The Dish:
Culturing
Science
By Yasmin Tayag
Associate Editor
Hollywood turns its spotlight on the lives of
famous scientists (and, cursorily, their work); the
human side of space travel is captured in rare
photographs; String theory is used to explore the
future(s) of a new relationship.
Constellations. Roland (Jake Gyllenhaal) and
Marianne (Ruth Wilson) are the central players in
this tragicomic two-hander about infinite parallel universes. Written by British playwright Nick
Payne, this play, premiering in New York for the
first time, is loosely inspired by string theory:
Marianne and Roland meet at a barbecue, they
have their first awkward conversation, and suddenly time rewinds—they are meeting again for
the first time, and things turn out slightly differently. By visiting and revisiting key moments in
their relationship, we’re asked to meditate on that
maddening question: what if? Constellations is
playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater in New
York through February 15.
photographer and author Michael Soluri captured
the human side of space travel by following the
crew and support staff of the final Hubble servicing mission. This book, a collection of his photographs and related essays, features the astronauts
involved as well as the technicians, scientists, and
engineers that made the historic missions possible. Also included are poignant photographs
taken by the astronauts themselves; before the
launch, Soluri taught the crew to take photographs that helped answer the crucial questions:
what are we doing here, and what are we looking
for?
The Imitation Game. This film traces the life
of the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing (masterfully played by Benedict Cumberbatch) as
he successfully leads the race to break Enigma,
the unbeatable German encryption machine.
Despite his successes, his work and later life are
compromised; we learn that Turing was a closeted
gay man at a time when it was forbidden by the
government. Though a bit liberal in its storytelling (Turing had actually already designed a codebreaking machine, or ‘bombe’, before the war),
The Theory of Everything. James Marsh’s much- this magnificent film is an excellent introduction
to the man we now know as the father of digital
hyped biopic about physicist Stephen Hawking
computing.
(in a brilliant performance by Eddie Redmayne)
puts the focus on his relationship with his first
Experimenter, the Stanley Milgram Story.
wife, Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). Hawking met
Unlike Hawking and Turing, Stanley Milgram isn’t
his future wife while completing his PhD at
immediately recognizable; his work, however,
Cambr