Science in the movies

By Joe W (but with Lena’s password!)

 
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) today held a private screening of Angels and Demons, Ron Howard’s movie adaptation of Dan Brown’s book, for journalists.  STFC, as the research council which funds the UK’s contribution to CERN, was keen to ensure that UK science journalists don’t get revved up by the dubious claim, stated as FACT in the preface of Dan Brown’s book, that physicists at CERN are making Vatican-destroying amounts of antimatter.

Dan Brown seems a bit like Marmite, you either love or hate him and his books.  So, before discussing the merits of the science in the film, here’s a quick note about the film.  I expected to be cringing for two hours but it’s not that bad.  It’s big buck, glitzy Hollywood fodder but it is entertaining and for a film that lasts 2 hours and twenty minutes, I wasn’t bored.  I cringed at some of the plot devices – goodies becoming baddies, baddies becoming goodies and the bending of space and time (can’t seem to avoid the physics) to incorporate far more adventure in one day than imaginably possible but the film did have its merits.

One of the merits, moving on to the science of the film, was the way CERN was portrayed in the first five minutes.  Despite having been to CERN and being quite involved in some of last year’s black hole media frenzy, I was left inspired yet again by the work being undertaken on the LHC and at CERN generally.  Howard managed to capture the excitement and, I’m sure, that if young would-be physicists watch the beginning of the film they will be further encouraged to quest further down the physics path.  No bad thing.

Beyond this, the science content wasn’t handled too badly either.  One of STFC’s physicists, present at the event to do some myth-busting, Professor Dave Wark from Imperial College, explained that Ron Howard had spent some time with a team from CERN conjuring up the best ways to make the science in the film as realistic as possible.

There were some dud claims and trite exclamations about the science: CERN does not, cannot and will not make quantities of antimatter large enough to cause any damage; antimatter cannot be transported (or at least not without nuclear-frying the person carrying it); and when Vittoria (the lead female) is explaining her research at CERN to the various echelons of the Church, I can’t remember the words used, I wanted to tell her to ‘shush’ and stop over-dramatising.

The film however is a thriller, not a science lesson, and even if it just engages people to find out more about work at CERN then physicists, who many feel have a duty to explain their work to the tax-paying, science-funding public, have no cause to grumble.  As Tara Shears, particle physicist from Liverpool University who was also present to myth-bust and give some context to the film, said, it’s good to see science, which plays such an integral role in modern life, taking a lead role when it is so often passed over for other contenders.

However, to those looking for a film that takes a more authentic look at the true nature of scientific research, I would suggest opting for a different film, which has also just been released (but to much less fanfare).  Warner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World is a documentary about life on Antarctica and, as many of those living near the South Pole are scientific researchers, much of the film revolves around the life of biologists, geologists and physicists and the topic of their studies.

It is a beautiful documentary that slides from a group of evolutionary biologists discovering marine species under the ice, to intrepid volcanologists hovering on the precipice of a volcano giving advice on how best to avoid molten lava explosions, to particle physicists explaining the difficulty of detecting neutrinos, to, finally, lonely, seemingly depressed, penguins running away from the chores of pack penguin life into the mountains of Antarctica.  A very real treat that proves science can be done exceedingly well on the big screen.