The Shocking Truth about E.T's Fly High

Hannah Mahoney

Abstract


This paper aims to calculate the forces required by E.T. to complete the ‘fly high’ scene in the movie ‘E.T. the Extra-terrestrial’. It provides an assumption for the weight of Elliot, the bike, and E.T. The force required for E.T. to stop the initial fall of the bike was determined to be 573.6 N using kinematic equations. Assuming E.T. is able to create a dielectric separation between himself and the ground, it was determined using Coulomb’s Law that E.T. would need to elicit a positive charge of 0.004 C to create an electrostatic repulsion force strong enough to offset gravity. These results were then discussed.


Keywords


Film; Physics; Mechanics; Electromagnetism; Elliot; E.T. the extraterrestrial

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References


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