This week's question is
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally....
I can't think of a film that has accurately represented science as I know it. Possibly the film on Bohr and Heisenberg from the play by Michael Frayn, Copenhagen, which attempts to not only put the viewer in the morally ambiguous position of Heisenberg as he worked for the Nazi atomic bomb project, but also explain the science behind the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics and the personalities of the two players, without at the same time dumbing it down too much or making the figures typical villains or heroes. But that is a world away, figuratively and literally, from the science I have seen practised in real labs. I don't think anyone has done it yet.
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Yet? You really think anyone can do it in 90 minutes, for a general audience?
Jason
You can't overlook the scene in "ET" when the feds and scientists have caught him, and the lab tech runs in and says "He's got DNA".
(signed)marc
I had TV teams and photographers several times in the lab. From this experience I must say that they are not so much interested in the actual science but in pictures. Unfortunately, these people have the attitude to put the lab into a cold blue light and find it very ancy if some evaporating liquid nitrogen steams over the benches. Science is transported only as a comment of a film or a written text accopmanying a photo which to a degree is understandable because watching pipetting biologist is quite boaring and also not very informative.
I rather prefer watching longer interviews with scientist because even if they work in fields not related to my work this kind of presentation allows some insight in their thoughts. However, I must admit that not every scientist is telegenic. Still, i most cases it is worthwhile to do some reading.
I have to agree with SPARC's comment about liquid nitrogen to some degree, although the condensation mist in the air does impress them. Over a number of years I noticed that high school work experience students visiting our labs found the magnetic stirrer the most fascinating bit of equipment of all. Forget thermal cyclers, gel tanks, microscopes or lasers (or even laser-powered microscopes) - watching a magnetic flea spin around in a beaker of solution was something they seemed to find quite compelling.
(signed) marc
SPARC writes:
When I was an undergrad, I worked as a student sysadmin at the University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab. At one point, they were putting together the lab's annual report, and hired a professional photographer for the cover photo.
I was at the bottom of the totem pole, so he got sent to me. One problem was that most of the lab's work dealt with infrared and radar images, which are black and white, and the photographer insisted on a color photo for the cover of the report. So I took him to the workstation lab where we had a machine with a color monitor. As it happened, I had just written a program for manipulating the monitor's color map, mainly as a way of learning to program the windowing system.
I displayed one of the test images the lab had lying around, randomized the colors, and spent some time tweaking them to the photographer's satisfaction. He took some pictures of the screen, and left.
A few weeks later, I was in the workstation lab again, when in came Dr. R., director of the lab and a Very Big Name in computer vision. He looked unhappy. And he was coming straight toward me. He was unhappy about the pictures the photographer had sent him. I confessed what I had done.
He said, "Yes, but these pictures make it look as though we're doing segmented annealing... and that we're doing it badly."