Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World

Author: Sidney Perkowitz, Emory University
Sponsored by: Science & the City

In this entertaining book, a scientist and dedicated film enthusiast discusses the portrayal of science in more than one hundred films, including scientific biographies and documentaries.

Beginning with early films like Voyage to the Moon and Metropolis and concluding with more recent offerings like The Matrix, War of the Worlds, A Beautiful Mind, and An Inconvenient Truth, Sidney Perkowitz questions how much faith we can put into Hollywood's depiction of scientists and their work, how accurately these films capture scientific fact and theory, whether cataclysms like our collision with a comet can actually happen, and the extent to which these films influence public opinion about science and the future.

Movies temporarily remove viewers from the world as they know it and show them the world as it might be, providing special perspective on human nature and society. Yet "Hollywood science" can be erroneous, distorting fact for dramatic effect and stereotyping scientists as remote and nerdy, evil, or noble, and these characterizations do little to improve the relationship between science and society.

Hollywood Science features dozens of film stills and a list of the all-time best and worst science-fiction movies (Golden Eagles and Golden Turkeys*). It is a winning combination of history, accurate scientific theory, anecdote, and humorous observation ("Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy builds girl . . .") on a subject that will resonate with any reader.

The top two Golden Eagles and Golden Turkeys taken from the book:

GOLDEN EAGLES

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy builds girl" could be the tagline for this stunningly visual early futuristic film.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) and On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959). Both films reflect the scientific and global realities of their Cold War era.

GOLDEN TURKEYS

Chain Reaction (Andrew Davis, 1996). Fusion power is a difficult process that has yet to be achieved.

Volcano (Mick Jackson, 1997). When the San Andreas fault hiccups, a volcano grows in the heart of Los Angeles, but the San Andreas fault can produce only earthquakes, not volcanoes.

Sidney Perkowitz, PhD, is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University. His books include Empire of Light: A History of Discovery in Science and Art and Universal Foam: Exploring the Science of Nature's Most Mysterious Substance.
Reception and book signing to follow.