Forgive me: I’m watching Season 2 and 3 of Doctor Who with The Little Astronomer, so maybe I have too much BBC on my mind, but my friend Gia just posted a video of John Barrowman, aka Captain Jack Harkness, touring CERN, the particle accelerator in Europe.
I am always happy to see TV and movie stars take a real interest in science (and from the video, it looks like Captain Jack got it). Years ago, I just missed seeing Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager) when she went on a tour of Goddard Space Flight Center. Many people told me she was the perfect guest, and seemed genuinely interested in what was going on.
I tend not to respect stars just because they are stars — I’ve met a few and been less than impressed. But so many I have met or read about really do seem to have a fascination with science. I should add that Tim Russ, also from Voyager, is an amateur astronomer. And don’t forget Brian May! And Julia Sweeney, and and and.
The news focuses on such shallow, vapid, and truly hateful stars. Why don’t we hear more about these good guys?
July 10th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Phil, we’re doing “Torchwood by Torchlight” at Dragon*Con this year.
So sad you’re gonna miss all the fun!
Sure you don’t wanna come?
July 10th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Celebrities are people, too, with their own interests, just like everyone else. Some are interested in science, some aren’t. I imagine their busy schedules don’t give them much time to pursue their interests, though.
It is a shame that the media only seems to focus on the superficial aspect of being a celebrity, rather than the actual person who happens to be one.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Just don’t ask him where he was hiding that particle accellerator!
July 10th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Swoopy, just one problem: Season 1 of Torchwood was teh suck. The last few episodes were so bad I developed cramps in my face from cringing for so long. Maybe Season 2 will be better.
Well another problem: I really can’t make it anyway. i have an Alaska Cruise to go on!
July 10th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Also do not forget Tom Hanks! Apollo 13 and From the Earth to the Moon made him my hero. Keep up the great work here, this is actually my first time posting although I check this site more than once daily!
July 10th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Brian May’s rather “wooish” ideas concerning the Deep Impact mission have been previously discussed on the BAUT.
I’m surprised that you would consider him a rational, scientific person.
Then, again…I’m not surprised by too much as of late…
July 10th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I’m not saying he’s rational, I’m saying he’s interested in science; really more than interested, since he was pursuing a PhD in it!
July 10th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
The cast of Copenhagen toured the physics lab where I worked at the time when the play came to Boston. They were nice people who to all appearances quite enjoyed themselves (easy to do when the lab equipment includes giant electromagnets). The actress who played Margrethe Bohr was Mariette Hartley — the one who taught Spock to eat meat in the original Star Trek!
Incidentally, I just noticed a paper on the arXiv about bad physics in Hollywood movies. If you ever wanted to know how many joules of energy it would take Magneto to move the Golden Gate Bridge, well, now you can find out.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
We dont hear from these people because the headlines would be rather dull. News Flash!! Jeri Ryan was just caught incognito in Borders purchasing a copy of ‘Origin of Species’!! Ms. Ryan claimed ‘I’m only buying it as a gift for a friend’. She reportedly left the scene, driving herself, after 2 carmel mochiatos.
Boring news. Now the worthless tripe that they do peddle gets the rubes attentions. Sad.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I’ve never seen Torchwood, but Barrowman was the single best guest I’ve ever seen on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Google “Never Mind the Buzzcocks Barrowman” to watch..great stuff.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I’m not saying he’s rational, I’m saying he’s interested in science; really more than interested, since he was pursuing a PhD in it!
Was?
http://www.andrewjaffe.net/blog/science/000294.html
July 10th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I’m not sure what “torchwood by torchlight” would entail but from watching the show I assume it will be composed entirely of makeouts.
For some reason I think knowing Barrowman got a wild bug to tour CERN will help me endure his character more on the show, and my wife’s keen to watch Season 2 for some inscrutable reason, so thanks for giving me the strength to carry on BA.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I have to agree with BA that Torchwood had a pretty rough first season. There were a couple of better episodes — the one with the planeload of passengers from the past stands out for me — but in general the cast was a little too melodramatic for my tastes. Some of the action scenes where they were running around toting guns looked ridiculously staged. And Barrowman seems, for the moment, more comfortable as support for Doctor Who than as the leading man.
Hopefully he will grow into the part in season two.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
“Brian May’s rather “wooish†ideas concerning the Deep Impact mission have been previously discussed on the BAUT.”
What I found on the forums doesn’t seem very ‘wooish’, he simply had a conservationist/preservationist attitude which allows the possibility of being surprised by what’s actually there, rather than a certainty of what the comet was and a cavalier attitude about what we do to it. It’s kind of like the difference between Western attitudes towards whaling and Japanese attitudes towards whaling. Whales die all the time! What’s a few more for science?
It’s a different value system, which isn’t really the same as ‘woo’.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
> Hopefully he will grow into the part in season two.
At least his face will, eh? Eh?
