science

The 12 Disasters of Christmas

The 12 Disasters of Christmas is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The 12 Disasters of Christmas rather than just read about it. In short: The 12 Disasters of Christmas (released on home media as 12 Disasters) is a Canadian-American disaster television film produced for Syfy in 2012 and directed by Steven R. Monroe.

Key takeaways

The 12 Disasters of Christmas belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The 12 Disasters of Christmas to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The 12 Disasters of Christmas from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The 12 Disasters of Christmas (released on home media as 12 Disasters) is a Canadian-American disaster television film produced for Syfy in 2012 and directed by Steven R. Monroe.

Plot In a small town called Calvary, a rain of ice spears puts everyone on notice. Just before Jacey's (Magda Apanowicz) grandmother dies, she gives a mystical ring to her explaining that she is the chosen one to stop the end of the world prophesied by the Maya for December 21, 2012. Jacey was born right at Christmas, her parents are named Joseph (Ed Quinn) and Mary (Holly Elissa), and the solution is in the hidden message of the popular Christian holiday song "The 12 Days of Christmas", where a different disaster corresponds to each day and the "five gold rings" provide a messianic gift.

Cast

Release The 12 Disasters of Christmas first premiered on the Syfy network on December 8, 2012, at 9PM Eastern. It became Syfy's most watched television film on its premiere since February that year. The DVD version was released on January 6, 2014.

Reception The film received negative ratings, but critics have noted that the film is entertaining despite its lack of quality. The New York Times stated that "the movie gets an F in most of the traditional critical categories. Dialogue? F. Coherence? F. But in terms of serving as a counterweight to the syrupy fare that clogs almost every other network at this time of year, this ridiculous mess earns an A+." The New York Daily News gave the film one star out of five, opining that "some bad movies just bore you, while others create a perverse fascination, an aura that keeps you watching in the hope they will never get better. The Twelve Disasters of Christmas does not. It stays true to the path on which it embarked, seemingly never troubled for a second by concern for trivial matters like, oh, dialogue or plot." The A.V. Club gave the film a D rating stating "...comes closer to so-bad-it's-good territory than any SyFy Original Movie in recent memory."

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The 12 Disasters of Christmas

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The 12 Disasters of Christmas claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The 12 Disasters of Christmas before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The 12 Disasters of Christmas ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The 12 Disasters of Christmas

In research: The 12 Disasters of Christmas appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The 12 Disasters of Christmas in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The 12 Disasters of Christmas is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2010s Christmas television films, 2012 American films, 2012 Canadian films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The 12 Disasters of Christmas outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The 12 Disasters of Christmas in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The 12 Disasters of Christmas means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The 12 Disasters of Christmas out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The 12 Disasters of Christmas in simple terms?

The 12 Disasters of Christmas (released on home media as 12 Disasters) is a Canadian-American disaster television film produced for Syfy in 2012 and directed by Steven R. Monroe.

Why does The 12 Disasters of Christmas matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The 12 Disasters of Christmas?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The 12 Disasters of Christmas.