Columnist and Physics How do you portray momentum in space accurately? Columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein takes a look at the origins of our understanding of motion, which runs from Isaac Newton back to the Zhou dynasty a millennia ago Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in Project Hail Mary Jonathan Olley / Amazon Content Services LLC Part-way through watching Project Hail Mary in a full IMAX theatre, I let out a solitary gasp. Wondering why nobody else was shocked about what I had just seen, I realised it was because I am a physicist. Let me explain, with an extremely mild spoiler: there’s a scene in the middle of the film where the Hail Mary spaceship suddenly lurches forward. Ryan Gosling’s character, Ryland Grace, is not strapped into his seat and his head smacks sideways into the screens in front of him. If this had been real, he would have certainly died.…