The X-Change Files explores the intersections of science and entertainment, regularly taking a look at the ways in which science is portrayed in film and television. Learn More
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Science of TRON
Listen to audio from the "Science of TRON" panel, featuring director Joe Kosinski, producer Sean Bailey, and science consultants Sean Carroll & John Dick. Learn More
Event Recaps
What do you think of when you hear the word “engineer?” Does it conjure up images of pocket protectors and slide rules? Does it evoke labs festooned with panels of blinking lights and spaghetti wiring over which are hunched socially awkward men in white lab coats? On the popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory, the character Howard Wolowitz is often derided by his colleagues because he is “just an engineer.” It seems that at some point in the not so recent past, our understanding of what an engineer is and does became somewhat skewed.
A beetle is flying through the air, wings buzzing as it moves forward, and then – suddenly – it falls to the ground. Then the wings start up again, the beetle is back in the air – then again, the wings halt and the beetle lands on the floor. It’s almost as though it’s being controlled by a remote, flying and dropping out of the air as if someone were pushing the “Start” and “Stop” buttons over and over again.
“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten,” Rudyard Kipling once observed. The same could be said for science. Biologist Sean B. Carroll from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute cited the power of storytelling during a daylong 
Twenty-eight years after the release of the originalTRON film, the sequel, TRON: Legacy, is stunning audiences with cutting-edge visual effects, heart-racing action and a mesmerizing story. But audiences are also being stunned by another element in the film: science.
Superheroes aren’t the likeliest scientists, but according to Caltech physicist Mark Wise, Tony Stark’s science is accurate. During “The Science of Iron Man 2,” a panel presented by The Exchange and Caltech, Wise pointed to an extended scene from the Iron Man 2 Blu-ray as a depiction of hard science. The scene, which Wise consulted on, depicts Tony Stark building a particle accelerator from scratch. Wise gave the scene an “A” for scientific accuracy, stating “That could be a real accelerator.”
