As it happens, this panel provides a good example of my one caveat regarding the site: everything in the fields of science, engineering, and technology tends to get lumped under the single umbrella term “science.” For example, despite Apollo 13's being centered on a purely engineering problem—an explosion aboard a spacecraft—and the fact that most of the characters portrayed in the movie are engineers, the discussion about the film is couched in terms of the issues involved with presenting “science” and “science problems” to a movie audience. It may sound like semantics, but in an otherwise terrific effort to improve the public's understanding of science and technology, this lack of distinction can, ironically, present a distorted image of science—and do a disservice to engineers in the bargain.

Photo: Museum of the Moving Image

THE END OF THE WORLD?: Teen angst is reflected by the uncertain fate of Skylab.

This nit aside, the Sloan Foundation and the Museum of the Moving Image are to be commended, not just for opening the door to substantive dialogue between the worlds of science, technology, and film, but also for making the fruits of that dialogue so accessible. Fifteen short films are available on the site to watch for free, ranging in length from 7 to 29 minutes. My favorites are The Monster and the Peanut, about a man who believes he can find the reason for his daughter's death if only he can figure out how to model traffic flow [see photo, “A Driven Man”], and Skylab, in which a boy spends a summer worrying that the sky will literally fall on his head [see photo, “The End of The World?”]. Another notable film is Gray Matter, an unflinching look at a coroner's investigation into a child's death. Be warned, though: the film includes a grisly and graphic scene of an autopsy that makes this depiction of a forensic investigator's work very different from television shows like “C.S.I.” and its spin-offs. (That said, “C.S.I.” does generally work hard to get the science right; see “Inside Hollywood,” Spectrum, December 2005.)

The only movie I really didn't like was Paprika, an animated tale that aims to depict Nobel Prize–winner Albert Szent-Györgyi's identification of Vitamin C as ascorbic acid. In the film, the secret of Vitamin C is told to Szent-Györgyi by a homunculus that, one day, just happens to magically emerge from a red pepper. Isn't the idea of revealed wisdom delivered by supernatural entities, though, inherently antithetical to science?

Still, the obvious creativity of all the featured filmmakers suggests that there will be something for nearly every taste on the site. I urge even the most cold-bloodedly analytical engineer to check out these artistic offerings—who knows, they may even give you a new perspective on your work. Just don't start talking to the red pepper people.