Virginia Mathematics Teacher Fall 2016

Hank Yochum (far left) Director of Engineering Sweet Briar College hyochum@sbc.edu

Jill Granger (middle right) Project Principal Investigator Dean of the Honors College Western Carolina University jngranger@email.wcu.edu James Alouf (far right) Professor Emeritus of Educa­ tion Sweet Briar College alouf@sbc.edu

Arlene Dubiel (middle left) Project Manager Formerly of Sweet Briar Col­ lege dubiel@sbc.edu

Tim Loboschefski (not shown) Professor of Psychology Sweet Briar College tlobo@sbc.edu

Busting Block Busters!

Many Hollywood movies have scenes that seem mathematically inaccurate if not impossible. Are these scenes truly impossible, or are they more plausible than they seem? The goal of the contest is to provide the best mathematical explanations for the following scene. The solutions that best explain a scene’s possibility or impossibility and the different elements that help form this will receive an award and the winnerwill be featured in the Spring issue. Answer s may be submitted by November 31 st to VMT@radford.edu with the subject line: Busting Blockbusters entry.

Speed (1994)

In the movie a bus is shown to jump a gap in a bridge, that is missing due to construction. In the last shot of the odometer before the jump, the bus is shown at 67 miles per hour, and still accelerating, so let’s assume that at the time of the jump, it was traveling at 70 mi/h. The portion of the bridge that was missing was approximately 50 feet. Is this jump possible? What math proves it, or what additional factors would be needed to make the jump possible? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJa- KQNjQU

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 43, no. 1

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