July 11th, 2007 at 1:18 am
I think I can understand Phil’s dislike for Tourchwood because it seems to have been made in the grand tradition of British SciFi: slightly dodgy stories, slightly dodgy acting, somewhat camp, etc… I tend to see the show as being more in the great tradition of the old Doctor Whos and the likes of Blake’s Seven and the like. It’s one of those shows that you either love or hate — there’s no real middle ground.
Personally I love it.
Then again I’m a huge fan of the backdrop to the show too.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:19 am
If you look up Brian May singing the theme from 80’s space adventure series Starfleet, you will have a good laugh. We’re laughing with you Brian, not at you! Cool series and a regular song played at the UMIST beer festival.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:27 am
I was at a talk of Brian May’s at a conference at Imperial College, London on Monday. He gave an excellent talk on his area (zodiacal light and dust) and he handled his questions with great ease. Certainly on that field he gave the impression of being an excellent scientist, and you’d count his talk as amongst the best there even if he weren’t a celebrity I think.
July 11th, 2007 at 3:23 am
And don’t forget that Not-Yet-Doctor May also co-authored “Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe” with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott.
It blew my mind to see that - I guess I had unconciously assumed that celebrities were one-dimensional, and never guessed that he would have a passion for something so far removed from the field where he made his name.
July 11th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Here’s a clip of Brian on the 50th anniversary edition of “The Sky at Night”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYEUafwZkZ0
July 11th, 2007 at 6:24 am
…and the video to the ‘Starfleet’ single:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjijteu0gcQ
July 11th, 2007 at 7:10 am
>> Hopefully he will grow into the part in season two.
>At least his face will, eh? Eh?
Uh, Phil hasn’t seen season 3 yet, so try to lay off the references to it. We don’t want to force him to stop reading the comments on his blog, now do we?
July 11th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Hey Phil, I think you forgot … Wil Wheaton! I was there when Wil toured JSC back circa 1994. He came out to Space Center Houston for a big shindig held there, and was named as a space ambassador or some such for the year. I forget the actual deal that was about now, but I got to talk with him about 5 minutes hanging out by the bartender. I talked about what he was up to post-Next Gen. Earlier that day I had seen him touring through the mockups - I was in another group doing our own tour.
July 11th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Sorry, Phil. Brian May just turned in his dissertation on the zodiacal dust cloud. Where is your head? Sheesh…. (P.S. There are about 100 interplanetary dust astronomers who are waiting to take a look at it, including me. Given his advisor and the university it is coming out of, I expect it will be a high quality and professional piece of work.)
July 11th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Brian May is a genuinely nice person, much loved by all who’ve come into contact with him.
As a rock icon, he has been known to stand out in the rain signing autographs at 2 a.m. until everyone went away happy. Kudos to him for that.
As an astronomer, he had to give up working on his Ph.D. owing to his musical success. Now, despite having an honorary doctorate, he’s worked on earning the real thing, so kudos to him for that, too.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Rock on Brian May!
July 11th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Did someone say shallow, vapid, and truly hateful?
*cough* Tom Cruise *cough*
July 12th, 2007 at 6:24 am
[…] John Barrowman Does CERN The actor from Dr. Who gets to explore the LHC. (via Phil) […]
July 12th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
OK…I give up. For all those who have mentioned hum, Brian May is worthy of your respect.
Isn’t it amazing how I can be so wrong about so many things…
July 12th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
…mentioned HIM, not hum…
See…wrong again…
July 14th, 2007 at 10:34 am
“Among those in La Palma for the opening was Brian May, lead guitarist of pop group Queen, who studied part of his doctorate in astrophysics at the Canary Island institute.
May, who recently published “BANG! The Complete History of the Universe” with astronomers Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, said he was adding the finishing touches to a musical score which will be played at the telescope’s inauguration next summer.”
Full article here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070714/D8QCB4J00.html
July 15th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
[…] John Barrowman Does CERN The actor from Dr. Who gets to explore the LHC. (via Phil) […]
July 27th, 2007 at 12:02 am
As director of a major Torchwood fansite I have been following JB’s movements quite closely the past few years and I too was very impressed with the podcast of him visiting CERN. However as I’m a skeptic first and foremost I was very UNimpressed with his appearance on a BBC dog adoption show a few weeks ago when he talked about how a pet psychic had helped him find his dog. For the first time I realised that the comparisons with Tom Cruise weren’t too far off the mark.
Share and Enjoy.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:21 am
[…] Goddard Space Flight Center. Many people told me she was the perfect guest, and seemed source: Torchwood collides with science, Bad Astronomy […]
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Hi Phil,
I guess I worked at Goddard at about the same time as you. I met Jeri that day, when she came to talk for “Take Your Daughter to Work Day”. She was meant to give an inspirational talk, but merely answered questions and read from someone’s fan script.
Also, I am also really into DW and TW. (the former more than the latter).
October 13th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
[…] physics; he is a voracious reader and is fascinated by the science), Doctor Who and Torchwood star John Barrowman, and even my own […]