Brace yourselves, people. I have a revelation.

The plot of Armageddon was flawed.

Take a moment to digest and come to terms with that.

It all comes down to that little sequence when at Mission Control Centre, they're planning the emergency response. The English douche, dubbed the Smartest Man on the Planet, berates the President's scientific adviser's suggestion of changing the course of the asteroid with nuclear explosion. He does this by calling attention to his poor grade in astrophysics at university. Of course, in this instance the guy's ability to differentiate neutron stars from white dwarves is not a critical factor.

Instead, of course, they have to go with the idea of drilling into the core of the asteroid (800ft in a 1500 mile wide asteroid counts as the core apparently). But this is absurd. Without going into any numbers, think about it.

Plan A involves using nuclear explosions to deliver sideways momentum to the asteroid so it misses the planet. Plan B involves using nuclear explosions to break the asteroid into two peices and then deliver to each major part sufficient sideways momentum so they miss the planet.

Both plans involve delivering momentum, and of course the requisite kinetic energy, so that the asteroid misses the planet. Plan A delivers kinetic energy so the whole thing is moved to one side. Plan B delivers kinetic energy so half if moved one way and half is moved the other. But the speed required is the same either way, so the energy required is the same.

However, with Plan B, you also have to supply chemical energy to break the asteroid into two pieces. I haven't run the calculations on what would be required to do that, but a cursory glance will see that the energy requirements of Plan A are substantially less than Plan B.

Hence, the English douchebag is wrong. Listen to the President's scientific advisor, even if he doesn't know much about quasars.