Returning to the theme of science fiction and nontraditional communication of scientific principles this week, with a much more contemporary look at the subject.
Science communication is a crucial part of the modern practice of science in ways that it was not in the pre-industrial period. As we discussed in class, science education in most high schools tends to focus only on Newtonian physics and possibly some basic information about relativity, mid 20th century. New discoveries in most fields also don’t tend to be discussed in public schools. One explanation for this is that standard physics classes focus heavily on demonstrable principles and the ability to solve clear equations with a basic set of mathematical formulas.
As a result, most people get their education on modern scientific discoveries through books, movies, educational programming and social media. One example of social media science education is when the first picture of a black hole was captured in 2019 (the M87 black hole) and NASA posted the images on twitter, where they quickly went viral. The interest also spawned a number of twitter threads and posts on other platforms explaining both information about black holes and information about how the image was taken, from both amateur hobbyists and scientists.
Science fiction provides many peoples’ first exposure to more modern and theoretical physics. A recent example, also to do with black holes, is the 2014 film Interstellar, which discussed relativity, black holes, and gravity’s relationship to spacetime for wider audiences. Another set of concepts that I anecdotally have encountered more frequently in fictional media than in actual science are the basics of quantum physics and the quantum state. My favorite example of very simple discussion of quantum physics is in the science fiction exploration game The Outer Wilds, which has several plot elements related to quantum states, black holes, and the life cycles of stars that are explained to the player character through an in-game educational museum. (Another excellent example of hard science fiction dealing with modern physics concepts is Liu Cixin's Rememberance of Earth's Past trilogy, also referred to by the title The Three-Body Problem. Concepts in the series include quantum entanglement, strong interaction force, and relativity.)
Of course, some science communication is done through educational programming such as cable documentaries or popular science books like A Brief History of Time. A Brief History of Time remains immensely popular as a science education book, despite the fact that it’s a common critique that many people who buy it don’t read it in full or continue to struggle with the concepts. In class, opinions were mixed on the efficacy of the science communication in the book. However, due to it being marketed as “readable,” audiences feel comfortable with the content even when they don’t understand it. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was another example of a household name in science communication, particularly in the physical sciences. Tying back into the idea of science fiction being a major method of exposure to modern scientific concepts, Sagan wrote the novel Contact as well as the screenplay for the accompanying movie. Contact is one of my favorite science fiction movies, including concepts about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, radio telescope technology, entropy, and (in the novel) transcendental numbers.
It’s definitely worth considering the role that nontraditional communication methods, like social media and science fiction, play in exposing audiences to scientific ideas. This might be particularly relevant with late 20th century science and concepts that aren’t often covered in depth in schools.
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