Don't Nuke the Fridge Just Yet

My adventures on university buses and having to listen to people talk on their cellphones present me with innumerable stories. I could, for instance, mention that: D&D nerds don't like it when they're DMing a game and their players use anime as a basis for their avatars' archetypes; that Algerian-born Americans still require a visa and an American passport at least six months old in order to visit Algeria; and that someone got a job as an exotic dancer to get money to bail her boyfriend out of jail. Another conversation, coupled with the relatively recent release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on DVD, has led me to a more subjective topic. One scene in the movie considered too far out there for suspension of disbelief and the setting of Indiana Jones for many people...


That's right, the Witch and the Wardrobe the Nuke and the Fridge. And because internet culture isn't content with the euphemisms of old (even if they're very young), "Nuke the Fridge" has partially taken up the mantle of "Jump the Shark".

Now, "Jump the Shark" is supposed to indicate that something has passed its prime, but it specifically refers to an episode of Happy Days, where Fonzie literally jumps a shark water skiing. Despite the episode airing on September 20th, 1977 the coinage of "jump the shark" didn't happen until around 1985 - and only entered normal parlance around 1998. Never mind that 1977 involved the fifth running season of Happy Days, which continued on for another 7 years. Aside from pointing out the fact that drawing parallels between "jump the shark" from Happy Days and "nuke the fridge" from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may lead to some dubious conclusions indicative of another four or five IJ movies, I'd like to illustrate a few reasons why nuking the fridge wasn't so bad.


The Fridge, Reality, and Physics
The movie's scene is an effort to replicate the discomforting nature of the US government's Operation Cue and its preoccupation with discovering how nuclear weapons affect residential infrastructure. Like the movie, the real bomb site was a short distance away from Area 51 in the Nellis Air Force Range (a bit northwest of Las Vegas). The actual detonation site is visible via satellite (the bright circle with the 1.5 mile diameter in the middle of the map below...unless the map is centered on the wrong place - in which case the FBI will be at your building within the hour (and you're probably using Google Chrome)). The small collection of 'roads' and 'structures' on the right are actually a collection of craters.


View Larger Map

Comically enough, put Area 51 into Google maps and you'll end up with a rather large airstrip, bomb testing ground, and collection of hangars about 15 miles northeast of the Operation Cue detonation site. On a completely unrelated note, it seems that the USAF pays a few million in taxes on the area for its contractors, but won't allow a tax assessor on to the secret military testing grounds to corroborate the assessment.

More importantly with regards to the movie, the small collection of buildings would have been out of the bomb's most devastating blast range (the closest housing was put outside the 0.75 mile immediate blast radius in the actual test). The most unrealistic facet of the scene is that the refrigerator is thrown an appreciable distance from the blast in the first place (it would have been knocked over or pushed a few meters). On the plus side, the air-tight nature of the fridge would protect him from the drastic changes in overpressure that results in a shock wave (and consequently, popped eardrums, bruising, and potential lung collapse - among other things). It would also protect him from the intense thermal radiation (the kind where dark clothing may cause the heat to 'bleed-through' and burn the tissue underneath).

Despite the unrealistic nature of the refrigerator's trajectory, it's still not the worst situation. From a physics standpoint the refrigerator comes to a gradual stop, which is related to the concept of impulse. Impulse is the change in momentum over time (or the change in velocity over time with regard to mass). The longer a collision takes the less force is applied at any individual instance (this is the reason cars have crumple zones, but you're still more likely to survive in a car rolling down a hill than one that smashes into a concrete barrier). The material inside the fridge makes a difference too, but maybe Jones' hat isn't just for show.


Audience Perceptions and Presumptions
People tend to expect certain things in action movies. Survivability in a nuclear blast usually isn't one of those things. The middle ground of nuclear destruction lies somewhere between Duck and Cover and vaporizing every bit of matter within the blast zone. Tangentially: if you ever do find yourself outside in the midst of a nuclear holocaust, ducking and covering your head while hiding behind the tallest immediate sturdy obstacle between yourself and the explosion is the best way to go.

Many of Indiana Jones' previous stunts are arguably more deadly, but the association with nuclear weapons as the ultimate destructive force in the world can blur judgement. There are far less survivable things than a rolling refrigerator and a nuclear explosion.

Freefalling from a plane in a raft.

