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Celebrated astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is heading back to the Schuster Center Sunday, Oct. 4 courtesy of Dayton Live for Part 2 of his informative talk blending the worlds of cinema, science and pop culture.
Tyson was previously in Dayton in June 2022 for his original lecture on the subject of science and movies. This time around he’s focusing on such films as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Flashdance,” “Gravity,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “A Bug’s Life” among others.
“If you bring science to the table in the context of something that somebody already knows and cares about it’s way easier for them to care about the science,” Tyson said. “They walk in with a pop culture scaffold. And then I clad that scaffold with science, attaching it to things things they care about. And in that way, they just never forget it and they like it, and they come back for more. It’s very tactical. They’re not in school but they know they want to expect to learn. And I want to make it as fun as possible.”
In particular, a discussion of “Mary Poppins” will feature insights into climate change and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” will bring higher dimensions into focus.
“The way the talk is organized is not by movie — it’s organized by scientific topic,” Tyson explained. “There’s also the subject of topology, which is what shapes do in different dimensions. There is a scene in ‘Zoolander’ that violates the laws of topology. The range of movies is highly diverse. I don’t expect everyone to have seen all the movies but everyone would have heard of all the movies.”
Holding degrees from Harvard University, University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University, Tyson, 67, is best known for hosting the TV show “NOVA ScienceNow” on PBS as well as the podcast “StarTalk.” He has also been awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal. Since 1996, he has served as director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City.
The New York City native is also the author of such books as “Death by Black Hole,” “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” and “Cosmic Queries: StarTalk’s Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going.” In 2017, he earned a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken World Album for “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.” He has also made cameos on such TV shows as “The Big Bang Theory” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
He hopes audiences are receptive to another round of fascinating deep dives intended to bring fresh awareness to an array of films.
“If people love movies it will help them see movies more deeply, more critically,” Tyson said. “I highly value smiling and laughing while you’re learning because it means the learning brings a good feeling upon you.”
