Engaging Physics
Jim Kakalios, my colleague in the Physics Department at the University of Minnesota, has made a great name for himself as the author of The Physics of Superheroes, in which he discusses the possibilities (and impossibilities) of the physics seen in superhero comics and movies.
In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Jim writes about Spider-Man's nemesis, Sandman, in the latest hit movie "Spider-Man 3". He explains that, once you get past the villain’s mutation into living sand, the properties of sand that he exhibits are generally correct — and often counterintuitive.
I won’t attempt to summarize the discussion: read the piece, and see the movie. What I do want to point out is that this is a good (if unorthodox) example of engaged scholarship, in the sense of Boyer’s "scholarship of application". It takes a popular phenomenon, applies cutting-edge physics (yes, understanding the behavior of sand-piles, or marginally stable piles of granular material generally, is cutting-edge physics), and returns something educational and accessible. A nice partnership of popular and academic culture.