In 2006, Campbell wrote this:
http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/tr7/tomb.htmQuote:
Later, Lara finds herself standing on the roof of a flatbed truck which is thundering along a desert canyon in pursuit of her friend Anaya's jeep. Lara leaps off the cabin roof and, in a Matrix-esque bullet-time cut-scene, somersaults and spins through the air ahead of the lorry, shooting its driver through the windscreen and landing neatly in the passenger seat of the jeep. Never mind the fact that the instant her feet left the roof, what would actually happen would be that gravity and physics would catapult her "backwards" like a Wile E Coyote contraption gone wrong, at an effective reverse speed of 50 mph (depending on whatever speed the lorry was doing, given that unlike Lara it's still having forward-propulsive force applied to it) and smush her messily all over the canyon floor. Don't try this at home, kids.
Ok, so he has no idea how Newtonian physics works. I mean that's right up there with Craster and hand grenades or Mr Chris and whatever that stupid physics thkng he said was. God knows how Campbell catches things thrown at him, but no big deal, right?
He was still defending this in 2011!
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07 ... ent-743108Quote:
“Can a physicist come and explain this, please? As far as I can tell Stuart has this dead wrong. She’s travelling at the speed of the truck, and she doesn’t magically lose that speed when she loses contact with the truck. She’ll slow down because of air resistance, but surely that’s not enough to bring about the situation Stuart describes.”
Oh boy. What Lara does in the game is actually magically accelerate when she jumps, so that she’s going FASTER than the truck and is therefore able to smash through the windscreen and land in the cabin.
If you think air resistance is trivial, climb out of the sunroof next time your friend’s driving his car down the motoway and try to stand on the top. If you can manage that, then jump forwards at a 45-degree angle, and see if (a) you overtake the car and crash into the windscreen, or (b) the car shoots off into the distance – since it has the same forward momentum you do PLUS a continuing forwards force of 50mph or whatever being exerted by the engine – and you get smeared all over the tarmac some way behind it.
(If you’d rather not die, just wind down the window next time you’re moving at speed and stick your hand out, flat against the air.)
At very low levels of schooling, children studying physics in this country are taught to regard air resistance as zero because it simplifies the understanding of some principles. In fact air resistance is a very long way from being zero, as any pilot will tell you.
“The Rev is wrong – you’d maintain your forward momentum and indeed could slightly increase it by leaping.”
Sigh. You: momentum plus leaping power. Truck: momentum plus engine power. If you can jump forwards at more than 50mph, you may want to get yourself down to the British Olympic Association pronto. And obviously, jump there rather than taking the car, it’ll be faster.
His rambling, increasingly angry replies carry on in that comment thread for thousands of words.
This is the quintessential Campbell. A man who can cite the evidence of his eyes as proof of something that is incredibly and obviously wrong, and then hold a grudge about it for years later, ignoring the many patient and less patient attempts to educate him, continuing to cling to his views in the face of overwhelming evidence he was wrong all along, and greeting all such responses with biliuous anger. This is not an isolated example, although it is one of the most egrgious. He won't take telling about anything and he cannot distinguish between his opinions and the facts.
And you say he writes about politics now? Fucking shocker.
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