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New Stephen Hawking Movie in the Works 135

Posted by timothy from the reinvention-to-best-bono-or-tom-jones dept.
Simon Behler writes "The Sunday Times is reporting that Stephen Hawking is making a new movie. FTA: 'Professor Stephen Hawking, Britain's world-renowned physicist, is to switch from theories of multidimensional space to the three dimensions of the Imax cinema by starring in a film that sets out his ideas on the origins and fate of the universe. The film, Beyond the Horizon, will tackle some of the most daunting theories espoused by Hawking and other cosmologists, from the idea that space has up to 11 dimensions to the cause of the big bang itself.'"
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New Stephen Hawking Movie in the Works More

New Stephen Hawking Movie in the Works

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  • 3D Imax? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Wilson_6500 ( 896824 ) on Sunday October 15, 2006 @03:40PM (#16445801)
    to the three dimensions of the Imax cinema

    So, is the third dimension apparent depth? If Imax shows are still displayed on flat screens...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 5E-0W2 ( 767094 )
      Time.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 )
        No, no, no... Time is the fourth dimension. Please turn in your Time Lord In Training card!
        • But all the Time Lords were wiped out(except of course for The Doctor)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tehshen ( 794722 )
          No, time is the 0th dimension. It's easier that way, because the 4D people would have to call time the -fifth- dimension, and the 5D people would have to call it the sixth, and it would all get horribly confusing, more so than usual.

          • the 4D people would have to call time the -fifth- dimension

            No, the Fifth Dimension is a singing group (or at least it was at one time; I don't know about currently).

            Time is often incorrectly called the "Fourth Dimension", but it's not the same kind of dimension as spatial dimension, so it really shouldn't be lumped in with them.
            Here is an illustrative analogy:

            You have three kids, and your neighbor has a kid.
            You might call your third-born kid your "third kid", but you wouldn't call your neighbor's kid your

    • ...if this were a battle in the murky depths of the Mutura Nebula.

    • Professor Stephen Hawking, Britain's world-renowned physicist, is to switch from theories of multidimensional space to the three dimensions of the Imax cinema...

      I was interested until I read that. I only watch science movies on the OMNImax screens. I don't like to learn unless there's an honest chance of getting sea sick. Thank you very much.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kurfu ( 738047 )
      Three dimensions is correct:
      1-width 2-height 3-time

  • Oh god (Score:1, Troll)

    by kafka47 ( 801886 )

    Hear that rumbling? That's the sound of a thousand Slashdot jokes about cybernetic wheelchair pr0n...

    Run awayyyy!!!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by From A Far Away Land ( 930780 )
      Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood because my pet just died, but isn't it depressing that all of the medical technology in the world can't give one of the greatest minds in the world a semblence of a healthy body?

      Still, it's good that such a smart man is getting all of this media attention. The world could use more role models in movies, instead of relying on the ones that take steroids to break sports records.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by RsG ( 809189 )

        isn't it depressing that all of the medical technology in the world can't give one of the greatest minds in the world a semblence of a healthy body?

        Why single out Hawking? He isn't the only person in the world with ALS. Nor is he the only person who has contributed to our scientific knowledge to suffer or die from an incurable disease.

        It's not like the medical technology we have today is miraculous. Advanced, yes, but medicine is still a work in progress, and probably always will be. People still die of

      • Re:Oh god (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday October 15, 2006 @04:25PM (#16446177)
        Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood because my pet just died, but isn't it depressing that all of the medical technology in the world can't give one of the greatest minds in the world a semblence of a healthy body?

        You know, just because technology doesn't give Hawking the body of Arnold Schwarzeneger doesn't mean it didn't help: without technology, Hawking would probably have ended up in a rocking chair, his family taking his motionless, speechless body for that of a gibbering imbecile. Instead of that, his power wheelchair give him a semblance of mobility, and his speech box give him the ability to express himself. So in reality, technology gave us one of the greatest mind in the world.

        As for movies, Stephen hawking did play in Star Trek TNG. Granted, it wasn't a Jackie Chan role, but still...

        • Re:Oh god (Score:5, Funny)

          by mgabrys_sf ( 951552 ) on Sunday October 15, 2006 @05:48PM (#16446931) Journal
          re:"As for movies, Stephen hawking did play in Star Trek TNG. Granted, it wasn't a Jackie Chan role, but still..."

