magnitude of a frictional force. In the case where two objects are sliding against each other, the frictional force depends on the two types of materials interacting and the magnitude of the normal force. As an equation, it would look like this.
Rhett Allain
In this expression the μk is just a coefficient that changes for different interacting materials. Let’s say we have wood rubbing against plastic. The coefficient of friction could be around 0.2 (that’s just an estimate). But it’s not just the coefficient. The frictional force also depends on the normal force. The harder those two surfaces are pushed together, the greater the frictional force.
But where is the physics trick to win this competition? I’m getting there. We need one more physics idea to understand the trick: torque. The idea of torque can get quite complicated, but in some cases it’s not too bad. Take the example of a door. If you want to open the door, you need to exert a torque on it. So, where should you push on the door? On the side with the hinge or on the side opposite the hinge? Yes, you know the answer. If you push on the side with the hinge, the door will not open not matter how hard you push. This is because torque is a product of force and distance from the rotation point.
Maybe this diagram will help.
Rhett Allain
The two forces push with the same magnitude, but the one farther from the hinge has a greater distance and thus a greater torque. There. That is your quick introduction to torque. Now back to that giant pole. Let’s assume for a moment that the pole is at rest and in equilibrium (not moving, not rotating). In this case, two conditions must be true. The total vector force must be equal to zero Newtons (otherwise it would accelerate) and the total torque must be zero (otherwise it would have an angular acceleration). And there have to be both positive and negative torques in order for them to add up to zero. Let’s say that a torque that would make something rotate in the clockwise direction is negative. That will work.
Since the force is really in two dimensions, I get the following three equations for equilibrium.
Rhett Allain
Finally—we are ready to answer the question. Let’s look at the forces on the pole again. In the x-direction, there are four forces. There are the two forces from the humans (or at least a component of the force) and then there are the two frictional forces. Let’s say these all add up to zero. In that case, one person would have to pull much harder than the other person to overcome both the other pull AND the frictional force.
If you can increase the frictional force, you can make it harder for the other person to pull out the pole. This is where the torque on the pole matters. Imagine that both humans are pulling down as you can see in the diagram above. Also, let’s add up the torques as calculated from the right end of the pole (you can pick any point though). The right-pulling person pulls down on the pole and this produces a negative (clockwise) torque. The other two forces that contribute to the total torque are the two normal forces. The normal force on the left pushes up and creates a positive torque and the normal force on the right pushes down with a negative torque. Oh, the left-pulling person produces no torque since the torque distance for that person is zero.
What if there was a way to increase the normal force on the right (labeled N1) in the diagram? With a greater normal force you would also get a greater frictional force. This would make it harder for the left-sided person to pull out the pole. Here, maybe this updated force diagram will help.
Rhett Allain
By pulling UP on the right side, the normal force on that side also has to increase in order to get the total torque to zero. This increase in normal force increases the friction. That’s extra help in preventing the pole from sliding to the right. It might seem natural to pull down, but pulling down just makes it easier to lose. If you have Herculean strength it probably doesn’t matter—but for normal people, it can make the difference between winning and losing.
