ABSTRACT
Science and movies have been intertwined from the beginning of cinema. The cinematic apparatus actually emerged out of the scientific research of Eadweard Muybridge and EtienneJules Marey, who were looking for technological means for studying animal movement in the late nineteenth century (Tosi 2005). Yet, until relatively recently, there was a dearth of studies examining science in fictional cinema. The current upsurge in the number of academic studies explicitly addressing the use of science in cinema can be attributed to a number of factors. For one, we are living in what could be described as a golden age for science in movies and on television. Many of the most financially successful films of all time have science at their core and were made in the last decade, including Spider-Man (2002), Finding Nemo (2003), and the all-time box office champion Avatar (2009). Similarly, a significant number of the most popular television shows of the last decade are immersed in science and technology, including CSI (2000-), House (2005-2012) and The Big Bang Theory (2007-). The increased popularity of science in entertainment media coincided with the rise of geek culture on the Internet. There are now a vast number of websites, such as io9 and Boing Boing,2 celebrating the use of science in fiction.