          Well with a little more CG FX, he COULD have had a Jackie Chan role, and I think the world is ready for the full on Stephen Hawking / Jackie Chan experience in "RoadHouse 2, Quantum leaps of fury". "Entropy takes a beating in the summer of 2007"
          • Always at the wrong time.
          • Well, nevermind Jackie Chan... He's passe... Pair Hawking up with some kewl F/X, and Stephen Chow! They could do a remake of Kung Fu Hustle, or Shaolin Soccer. But, first, I want to see them side-by-side in those yellow catsuits with the black stripes. They can do twists and turns in quick cuts to the tune the old Purina Cat Chow:

            "Purina Cat CHOW, CHOW! CHOW!! Purina Cat CHOW, CHOW!!! CHOW!!!! Chhh-chhh-chhh chow-chi-chi-chow-chow-cheowwww!!!" (yes, they have to do it real gay-like, too, but then Hawkings m

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Walt Dismal ( 534799 )
          Just remember, the even-numbered Stephen Hawking movies will be bad, and the odd numbered ones good, and then there's the one where he invents transparent aluminum and saves the whales. That one's awesome, especially where he talks into a mouse.... what? Yes, Mom, I did take my Ritalin today! Go away, I'm busy online.
          • I think you've got that reversed. After all, A Brief History of Time V: The No Hair Theorem was pretty lame. He's one of the greatest minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, but I really felt like his ideas on black holes were cheapened when he was kidnapped by Sybok and taken to Sha Ka Ree.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gkhan1 ( 886823 )
        You should remember that ALS is a horrific disease that kills almost everybody within a couple of years after diagnosis. It's truly a miracle that Hawking is still alive. Let's be grateful for that.

      • Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood because my pet just died, but isn't it depressing that all of the medical technology in the world can't give one of the greatest minds in the world a semblence of a healthy body?

        Some time ago Dr. Robert J. White http://archive.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/06/29fe aturea.html [salon.com]>proposed exactly that. Since non-nerve stuff is mostly mechanical, perhaps Futurama is closer than we think...

        Xix.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Naughty Bob ( 1004174 )
        "Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood because my pet just died, but isn't it depressing that all of the medical technology in the world can't give one of the greatest minds in the world a semblence of a healthy body?" Sorry to hear about your pet, and I am sure you loved it very much, but I'm sure we'd have heard about it before now if it had 'one of the greatest minds in the world'. It's just your grief talking.
      • Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood because my pet just died

        If it was a cat, just stick it in a sealed box with some radioactive material next to it, and you'll have a 50/50 chance of ending up in a good mood. Or a worse mood, since now you've been hanging around some radioactive material.

  • This is great news. We need more movies to completely blow stoners' minds! Trippy visuals and ideas that are completely outside the thought patterns of most people make for a great mix.

  • But more important (Score:4, Funny)

    by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Sunday October 15, 2006 @03:42PM (#16445817)
    Will he rap in it?

    http://www.mchawking.com/ [mchawking.com]

  • The real question is.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15, 2006 @03:45PM (#16445845)
    Will he be doing his own stunts?

  • Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Sunday October 15, 2006 @03:59PM (#16445941) Journal
    Why are they even making a film? The BBC did an excellent TV series about his life, it was not only entertaining but showed his youth which many people arn't aware of.
    • The film isn't going to be about his life. It's about the scientific theories that he and many others have come up with. I didn't see the BBC series but I'm pretty sure it was primarily a biopic of Hawking, which is nothing like the film described in the article.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because this is a film (presumably with him at the helm in some form) about his *ideas* - not about his personal challenges in life, which was the focus of the BBC dramatisation.

      As someone lucky enough to attend one of his lectures on his cosmological theories a few years ago I think it is an interesting idea. The principle feeling I was left with after the hour and a half was that there were some very intriguing thoughts he was attempting to convey, but the visualisation of such thoughts was very difficul

  • Real Physics? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sammyo ( 166904 )
    IANAP but I happened to chat with a real string theory
    theorist recently, he did not seem at all impressed with
    Hawking.

