The Prestige: With Physicist Peter Fisher

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Logistics

  • December 10, 2012
  • This event has passed.
  • Offering Format: Public Event, Lecture
  • Coolidge Corner Theatre
  • members, students, and seniors: $8; general admission: $10

    • Associated Persons

    With physicist Peter Fisher

Description

Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, the illusion deepens in director Christopher Nolan’s thrilling, twisting tale of two Victorian-era magicians. Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) start out as friendly competitors, but when tragedy drives them apart, they become locked in a bitter rivalry that knows no bounds. When Borden unveils his most astonishing trick yet — a seemingly impossible feat of teleportation — the jealous Angier is consumed with learning his secret. His obsession leads him to Colorado, where the answer to “The Transported Man” may or may not lie with famed inventor Nikola Tesla (rocker David Bowie) and his groundbreaking experiments with electricity.


Join us before the film as physicist Peter Fisher discusses Tesla’s singular legacy and the future of wireless power.



With Science on Screen, the Coolidge Corner Theatre creatively pairs a feature film or documentary with lively presentations by notable figures from the world of science, medicine, and technology. The Science on Screen series is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston and supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, with additional support from Gesmer, Updegrove LLP, and Richard Anders.

Image © Newmarket/Photofest

Also in This Series

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Additional Information

At a time when mastery of science and technology could seem as fantastical as magic, the real-life Nikola Tesla, like his movie counterpart, was hailed as a wizard. Today he’s known as the genius who lit the world and the man who invented the 20th century. Tesla gave us our modern alternating current electrical system, the AC induction motor, the famous Tesla coil, fluorescent lighting, the original basic design of radio, X-ray transmitting tubes, early forms of wireless technology, and the first hydroelectric power plant. His greatest dream: the transmission of wireless power to any location in the world.

Peter Fisher is a professor in the physics department and head of the particle and nuclear experimental physics division at MIT. He also holds appointments in the university's Laboratory for Nuclear Science and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. His primary physics interests are dark matter and high-energy interactions, as well as the development of new particle detectors and new power systems for space flight. Professor Fisher is cofounder of WiTricity, a company founded in 2007 to commercialize an exciting new technology for wireless electricity. He was a member of the MIT research team that developed both the theoretical basis and experimental validation of WiTricity’s novel method for wireless power transfer.