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Cinema Science is an ongoing column that explores how cinema - particularly popular, contemporary cinema - employs science and mathematics concepts. In each instalment, DAVID CREWE will explore hoW movies can help facilitate learning in STEM subjects.
Passengers and the Specifics of Space
First up: 2016 Hollywood space blockbuster Passengers. Just how realistic is this depiction of interplanetary travel? Is it possible for humans to hibernate? Could you really grow a forest in a spaceship? And why is Jennifer Lawrence's hair immune to zero gravity?
The erosion of the monoculture can make things tricky for a secondary school teacher looking to build student engagement by digging into pop culture. Take any sizeable group of teenagers and it's hard to find anything they'll all be intimately familiar with. Some might use Facebook obsessively; others might have never made an account. Some students might obsess over the Marvel Cinematic Universe; others might not know the difference between Captain America and Captain Marvel. This student plays videogames obsessively; that student is subscribed to hundreds of YouTube channels.
While cinema's cultural domination might have faded long ago, it's a safe bet that most of your students will have watched a movie in the recent past. Cinema Science is aimed at science and/or mathematics teachers looking to leverage modern movies into (hopefully) more engaging lessons, and as such will generally focus on prominent movies - with big budgets, big stars and big box office receipts. You can't guarantee that all your students will have seen the films I'll focus on in this column, but with any luck they'll at least be aware of them.
Which brings us to this issue's focus: 2016 Hollywood movie Passengers (Morten Tyldum). While not exactly a blockbuster, the film - which can be described as something between speculative sci-fi and romantic comedy - performed well in Australia, likely thanks to its high-profile stars, Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.
The film also earnt its fair share of controversy thanks to its dubious ethical underpinning. Passengers, set some time in the future, takes place on Avalon, a spaceship hurtling towards a distant, uninhabited planet. Everyone aboard is supposed to be in suspended animation for the duration of the journey - some 120 years - but Jim...