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Question: "Kyle McPherson asks: "In Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Indy survives a nuclear explosion by getting inside of a refrigerator that has a lead shell. Is this even possible?"

Status: Not a chance!

In the latest Indian Jones caper, one scene in particular caught the attention of a lot of viewers.

It was a scene near the beginning of the flick, where Indy found himself in a nuclear test site made to look like a model community. He took shelter in a fridge made of lead, and rode the shock waves of the explosion into safety several kilometers away.

It was a scene that required a significant suspension of disbelief. Surely Professor Jones would have been obliterated, especially as he was caught in the epicenter of the blast.

Well, it turns out that our skepticism was well-founded. In real life, the lead around the refrigerator would have offered absolutely no protection for Indy.

"The lead would liquefy," says Professor E.L. Mathie, a scientist who researches intermediate energy nuclear physics at the University of Regina.

That's because the immediate damage caused by a nuclear explosion at close range is by heat and shockwaves, not radiation.

Had Indy been further away, the force from the explosion would have had time to dissipate, and the fridge would have protected him from harmful gamma rays.

But at such close range, Professor Jones would definitely not have survived.


researched by Haig Balian