Very few people have survived a freefall at terminal velocity. Vesna Vulović is one of those select few. She survived a 10km freefall above Czechloslovakia when a bomb detonated and broke apart her plane in midair. She survived because the wreck landed on a steep incline that allowed for a gradual change in acceleration instead of an abrupt stop. Additionally, the -60°C air outside at 10km caused hypothermia, which - coupled with her chronic low blood pressure - prevented her from bleeding to death and suffering brain death before she could be rescued. Indiana Jones (along with Shortround and Willie) survives freefall approaching terminal velocity unsecured on a raft...twice (remember impulse from earlier? Jones' raft hits so hard it bounces).

Leaping from a tank as it drives over the edge of a cliff.

Heroes always seem to be saved by dried-out roots laying casually over the side of a cliff. This trope is so common that people tend to instantly ignore it whenever it pops up in movies. Apparently soil is best at holding dry desert weeds after it has been compacted by a tank...I guess?

Boarding a diving submarine in rough waters.

Swimming in the ocean isn't all that dangerous (German submariners in WW2 would often be granted time to swim when they were in the middle of the Atlantic, out of Allied aircraft's range). Swimming in choppy open ocean tends to be a bit more dangerous. Now, boarding a diving submarine is downright impossible, considering the fact that submariners trained to accomplish this maneuver in a matter of seconds. Turns out Indiana Jones is a time traveling Michael Phelps with a PhD in archeology...and a cloak of invisibility because where the hell did he hide once he got on that submarine?

Stopping a speeding mine cart with flat-soled shoes.

I'm not sure what kind of description this one merits. Perhaps this cat sliding in a box can exemplify some of the properties of friction forgotten here. At the very least the cat sliding in a box is a cat sliding in a box.

That should cover some aspects from all the previous movies (doubly so for Temple of Doom and its craziness). These two aspects all pale in comparison to the big Indiana Jones kicker.


Parody and Satire
One of the hallmarks through the series is the parody of conventional expectations of contemporary events, culture and attitudes. From the rocket engine test site to the lead-lined refrigerator, the parody is far more consistent than the original three movies. At first this might seem strange, but if you've got a keen eye for history, you'll notice that many of the same satire and parody is present in the earlier IJ films as well. From the luger that manages to shoot through an entire line of Nazi soldiers (this one is partially ironic as well, since some SS officers in various camps tried expeirments of seeing how many people could be killed with a single bullet); to the Middle Eastern royalty more impressed by a car than gold; to Nazi experimental aircraft (a decade early); to apathetic British occupying forces in India; to "I'm an American!" - the satire and parodies are everywhere, they're just less apparent because it's more expected. Nazis are evil - it's amusing when they're shot and fall over. Indian people are strange - a boy emperor and monkey brains for dessert fits right in with our expectations.

There are quite a few satirical elements at work here, some more subtle than others (and we've already covered "Duck and Cover" and nuclear testing). For instance: did you know that death by refrigerator was alarmingly frequent from the 1950s to the 1970s? Turns out many of the models couldn't be opened from the inside...and apparently refrigerators were child magnets. The fridge Jones climbs into happens to be lead-lined, which is a convenient way to avoid having your protagonist die of radiation poisoning. But it also happens to coincide with the '50s fascination for lead-based everything. From paints to toys, lead was everywhere (along with other dangerous things, like dagger-tipped lawn darts). Lead was known definitively to be a poison since at least the 1800s, but recognized by some Roman scholars as a source of maladies (and occasionally noted as a poison). Maybe people in the 1950s figured it'd be an easy way to weed out some of the dumb ones.

These sorts of things are present throughout the movie, but particularly in the first half (maybe this is a subconscious reason why many people thought the first half was better). From greasers and socs to CIA spooks, the film covers a vast variety of 1950s culture. I think one of the reasons people are willing to associate more with the first three IJ films is the fact that the 1930s presents a clear dichotomy - the Nazis are the definitive historical villain (this is also likely a reason why Temple of Doom sees a bit of a dip in popularity too). The 1950s are bit more blurred. High School history classes tend to have two things to say about the 1950s: they came after World War Two and before the Civil Rights movement (okay, they probably mention the baby boomers, too).


So what have we learned? The refrigerator isn't any less plausible than some other insane stunts in Indiana Jones movies. The monkeys though... I cannot reconcile the monkeys.

We've also learned people shouldn't talk on their cellphone on the bus.