
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Flubber has been around since 1961 when the mad scientist Professor Brainard discovered the flying rubber. It got a re-vamp with Robin Williams in the late 90s, but how realistic is it?
If we take the 1997 version on Flubber, it is a fluorescent green, slimy-looking rubbery substance with endless energy.
It defies the laws of physics and if it was real could be a terrifying prospect.
When something bounces it looses energy every time it hits the ground, but Dr. Nathaniel Davis, MacDiarmid Institute Associate Investigator and Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington said there are two ways something could get around this basic scientific principal.
"One is it has some form of internal energy that it's releasing," he said, "kind of like a battery. Or it's somehow absorbing energy on each bounce."
Dr Davis said there is some evidence that Flubber absorbs energy from around itself and that prospect is terrifying.
"It's going to be bouncing around the universe taking all the energy and never stopping until there's no energy left."
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
5
33 ratings
Flubber has been around since 1961 when the mad scientist Professor Brainard discovered the flying rubber. It got a re-vamp with Robin Williams in the late 90s, but how realistic is it?
If we take the 1997 version on Flubber, it is a fluorescent green, slimy-looking rubbery substance with endless energy.
It defies the laws of physics and if it was real could be a terrifying prospect.
When something bounces it looses energy every time it hits the ground, but Dr. Nathaniel Davis, MacDiarmid Institute Associate Investigator and Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington said there are two ways something could get around this basic scientific principal.
"One is it has some form of internal energy that it's releasing," he said, "kind of like a battery. Or it's somehow absorbing energy on each bounce."
Dr Davis said there is some evidence that Flubber absorbs energy from around itself and that prospect is terrifying.
"It's going to be bouncing around the universe taking all the energy and never stopping until there's no energy left."
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
129 Listeners
202 Listeners
961 Listeners
2,081 Listeners
725 Listeners
1 Listeners
827 Listeners
761 Listeners
67 Listeners
2 Listeners
1 Listeners
1 Listeners
28 Listeners
61 Listeners
1 Listeners
40 Listeners
102 Listeners
2,319 Listeners
7 Listeners
56 Listeners
2 Listeners
282 Listeners
3 Listeners
0 Listeners
29 Listeners
360 Listeners
0 Listeners
3 Listeners
46 Listeners
265 Listeners
0 Listeners
3 Listeners
0 Listeners
0 Listeners