The Exchange

When we tell you that there are teaching moments in every film that could get a conversation started about science, we really do mean every film. We can prove it too. We’re not afraid to put our money where our mouth is: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Here’s a film about magic that takes place in a fantastical land where anything seems possible and Muggle science feels misguided and trivial… or so you thought.

There is a scene that takes place at a math tournament in the 2004 film Mean Girls wherein each team must pick the weakest member from the other team to compete in a tie-breaking “sudden death” round. The boys on one team don’t even need to mull it over: they automatically pick the token female on the opposing team – because everyone knows girls aren’t as good as boys at math. Right?

Everyone loves a gripping story, and anything involving family secrets seems to have particular power. The Star Warsseries was hugely popular not just for its eye-popping special effects and epic mythology, but also for its tangled familial relationships. Darth Vader is Luke's father? Leia is his sister? It's positively Dickensian in its intricate genealogical scope.

Gosh, it seems like only yesterday that the Science and Entertainment Exchange officially launched with an exclusive, invitation-only symposium at the Creative Artists Agency. But it was actually last November when over 300 writers, directors, producers, production designers, and executives, along with scientists, engineers and health professionals, convened to hear about the latest cutting-edge research in rare and infectious diseases, climate change, cosmology and astronomy, genomics, brain and mind (neuroscience), and robotics/artificial intelligence.