第1390期:Getting the science right

Sci-fi movies tend to capture children's imaginations and have long been part of students' excited chats in the schoolyard. But now a scientific journal has urged at least one sci-fi movie to be shown in class by science teachers.Scientific papers published in the American Journal of Physics (AJP) and in Classical and Quantum Gravity have seen merit in the way the movie Interstellar portrays wormholes.Dr David Jackson from AJP said publishing this paper "was a no-brainer". He added: "The physics has been very carefully reviewed by experts and found to be accurate. The publication will encourage physics teachers to show the film in their classes to get across ideas about general relativity".In fact, one of the executive producers of Interstellar was Kip Thorne, a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). For him, films such as Interstellar, Contact and 2001: A Space Odyssey can inspire young people.Blockbusters are improving when it comes to portraying scientific theories. An initiative by the US National Academy of Sciences has been putting proper scientists in touch with movie people to achieve a better result - which is vital in the internet age. Interstellar's director Christopher Nolan says: "Consumers have a lot more immediate access to information. If you go and see a film about a particular subject, particularly a true life story, you can go home and look it up on Wikipedia and see if the basic things portrayed in the film are true or not. The same is true of science in the films".Professional scientists may no longer cringe in their seats when they watch sci-fi movies. Today, getting the science wrong is no longer an option.词汇表sci-fi 科幻to capture (someone's) imagination 激发某人的想象力a scientific paper 科学文献physics 物理学interstellar 星际的a wormhole (space) 时空虫洞a no-brainer 显而易见的事accurate 准确的general relativity 广义相对论technology 技术a blockbuster 畅销的书、电影或电视a theory 一种理论proper 专业的，科班出身的the consumer 消费者to cringe 感到难堪