On the advice of my teenage son, I recently went to the cinema to see Project Hail Mary. The film has science in it. I am a science writer and so he was convinced I would like it.
Imagine my surprise partway through, however, when I found myself seething so hard I thought I would combust. Ryland Grace – the main character and a molecular biologist who should have known better – had just put two plastic tubes into a centrifuge NEXT to each other!
To state the glaring obvious, this is not cool. Just think of the strain on the central spindle! Even the most junior lab technician knows that the correct way to load a centrifuge is by balancing the samples symmetrically. Two tubes? Place them on opposite sides of the finely tuned machinery. What are we? Luddites?
Let me be clear what rattles my cage here. While many bemoan the lack of scientific accuracy in films, my complaint is more niche. I don’t mind when directors ride roughshod over the laws of physics or stretch the limits of scientific credibility, as long as it furthers the narrative. But when they make small, sloppy, seemingly inconsequential scientific mistakes, it makes me want to chuck my popcorn at the screen.
So, although the centrifuge in Project Hail Mary left me spinning, I have no beef with the film’s predominantly inorganic alien, Rocky. I don’t mind that its spaceship is made from a solid version of the noble gas xenon, nor that the film’s fictitious microorganisms or “astrophages” thrive in a vacuum and can be used to power a spacecraft. Although these reality-bending issues may rest on shonky foundations, they serve a vital purpose by keeping things ticking along.
In a similar vein, I don’t wince when the Millennium Falcon disregards Einstein’s theory of special relativity and travels faster than the speed of light, because Han Solo is a busy guy. He has things to do and places to go. Yet, a small part of me dies when the same starship roars through space, because there is no sound in a vacuum.
The premise of Jurassic Park rests on the assumption that dinosaur DNA can be obtained from fossils. It can’t. The oldest DNA retrieved is 2m years old. Dinosaurs died out 66m years ago, making their “de-extinction” impossible. I’m fine with this misinformation because it drives the plot, but I break out in hives when I see the supposedly blood-sucking mosquito whose belly the scientists extract dino DNA from. The insect’s characteristically downturned proboscis tells me it is a nectar feeder.
I’m not a pedant but minutiae matter. Scientific knowledge, in all of its gloriously geeky detail, is hard won, so please, film-makers, do sweat the small stuff. The centrifuge in Project Hail Mary isn’t just unbalanced, it’s unhinged. When it comes to seemingly trivial specifics, don’t take the easy option just because it looks or sounds good. Get it right instead. If you can’t do that, don’t bother making the movie at all. And if this is the hill I will I die on, so be it. I fall on my pipette with honour.
Helen Pilcher is a science writer and author of Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth and This Book May Cause Side Effects
