2012 with Astrophysicist Kevin Manning

Science on Screen
An Initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre
With major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Join Astrophysicist Kevin Manning for an entertaining presentation on the Great 2012 Scare, followed by a screening of Roland Emmerich's over-the-top disaster flick
Are we all doomed come December 21, 2012? Is the calendar that the ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala kept about to roll up the red carpet of time? As the $200-million disaster movie 2012 was designed to break all records for disaster spectacles with cracking continents, plunging asteroids, burning cities, and a tsunami throwing an aircraft carrier through the White House, the movie's ominous slogan was: "Find out the truth." Let Astrophysicist Kevin Manning reveal the fiction and the truth about these events with you as we view Roland Emmerich's over-the-top disaster flick, starring John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson, and Danny Glover as the President of the United States. With seemingly unlimited resources at his disposal, along with Hollywood's best special effects wizards, Emmerich conjures up an eye-popping orgy of destruction, including Los Angeles falling into the sea, Las Vegas being swallowed by the desert, and the Himalayas being submerged by tidal waves.
Kevin Manning is a retired astrophysicist, having worked as a consultant with NASA, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory launched on the space shuttle with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and other ground-based observatories. Kevin won national and international awards in his field, and did some work with Brookhaven National Laboratory. Besides the numerous workshops he's presented over the years at libraries, observatories, and science centers, some noteworthy ones include those made at Tufts University, State University of New York at Stony Brook, the NSTA National Convention, AAAS Breakfast with Scientists, and the National Parks Service.