Flubber

View any movie related to concepts in Chemistry and critically comment on the accuracy of some of the Scientific facts. You are to write about the :

a) scene(s) as they appear in the movie

b) science that is represented in that/those scene(s) and why they are not accurate

c) amendments to the erroneous fact (s) with the REAL SCIENCE.

Movie: Flubber (Disney's)

Scene 1

Professor Brainard was trying to remember something important on his schedule when he realized that Weebo had deleted his wedding details. Weebo claimed that it felt feverish. After staring at his computer screen, he thought of Weebo's "fever" and then realized why his previous attempts to make flubber did not succeed--- he hypothesized that it was because the hydrocarbons have been inhibiting the cooper pairs. However, he deduced that if there was a drastic temperature change in a short period of time, the polymer will become conductive and that completes the metastable sphere. He sets to work; by adding an organic catalyst and some electricity to the polymer, he successfully created flubber in the pressure reactor. Unfortunately, his brilliant insights and experimentation caused him to miss his wedding again.

Erroneous science and amendments

This picture was taken from Disney's website, and this information from the movie was found in Professor Brainard's notes. As the movie rightly states, flubber is a polymer. It is composed of many monomers, which are linked together by a catalyst (boron). These monomers are linked together with chemical bonds to form long chains. Flubber is made of 1,000 to 10,000 monomers linked together. Unlike what was mentioned, electricity is not needed; but stirring will definitely speed up the reaction. Temperature does not need to fluctuate for the chemical reaction to occur, although temperature will affect the elasticity of flubber. Varying the temperature does not make flubber a conductive polymer, because flubber has many metastable states and does not require temperature changes to complete the metastable sphere--- it already possesses both the properties of a solid and a liquid. Besides, hydrocarbons do not inhibit cooper