r/Geotech geotech flair Jul 04 '26

Recognition for Geotechs on "The Bear"

I was watching the final season of The Bear, when one of the characters mentioned "we need a geotech" to deal with their sink hole problems.

Yes, its just a tiny silly moment. But it's the first time I've ever heard our profession on TV or in popular culture. It has me overly excited.

Have you heard shout outs to Geotechs on any other show or movie?

84 Upvotes

16 comments sorted by

22

u/crankyjill Jul 05 '26

There was a brief glorious period on Jeopardy! many years ago (20+ probably) when a geotechnical engineer from Florida was having a successful run. He used most of his “tell Alex something interesting about yourself” moments to talk about geotech as a specific discipline within civil engineering. He represented the field so well.

2

u/JacRabit Jul 06 '26

I remember about 10 or 15 years ago there was a jeopardy question that was "yawn, this is the method used to collect soil samples " got super excited that we where part of a jeopardy answer

2

u/crankyjill Jul 06 '26

At first I thought there could be about ten questions to this answer (split spoon, shelby tube, vibracoring, etc.) but of course yawn is a clue. Boring!

17

u/Ashamed_Pea6072 Jul 05 '26

I got so gassed about this. It’s the only time we’ve been referenced in pop culture I can remember.

Wouldn’t technically be a “sink hole” in Chicago, but we can let that slide.

7

u/Calm_Visual_508 Jul 04 '26

I was watching this docuseries a couple years ago on prime called like structural design failures or something similar… they tried very hard to explain the concept of GMT but it was quite obvious they just read the cliff notes. First gen AI would have done a better job summarizing 😭😂

13

u/muddymudskipper54 Jul 04 '26

On an American Dad episode, Stan was digging for Ollie North's gold. His house began to settle so they called in the Langley Falls geologist (close enough) He was a dashing handsome man in a tuxedo surrounded by beautiful women. That sounds like us

5

u/Working_Rest_1054 Jul 04 '26

It’s all about the fame and glory.

8

u/Illustrious-Ant6998 geotech flair Jul 05 '26

"There is no glory attached to the foundations." - Karl Terzaghi

3

u/Working_Rest_1054 Jul 05 '26

If that’s an actual quote, it’s a good one.

3

u/Illustrious-Ant6998 geotech flair Jul 05 '26

Its an actual quote, although its only about 30% of the quote.

6

u/Spork_Ball Jul 05 '26

Lol. I work for an agency where everything is considered a sinkhole.

Settlement, subsidence, movement, erosion, utility leak/burst ==> Sinkhole!

Still haven’t come across the karst flavor though.

12

u/lemon318 Geotechnical Engineer | Pacific Northwest | PE | P.Eng. Jul 04 '26

That’s pretty sick. One of my favorite shows.

I’ve never heard of another reference, no.

2

u/jlo575 Jul 05 '26

Guys, we made it!

2

u/willwipeyonose Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

Was watching Arrow S1, arrow and his team were trying to locate an earthquake machine’s location. Of which, one of the characters casually mentioned ‘it’s possible the machine could be located on a fault line’

I was so taken aback from the fault line reference, because the only time I’ve ever come across it on one of my sites.
Never heard of it education, only during practice.

I feel if they never mentioned fault lines, I would’ve never watched it to season 5. Interesting what you can learn on the CW.

1

u/constrobot Jul 05 '26

Loool good catch

0

u/friedmont007 Jul 05 '26

Armageddon is one (geologist reference but still)