'The Laws of Thermodynamics' and the 'Contagion' of Entertainment Science

I am always trying to find great ways of communicating science. In my humble opinion that is the determinant factor in understanding the disengagement of people from medical treatments, from scientific advances and from all the science that surround us from all sides, but that many still consider appanage of few. 

Entertainment-wise, 'The Big Bang Theory' TV series has indeed done a lot for the way science became popularised; but at the same time produced an even more stressed idea that science is geeky, perpetrated by weird people lacking social skills, carriers of uncool styles, that intelligence can be softly erotic but also the distant zenith of boring minds with Utopian intellects.

Entertainment companies have discovered a long time back that science and its associated enticing powers can be popular and sell - Super heroes are the archaic exploited symbols of such branch. Nevertheless, no one has so far, in my opinion, yet decrypted the adequate miraculous formula to teach complex science subjects to bored young minds. In my personal perspective, the issue does not reside immediately in merely simplifying the topics and/or stupefying the vehicles of information. Many people tried different approaches and I will not derail here with corollaries and theorems. There are far more qualified people to explore and develop the educational abyss. What I do know is that after so many years with so many students failing so many scientific topics, one can't constantly complain that maths, chemistry, physics are far too complex for the basic minds of our students.

I consider that the basic mistake in teaching science, a mistake that ends up detaching young talented people from science, and consequently boring their minds to 'intellectual and emotional death', is the fact that science is not made real, quotidian and reachable. When one is 'forced' to learn something for the sake of a compulsory curriculum, one will immediately seek a mirroring of said science in his/her own life. A young rebel mind as the common young mind is (and should always be) will criticise the learning objects seeking validation of its realistic nature, day-to-day presence in life and above all, the power one has to manipulate, integrate or apply said science, to a certain extent.

What Serious Games and digital educational applications are unfortunately taking Eras to attain, movies have the capacity to perform successfully with a few adequately prepared actors/actresses, intrepidly written scripts and enticing turning points. - So difficult To Objectify!, some might cry, as for the entertainment industry the synergy between audience and digested product should be an easy experience for both parts. 

I couldn't agree more... But that might have changed when Mateo Gil delivered "The Laws of Thermodynamics" in 2018. 

Mateo delivered a ready-to-eat movie embedded with passionate thermodynamics, a physics topic on its won unreachable for most of us humans, let alone bored young minds. But he did it with such charm, with such appeal by intelligently using a circle of quotidian relationships whose characters are themselves reachable and readable in any of our lives. There's a beautiful model, there's a geeky researcher, a thriving lawyer and the guy still today I can't remember exactly what he did professionally apart from spending hours surfacing on the Internet looking for fit girls (that also very quotidian)... but I know he actively participates in all our lives as the one flirtatious person we all heard of and... well... envy, criticise or simply admire!!!

The explanation of how thermodynamics rules our lives, and is ruled by our lives and associated interactions, is so well displayed and explored that all together make me wonder! Why don't we have more intelligent directors talking about these hyper-intelligent subjects and bringing them down for the common people??? Mateo Gil brought it down with uncanny perfection.

You know, one thing is to be a common person, other thing is to be fed common ideas. 'The Laws of Thermodynamics' is a wonderful essay on physics and the incredible educational power that movies hold within and latent. A power yet to be appropriately unveiled by the mainstream cinema. 

It is easy to make movies such as Steven Soderbergh's 2011 'Contagion'. The desirable ingredients are all there, i.e., powerful unknown undecipherable organism, chaos, disease, death, direct causal relationships and the military intervention. Another thing is to deliver a much tougher abstract idea in the shape of lecture; an idea that due to its magic will 'force' one to be attentively watching to the very last minute. 

The Contagion of Entertainment Science is yet to happen, but we can feel its aura unbuttoning. I for one believe that movies and docuseries can deliver the most tremendous power to the masses - the successfully informational/educational simplified perceiving of complex things.