Physics and the Simpsons' Movie

Posted by Katharine M. J. Osborne Jul 31, 2007

The Simpsons' have always been slightly surreal, and since the series is animated, the creators can get away with pretty much anything, in the sense that they depict many violations of physics. This is normal and expected of this artform (yeah, I said it - I have high regard for sequential art).

What is still sometimes surprising, is how aware the writers are of actual physics. In seasons past, Homer explored the 3rd dimension (in a bizarre cross-over of Flatland and Poltergeist), Stephen Hawking made a guest appearance, and Bart observed a (rather doomsday) comet.

In the movie, there is a scene where Homer is stuck to a wrecking ball, being swung between a large rock and a "Hard Place". The segment plays with our commonsense knowledge of physics. The ball slowly stop swinging, then suddenly swings again! This is funny precisely because it is unexpected - pendulums in motion slowly come to rest, and cannot, of their own accord start swinging again.

In another segment, Lisa advises her father to gun the engine of a motorbike he is trying to ride around inside a small spherical cage. Lisa knows that increasing his forward speed will help him drive upside in the cage. The same trick is attempted later in the film (don't want to spoil it too much if you haven't gone to see it yet), but seems rather ludicrous. As an audience we can forgive this, because it wasn't the action that was important, but rather, where that brought the characters in the story.