Comments on: Is Sexing Up Scientists All That Bad?

By: Now That’s What I’m Talking About! | Cosmic Variance

Now That’s What I’m Talking About! | Cosmic Variance — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 22:08:10 +0000

[…] The whole world view expressed by the magazine (and the group, as far as I can tell) seems to be so in line with my fantasy of the way society should be in terms of being science-savvy, which I’ve talked about so many times in other posts on this blog. (See here , here, here, here, and comments of mine in the accompanying discussion threads too.) […]

By: Evidence of Fun | Cosmic Variance

Evidence of Fun | Cosmic Variance — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 19:16:33 +0000

[…] It is so rare to see a mainstream film which has main characters who are all academics/scientists without resorting to a standard set of cliches about how to depict them. In fact, my usual complaints about how scientists are portrayed were addressed, as one character directly mentions that portrayal to illustrate a point in the film. There were some cliches, but they were mostly all mild in comparison to the ones to which they could have resorted, and I put them down to being part of the price you pay for trying to write a drama at all. There are also some amusingly stiff and unnatural uses of the term “theoretical physicist” by the mathematician characters, which while not intentional, I thought it resulted in those references being actually funnier, being a theoretical physicist myself. […]

By: Those Little Challenges We Face | Cosmic Variance

Those Little Challenges We Face | Cosmic Variance — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 06:28:18 +0000

[…] So I showed up for the first class (this is three weeks ago now), and sure enough, there are the six or seven graduate students from Nick’s class…. but there are four or five students from the condensed matter group, and from the quantum information groups, part of CSI ([update: that’s the group’s name, see an earlier post]…I kid you not) over in Electrical Engineering! They saw a course with that title and, understandably, thought it was a good chance to learn some Relativistic Field Theory. […]

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 21:16:43 +0000

I saw an episode of CSI where Grissom (the Chief CSI) knowledgeably pronounced that ‘Terminal velocity is 32 feet per second per second’. That noise you hear is the grinding of my teeth.

When it comes to bad movie physics, of course, the Intuitor page on Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics rules.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:54:32 +0000

This one should

http://www.geocities.com/rex_reason/islandgallery.html

OK, I should go and do something useful now with my time:)

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:48:24 +0000

second link does’nt work!

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:45:46 +0000

The movie in whihc Pierce Brosnan is a geologist was “Dantes Peak”. he also appeared as a scientist/researcher in “The Lawnmower Man”. Hopefully, Proof will be an interesting film, but I get the impression it is just trying to follow “A Beautiful Mind”.

I was just thinking Clifford, one protrayal of a black scientist was in Terminator 2. Here, Dr Miles Dyson is a highly intelligent successful and wealthy man–a role model for African Americans you could say. He is also portrayed as a dedicated workaholic. So this seems initially very positive. However, he is also portrayed in a very negative way too: it is his work on AI that leads to the creation of the Cyberdyne computer that destroys the world in a nuclear holocaust. As the film progresses his home and family life are wrecked and he himself is sacrificed. This part of the film bothered me. I had similar thoughts about the Daystrom character in Star Trek. Then again, one can read things into these films that the writers/directors never meant. Another black scientist from sci-fi was David Kano from Space 1999, the computer whizz but he is always portrayed as being much closer to the moon base computer than to any of his human companions.

Finally, as I was talking before about the squared-jawed handsome scientists from some old 50s films that always gets the girl. To show what I mean here is the extremely well-groomed and handsome Dr Cal Meacham
from “This Island Earth”, top man in “nuclear and astrophysics”

http://www.mst3ktemple.com/images/thisislandearth4.jpg

The girl here is a scientist too but her role seems to get demoted to just screaming whenever something unpleasant or frightening appears and to clinging onto the hero male scientist. Notice also that his hair stays in place and he remains well groomed even when being attacked by a mutant alien

http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/beefcake/rexreason/rexreason5.jpg

Hope these links work. Maybe this guy is Mark’s role model?:)

By: Clifford

Clifford — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 07:08:03 +0000

bittergraduatestudent - the biggest insult to physicists in the movies may well have been Denise Richards’ Nuclear Physicist in some dreadful James Bond film or other. A character called Christmas Jones, or something like that. So much of the film was awful, I’m sure that it was not Ms Richard’s fault. It was just a bad part, and a bad script, and they ought to have stopped making those movies a long time ago anyway. But I do give them some credit for having a part like that for a female lead. If only they’d remembered to write a script….. sigh.

-cvj

By: bittergradstudent

bittergradstudent — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 06:11:33 +0000

And there was that stupid chain reaction movie, where Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman are physicists who develop some sort of fuel-cell-like technology and have to flee the government/big energy who are being cut out of the energy business.

Whether or not Keanu being a physicist is an insult to physicists is another matter…

By: erc

erc — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 19:04:42 +0000

Dredging up a hazy memory: there was a film starring Pierce Brosnan as a geologist/volcanologist (or something) who saves the day and gets the girl at the end I believe, without going crazy. Sorry I can’t be more specific.