The Science, and Scientist, Behind ‘Ant-Man’ Movie
Several months before production began on the new sequel “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” the director Peyton Reed and a room full of writers, artists and producers assembled in the Marvel Studios offices in Burbank, California, to listen to a quantum physicist explain the science of getting really small.
Recalling the meeting recently, the quantum physicist, Spyridon Michalakis of the California Institute of Technology, said that he described the subatomic realm as “a place of infinite possibility, an alternative universe where the laws of physics and forces of nature as we know them haven’t crystallized.” He had suggestions about how it might be visualized on a movie screen: “beautiful colors changing constantly to reflect transience.”
The movie’s producer, Stephen Broussard, said, “I’m not completely sure I have my head around it yet, but it certainly sparked some interesting ideas for what this place could be.”
In the first “Ant-Man” movie (2015), Scott Lang, the title character played by Paul Rudd, wields the power to shrink to the size of a Tic Tac under the tutelage of the scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilley). “When you’re small, energy’s compressed,” Hope tells Scott. “So, you have the force of a 200-pound man behind a fist a hundredth of an inch wide. You’re like a bullet.”
If an explanation of molecular density seems like an odd fit for a training montage in a superhero movie, it speaks to the way that science informs the “Ant-Man” series.
In “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” released July 6, with Hope taking on the identity of the similarly minuscule Wasp, one character suffers from a (fictional) condition referred to as “molecular disequilibrium.” Two others fuse together across a great distance, much in the way particles do in the actual phenomenon of quantum entanglement. There is talk of tardigrade fields and time vortexes, and Laurence Fishburne delivers a technically sound lecture on something called quantum decoherence.
And yes, a character does shrink so small as to be plunged into the Quantum Realm, named after and based on scientific reality, where the laws of classical physics break down.
“Marvel really has gone out of their way to incorporate real, interesting science,” Dr. Michalakis said. “I think they realize that so much real science almost feels like science-fiction.”
Dr. Michalakis also was a consultant on the first “Ant-Man,” as well as “Spider- Man: Homecoming” (2017) and “Captain Marvel,” due in 2019. Persuasive science has played a major role at the movies this year, including “A Wrinkle in Time” (with help from the cosmologist Stephon Alexander), “Annihilation” (the geneticist Adam Rutherford) and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” (the paleontologist Jack Horner).
Dr. Michalakis hopes his work is helping ignite young imaginations. “When I think about science outreach, I can’t think of a more fun way to do it than with superheroes.”