MIT experts distinguish teleport fact from fiction
Director Doug Liman and actor Hayden Christensen of “Jumper” host panel in Cambridge with MIT professors to discuss the realities of teleportation today and how it is portrayed in the upcoming film.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Most Hollywood directors wouldn’t have the guts to let two renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicists and a slew of opinionated students dissect their science-fiction movie, but Wednesday Doug Liman did just that when he shared details of his latest flick, “Jumper,” which is based on the premise that human teleportation is possible
“I flew out from L.A. this morning with Hayden Christensen and we are very excited to be here with the MIT professors and to have some of the science of the film ripped apart. I am someone that does not shy away from a challenge in my career,” Liman said. “Hayden and I were cramming the entire way out here over quantum physics realizing we should have read it before we started making the film. We might not have made the film if we knew quite how impossible these guys are going to tell us teleportation could be.”
Christensen — who gets to do in the new movie what millions of sci-fi fans have longed to do — joined Liman on a panel with MIT physicists Dr. Edward Farhi and Dr. Max Tegmark to discuss the teleportation depicted in the film and the science that is reality today. The panel sat before a slew of engaged MIT students ready to discredit any notion that Christensen’s portrayed ability to will himself from beneath the icy waters of an Ann Arbor, Mich., lake to within the stacks of the local library is anything more than good acting and advanced special effects.
