Pandora's Floating Mountains - Cool But Totally Unrealistic!

[Truth_Seeker]

After seeing "Avatar" many Sci-Fi fans including me thought that the concept of the floating mountains was interesting, but it had absolutely no scientific explanation in the movie.

So how do those magic floating mountains really work?

If they are kept in the air by some kind of a gravitational disturbance, why doesn't it affect their surronding environment and their visitors? If this is a zero gravity area and everything floats in the air, the Na'vi wouldn't need to climb to get to the top. Humans should also feel the lack of gravity when they pass by with their helicopters.

How do those floating rocks generate an endless amount of water if they are separated from the planet? And why doesn't the water go up instead of falling down, if those waterfalls are a part of the same mountains?

 

[O'Dib]

They're actually helium-filled biological baloons?

 

[startrekrcks]

I think they are beautiful the scenery in Avatar but each to their own I guess because I love this movie.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

According to the Avatar Activist Survival Guide, it's down to the Meissner Effect, and yes, it is unrealistic to levitate large mountains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meissner_effect_p1390048.jpg

 

[Mr Light]

I assumed the mountains were made of the zero-grav rock, the one that the corporate weasel had floating on his desk.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

According to the Avatar Activist Survival Guide, it's down to the Meissner Effect, and yes, it is unrealistic to levitate large mountains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meissner_effect_p1390048.jpg

So basically they say that those rocks float the same way as a MAGLEV train.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train

But if that's the case shouldn't they be constantly moving, rotating or even crashing into each other due to the magnetic field? Any physicists in the forum?

 

[Icemizer]

All the other science problems in this movie and you are worried about the floating mountains??

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Yeah, Unobtanium is meant to be a naturally occurring high temperature superconductor that exhibits superdiamagnetism that does not break down even in very intense magnetic fields.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

So basically they say that those rocks float the same way as a MAGLEV train.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train

But if that's the case shouldn't they be constantly moving, rotating or even crashing into each other due to the magnetic field? Any physicists in the forum?

Earnshaw's theorem tells us that ferromagnetic and paramagnetic materials are unstable when levitated in a static magnetic field. There are ways around this:

http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/levitation_possible/

Diamagnetic levitation works by excluding a magnetic field -- hence the mildly amusing leviating frogs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frog_diamagnetic_levitation.jpg

Levitation of diamagnetic materials is stable in a static magnetic field -- the principle is used in Maglevs as you say. However, the floating mountains might well tend to bump into each other due to gravitational attraction or movement down magnetic field gradients.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

Levitation of diamagnetic materials is stable in a static magnetic field -- the principle is used in Maglevs as you say. However, the floating mountains might well tend to bump into each other due to gravitational attraction or movement down magnetic field gradients.

Thanks for explaining that. I'm not so good at physics, but it seems logical for the floating mountains to be in constant motion due to the magnetic field.

 

[Bisz]

As for the water, they are at a high altitude, ie in the clouds, there is plenty of moisture in the air that can condense into liquid water.

 

[Ptrope]

During the film, we heard the creaking as the rocks and their connecting vines moved about, not to mention the warriors 'waiting for the next vine' as they climbed to the nest of ikrans. It makes sense that within a certain area of the magnetic influence, the mountains would move about somewhat, but would be constrained from simply wandering off by the shape of the overall magnetic fields.

One wonders, though, what magnetic fields that strong would do to the nervous systems or even the physiology of the creatures living constantly within them. It might possibly also interfere with the homing abilities of the biologics, as well.

 

[David cgc]

The pilot did specifically mention that instruments went haywire around the mountains because of all the magnetic interference, both when they first flew up there, and later as an advantage over the Company before the final battle.

 

[Owain Taggart]

That's a good question, actually. I see them in cartoons, but in life-like movies like Avatar? There's gotta be some kind of repulsor technology we're not seeing that keep them afloat. I'd be scared of erosion.

 

[exodus]

When did we stop accepting the "fiction" part of sci-fi and started wanting a real explaination/solution to everything?

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

^ Good question.

Floating mountains? Nah. Combining human and alien DNA? Totally plausible.

 

[Forbin]

When did we stop accepting the "fiction" part of sci-fi and started wanting a real explaination/solution to everything?

Around the time the internet happened.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

When did we stop accepting the "fiction" part of sci-fi and started wanting a real explaination/solution to everything?

Probably around the time that science fiction was first recognized as a genre. I'm not sure exactly when that was, but Hugo Gernsback coined the term "scientifiction" in 1926. Honestly, SF fans have ALWAYS wanted to examine and/or nitpick what was or wasn't scientifically plausible in their stories.

 

[Starbreaker]

I was too busy going "wow, that's cool." Sorry.

 

[stj]

The floaty mountains were pretty tough to swallow. But the large waterfall draining what appeared to be mere acres were even worse. And even worse than that were those cockamamie paths.

And then there was the general problem of why the company didn't forego the bother of mining when they could just lasso a floating mountain. Those mountains had to have a lot of unobtainium to float.

Jake surviving such extreme falls was tough to swallow too.

But the background detail coupled with the use of 3D for immersing the viewer gave plausibility on a sensory level, not a verbal-cognitive one. Scifi producers are well aware that if they get the FX right, they can help viewers suspend disbelief. The thing is, the movies don't get it right nearly as often as they imagine. Avatar is one movie that really did it.