One blog. Two opinions. One zillion films.

David,

I spent 30 minutes at lunch today viewing the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s film, Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity. Co-produced with NOVA, this is a large format film usually shown inside the museum’s digital planetarium, with accompanying surround sound.  The film was screened as part of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival’s interactive media conference.

Black holes and super novas are the topic; but the half-hour film is a great primer on the impossible-to-conceive gigantic, colossus nature of…the nature of space.  There’s a NASA telescope out there, programmed to chart the “frontiers of human knowledge and beyond.”  Guess what they call it?

“Swift.”

Swift is looking for telltale signs of space phenomena hiding in the dark: black holes.  Super novas signal the existence of black holes.   And black holes exist, as Einstein theorized, in space that is flexible as fabric. Planets, he said, put dents in “space time.”

The film’s graphics are cool; perhaps the most effective graphic for non-scientists is the kayakers-being-sucked-down-the-tidal wave-drain image.   If you find yourself on the face of a black hole, you aren’t headed back to shore any time soon.   It’s not clear WHERE you’ll end up, but it’s not on the beach.

Unless you’re Jodi Foster in Contact, and then you do end up on a beach, gazing at your long-lost dad, or an alien in the personage of your long lost-dad, in another universe.  A universe that looks just like the picture of the beach, ocean and palm tree you had on your bulletin board in your childhood bedroom.

There’s mathematic  proof of parallel universes.  I read it in Scientific American.  My sister is there.

Many of the film’s effects reminded me of tie dye t-shirts, lava lamps and screen savers.  Mostly, though, they were way cool and cosmic.  The film is great for all ages.

Going Super Nova,

Tammy