The science of Spectral: Is that really how Bose–Einstein condensate behaves?
Spoiler warning: This article, as you might've gathered, completely spoils most of the story of Spectral. If you haven't seen it yet, it should be on Netflix in your country.
A lot of the fascination with sci-fi movies stems from a successful blend of state-of-the-art science and technology with what might be considered an imaginable extrapolation of it. For a scientist, of course, it is especially interesting if one's own research field is depicted. A recent example is the movie Spectral, which can be described as a mixture of a war and a ghost story, where soldiers face an enemy with seemingly supernatural properties.
Well into the movie (and after a lot of people are killed along the way), the main hero, DARPA researcher Dr. Mark Clyne, has a "eureka" moment when he realises that the mysterious creatures are, in fact, fashioned out of Bose-Einstein condensate. Wow! One of my fields of research for the past 15+ years!
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