Which physics setting would be the best for a Hollywood movie about love?

By James Dacey

Dark matter, dark energy and telescopes are not necessarily themes that you would expect to feature heavily in a short film about love. But they do in a new short film called The Theory of Everything that captures a romantic episode between two researchers working at a fictional observatory in Chile.

The film is described in this blog entry by my colleague Matin Durrani, who attended the film’s première in London. Matin quite enjoyed the film. I’ve got to say that I found the result slightly too far towards gorgonzola on the cheese scale – right from the opening scene where you see the observatory is called “Querido”, which roughly translates as “darling”. But I do really love the concept of the film and it got me thinking about different locations Hollywood filmmakers might consider when shooting their next feature-length movie. Can you imagine a rom-com set at CERN, for instance? Or a long, tension-filled love affair filmed at a big physics conference like the MRS March meeting?

What do you think? Let us know by taking part in this week’s Facebook poll.

Which physics setting would be the best for a Hollywood movie about love?

A particle-accelerator facility
A physics conference
An observatory atop a remote mountain
The International Space Station
A university research laboratory
Another location (please suggest by posting a comment)

To place your vote, visit our Facebook page.

In last week’s poll we asked you to pick which book you think should be Physics World‘s Book of the Year for 2012, presenting you with our shortlist of 10. The book that came out on top with 50% of votes was How the Hippies Saved Physics by David Kaiser. We’ll announce Physics World‘s choice of Book of the Year on 18 December, when our regular books podcast is released on physicsworld.com.