MVPs of the Month: Scientists and Nerds

November 2014 may just be the greatest month in film history for the portrayal of heroes and heroines whose achievements are not about athletics or fights but about equations and science. Last week we had two blockbuster hits featuring fictional scientists. In Disney’s animated “Big Hero 6,” a group of young robotics whizzes (and one amiable slacker) save the day with their inventions. And in “Interstellar,” despite a society that has explicitly rejected science and technology as a way to solve problems, a small group of brilliant scientists use their skills to try to find another planet for humanity to inhabit.  To hear a physicist on the science behind the film, take a look at “Cosmos” host Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s explanation.

The physics advisor on “Interstellar” was Kip Thorne, who is portrayed on screen by Enzo Cilenti, a colleague of Stephen Hawking, perhaps the greatest mind of our generation, “The Theory of Everything.” For more information, see Stephen Hawking’s Universe.

And coming up soon, we have the story of the man Winston Churchill said did more than anyone else to make it possible for the Allies to win WWII, the brilliant Alan Turing, portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Imitation Game.”  Turing was one of a group of mathematicians and cryptologists brought in to decipher the Enigma Code, widely considered to be unbreakable.  Even though we know how it came out, the story is gripping.

Turing knew something about secrets.  He was gay.  At that time, gay men could be imprisoned — or ordered to undergo chemical castration via hormones.  And the movie also portrays the difficulties faced by the women codebreakers.  For more on this story, see Breaking The Codes.

It’s great to see heroes in popular culture who accomplish their goals by being smart and persistent.  Maybe sometime the #breaktheinternet hashtag will be assigned to the scientists who landed a probe on an asteroid instead of pictures of kittens and naked celebrities.   Meanwhile, this month, we also have “Dumb and Dumber To.”