    Anything that sparks the interest of a student or anyone
    to enter science is a fine thing. I'm looking forward to
    it even though the artists rendition of 11 dimensions will
    likely be more psycadelic than mathematically accurate.
    • I am a (experimental) particle physicist, and I also am not particularly enamored of Stephen Hawking. He has done some excellent work on black holes, and he has done some excellent work to keep himself in the media limelight since then.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      LOLWHAT

      Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems?
      Hawking radiation in semiclassical quantum gravity?
      Gibbons-Hawking ansatz for gravitational multi-instantons?
      Hawking-Hartle no-boundary proposal?
      Hawking-Turok inflation?
      First calculation of 5-dimensional Kerr metrics in AdS backgrounds (which is VERY important for string theory via AdS/CFT)?
      Euclidean quantum gravity and black hole information loss?(admitedly this one is slightly dubious)

      He has done more important work in M-theory than most "professional" string th
      • As I said elsewhere in this thread, I am a physicist, and I am not particularly impressed with Hawking. Many other physicists that I know feel similarly. The physics world is certainly not in awe of him, as the science-for-the-layman reading crowd generally is. He is fairly widely viewed as a decent theorist, but his fame certainly outstrips his accomplishments. My fiancee is a linguist, and according to her, many linguists feel roughly the same way about Noam Chomsky.
    • I happened to chat with a real string theory theorist recently...

      Umm... Don't you read? The phrase "real string theory theorist" is an oxymoron :-)
      Is String Theory Really a Scientific Theory? [slashdot.org]

  • This is good news. Too many "science" programmes on TV tell the story of the discovery (or theory), rather than try to explain the theory itself.
    • My experience with physics classes has been that the best explanations of theory are generally (almost) explanations of discovery. An emphasis on why something was thought tends to make it much easier to understand what was thought.
  • So, what he suggests is that we are someone's 3 dimensional screen-saver in otherwise 11 dimensional space?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Mikachu ( 972457 )
      If that's the case, a programmer with that much time on his hands probably posts here at slashdot.

      • Going to lower dimensions can't be too hard though

        --------------

        ^^^ There's a 1D screensaver.

        :D

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 15, 2006 @04:08PM (#16446017)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It got corrupted ;)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by j-min ( 1011011 )
      He has a machine that talks for him. Apparently the British accent wasn't designed into the machine.

      But he was born in Oxford [wikipedia.org]
      • In reality, after getting the first - of several - voice systems, he remarked that it gave him a California accent. True story - I'm too lazy to google the link at the moment.
    • I don't know, but I was sorta hoping they'd get James Earl Jones to do the voice-over work... he does a lot of voice over work...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bcmm ( 768152 )
      I'm sure I read an article a few years ago about him changing his voice to a less American one.
  • I thought it was a new Stephen King movie coming out for Halloween.

  • Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)

    by coupland ( 160334 ) * <dchase@hotm a i l . c om> on Sunday October 15, 2006 @04:16PM (#16446085) Journal
    The part of Hawking will be played by Tom Cruise, as a rogue astrophysicist who only has 24 hours to develop a unified field theory, and prevent terrorists from opening a black hole in downtown Manhattan!

  • meh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Karma Sucks ( 127136 ) on Sunday October 15, 2006 @04:21PM (#16446131)
    I'd be way more interested in a movie on that Hubert Farnsworth guy. It's amazing to me that the professor is still putting out new inventions at his age.
  • "Now that I am a movie star, 'tell your wife to come over to my place if she wants a little boom-shaka-laka boom-shaka-laka boom-shaka-laka boom'"
    • Since Stephen Hawkins makes appearences on the Simpsons and Family Guy, do you think they will make an appearance in his movie.

      "Spit in my mouth."

  • String Theory? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Hemogoblin ( 982564 )
    "... from the idea that space has up to 11 dimensions ... "

    Does this mean the movie will cover String Theory? I wasn't aware that Stephen Hawking worked in this area. Does anyone know what his position is on String Theory? I remember reading recently that some people thought it was all rubbish.

    If you're interested in learning a little about string theory, "The Elegant Universe" by Briane Greene is a great place to start. Its more of a popular-science type book, using simple and interesting example. NO

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by flawedconceptions ( 1000049 )
      Hawking has been working in string theory lately. He gave a public lecture at the Strings 06 conference in China this past summer, and his recent-ish work on the entropy of black holes (reported here maybe last year) was done in the framework of string theory.

      I should be careful, though: it's a pretty large field. By some reckonings strings are everything in theoretical high-energy physics *except* the theories that are explicitly not string theory (loop gravity, the field of recent Slashdot-ee Lee Smoli

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by anubi ( 640541 )
        Finally, a serious thread in this story...

        I would love to see Hawking's reply to String Theory.

        After trying to read the "Elegant Universe", I became more convinced than ever that String Theory as really grasping at straws, but when surrounded by darkness, a straw is better than empty space.

        I haven't the foggiest idea where the truth really lies. Maybe Hawking does. In any event, there are not many more illustrative ways of communicating one's ideas than a good animated presentation.

        Dont ya know Eins

        • I would love to see Hawking's reply to String Theory.

          I think that he's actually working *in* string theory, as far as it goes.

