Telling the story
We notice that novel-writing and movie-making are different from Physics and History.
Our astronomer finally got around to watching the movie Interstellar recently. We’re not going to offer a full review of the work (which is, in any case, years old by now), only make two observations. First, while much of the physics in the movie is simply wrong, much is right, and that part is vital to the story. This contrasts with, say, the Star Wars universe, in which physics is simply ignored. Second, there are many hair’s-breadth escapes, critical incidents, cliff-hanging (literally), the fate of the human race dependinging on the actions of one person; in a word, drama.
From the point of view of evolutionary history, a species whose survival depends on the actions of a single member has no future. From the point of view of someone making a piece of thrilling entertainment, it’s par for the course. Viewers expect a story that will demand their attention. Making the action outstandingly important is one means toward that end. Other elements, such as the critical incident, the dramatic argument, the sudden realization, the million-to-one chance that comes off, are accepted tools of drama. It may to useful to put them in even if unnecessary, because people expect them.
History is not like that. Episodes can be made into neat bundles with a moral (indeed, the Greeks and Romans excelled in that art), but this does some violence to the facts and much violence to the complexity and subtlety of causes and motivations. Our tutoring consultant has so far shied away from helping with history, because he is too aware of the complications and thus tends to confuse students who need a simple picture to start out with.
Science is even worse. There is not much drama in trigonometry (though to a student much may depend on the grade). We’d like students to experience a Critical Realization now and then, to keep their interest up, but it’s not the way to learn a whole subject. When a long shot guess comes right in the final exam, it may lead to dramatic relief and an apparently happy ending for the student; but the student hasn’t learned what we were trying to teach.
Beyond teaching, simply writing an engaging piece of popular science can be extremely difficult. The scientist must begin by analogies insead of mathematics, and simplify ideas that are complicated and subtle. But somehow it must be entertaining as well. There’s always the temptation to make it a bit too simple or to stretch an analogy to conform with the narrative imperative people are used to in drama. Especially when dealing with cutting-edge research, it’s very tempting to present a tidy package as the truth (particularly when it’s your own research). Conscientiously inserting the required, “This is what we think,” and “This hasn’t been confirmed yet” in all the necessary places reduces the dramatic flow. But we do want to make a distinction between science and fiction.
