CERN's film-making club is calling for entries for its second CineGlobe Festival, which will be held in February at the lab's Globe of Science and Innovation and other locations in and around Geneva, Switzerland. Prizes will be awarded in three categories: general fiction, science or scientific fiction, and science documentary, and films can be in any format or genre so long as they are short and in English or French -- or at least subtitled in English or French. For more details see this press release. Gentlefolk, start your cameras! Entries are due Sept. 30th.
Meanwhile, in some sort of cinematic convergence, a blog called Online Engineering Degree has posted a list of Top 25 Movies for Physics Geeks. It's a mixed bag. Movies are singled out for their faithful adherence to the laws of physics (2001: A Space Odyssey) and for their utterly impossible tricks (Armageddon and Goldeneye, for enabling James Bond to catch up with a falling plane by jumping off a cliff, among other feats. ) Star Wars and Star Trek are there, of course, along with the Harry Potter series:
Once realism lovers get over magical powers and mystical creatures, there’s a lot of physics fun to be had with Harry Potter. Figuring out wands alone—and the nature and frequency of the energy traveling through them—can leave one dizzy.
Plus lots of space and astronaut action (Apollo 13, The Right Stuff), wormholes (Stargate), time travel (Back to the Future), Richard Feynman (Infinity) and, for some reason, Gattaca:
This movie expands upon the ideas in Brave New World, illustrating what the ethical problems would be in a world of liberal eugenics. Of particular note to science lovers is the use of genetic information as, essentially, a fake ID—a chilling portrait of the future.
Hmm. No physics in there that I can see. But I guess its inclusion makes this a list for the well-rounded physics geek.
For more about physics in the movies, see "The Wrong Stuff" in symmetry's Oct/Nov 07 issue.