          I have seen much discussion involving the "graviton", relating it to the photon. Apparently I can stop a photonic flux with a photonic shield ( aka "sunshade" )... anyone been able to shade matter from the "graviton flux" yet? I haven't seen it.

          Can your subshade stop radio waves? X-rays? It's hard to say how gravitons work since no-one has ever seen one, but it's probably something

          • That doesn't seem to make much sense; the appropriately-large block of matter would then itself be generating gravitons, not blocking pull of two masses but adding to it. The whole concept of a "graviton" has never made any sense to me. I see gravity as the curve in space-time; why need a particle to account for it? How could a particle that is being expelled by something work to pull something else closer? Unless the graviton harbored some kind of negative force, when being expelled from one mass and then

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by anubi ( 640541 )
              My sentiments too.

              I also need to supply energy to a photonic source to get it to emit.

              I don't see graviton sources weakening as their energy depletes.

              Nor do I see matter "evaporate", except in instances where the mass converts to energy.

              I am not saying it does not exist, rather I am stating my complete lack of any knowledge I can use to say that it does exist.

              This is where Science becomes like Religion. Lots of speculation and search for what is true - and what is not.

              Each camp has their priests and

              • Gravity and Electromagnetism are definitely quite different. One of the big differences is that there are negatively-charged particles but there does not seem to be any matter with negative mass. If you play with pith balls (postively-charged objects) in a vacuum, say, you can do all the stuff that gravity does by using the Colulomb force rather than Newtonian gravity.

                In the example of the sun-screen, it is the presence of negative and positive charges together that allow the screen to effectively block p

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by anubi ( 640541 )
                  You have an interesting explanation.

                  I must disclose my background - engineer - so I fall pretty hard into the "experimental physicist's" camp.

                  It took me quite some time to accept Einstein's explanation of gravity as the truth. I have to admit it took some actual data I saw from some spaceborne Efratom rubidium atomic clocks that convinced me Einstein had it nailed a bit more precisely than Newton had.

                  I do think we get the most fun puzzles to solve. The complexities, yet the elegance, of the laws we r

    • Does anyone know what his position is on String Theory? I remember reading recently that some people thought it was all rubbish.
      That's a pretty detailed and serious accusation. Oh, no it's not.
      • I'm sorry, the meaning was ambiguous. What I MEANT to say was: "I remember reading recently that certain scientists thought that string theory, in general, was rubbish." I wasn't refering to Stephen Hawking's position on string theory. Also, I didn't make any accusations. I was merely repeating the opinion that I thought I had heard.
  • I'm reminded of a joke [wikipedia.org] on The Critic. I wonder if the real film will be at all similar.
  • ... it's full of wheelchairs?
    /obligatory
  • ...Snakes on a Hyperplane!

    <HawkingVoice>Who let these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking hyperplane?</HawkingVoice>

  • Nuclear Wessels?
    HERE! The USS Enterprise was the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, having eight reactor powering four shafts, two of those reactors reactors powering each shaft. With nuclear power came the ability for aircraft carries to sustain operations longer, have more endurance themselves, and the many other capabilities and innovations now common to the Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carriers. And if memory serves me.. when I was on this ship it was the fastest in the fleet. They cou

  • Wait! (Score:2)

    by red5 ( 51324 )
    Hawking is a Brit? How come he talks with an American accent? They couldn't give him a voice box with an English accent?
  • Test your memory with an algorithm and hear Stephen Hawking [cognitivelabs.com]
  • Physicist Stephen Hawking crashes his car on a snowy Colorado road. He is found by Annie Wilkes, the "number one fan" of Hawking's heroine Misery Chastaine. Annie is also somewhat unstable, and Professor Hawking finds himself crippled, drugged and at her mercy. Annie forces Hawking to spend his days examining her black hole, confined to his wheelchair.
  • Can't wait to see the trailer for this bad boy...

    http://www.trashingtrailers.com/ [trashingtrailers.com]

  • Alternate Theory of the Universe (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @07:19AM (#16451265) Homepage Journal

    I'm still waiting for my buddy's theory of the universe to be disproven:

    "Matter [and energy] is nothing more than carefully arranged empty space."

    • Things that don't make sense don't need disproving.

  • Cause of Big Bang? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kalirion ( 728907 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @08:46AM (#16451935)
    Isn't it accepted by most cosmologists that time came into existance with the Big Bang? Kind of makes it hard for a cause-effect relationship, doesn't it?
  • Funny, I never noticed the accent....
  • What's with all these rappers who think they're actors?

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