In the 2018 film adaptation by Jennifer Lee of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, there is a scene where Dr Alexander Murry (henceforth Dr Murry even if his wife is also Dr Murry), played by Chris Pine, gives a presentation where he seems to be laughed at. Part of the scene can be found in the 1st 50 seconds here, but the laughing is excluded.
#Questions:
Is Dr Murry being laughed at by the audience while he is giving the lecture?
If yes, then why? If no, then what was happening?
I think that whether or not the audience is laughing at Dr Murry is actually either not so clear at first or intentionally a blend of laughter and scepticism, but in the end, the audience is unambiguously or unanimously laughing.
#Guesses (please ignore the rest of this post, if this post is less unclear by ignoring)
Dr Murry is not laughed at. He is laughed with. The explanation is that he intended laughs because while he makes a correct claim, the claim's assumptions are too unrealistic.
Dr Murry is not laughed at. He is laughed with. The explanation is (fill in blank).
Dr Murry is not laughed at or laughed with. Instead, he is (fill in blank).
Dr Murry is laughed at. This is because Dr Murry makes a claim
If you can tap into the right frequency, then you can travel 91 billion light years.
And this claim causes the audience to laugh at Dr Murry.
Note: In this claim, Dr Murry is not saying tapping into the right frequency is possible but is saying consequences if such were possible.
- Dr Murry is laughed at. This is because Dr Murry makes a claim
You can tap into the right frequency.
And this claim causes the audience to laugh at Dr Murry.
- Dr Murry is laughed at. This is because Dr Murry makes a claim
If you can tap into the right frequency, then you can travel 91 billion light years.
However, the audience is misinterpreting Dr Murry by their thinking that Dr Murry is making the claim
You can tap into the right frequency.
And the latter claim causes the audience to laugh at Dr Murry.
That is, the audience thinks Dr Murry is additionally claiming the former claim which is the assumption of the latter claim: not only is so and so the consequence if you can tap into the right frequency but also can you tap into the right frequency.
I suspect #6 because physics, much like maths, is theoretical: We can talk about necessary conditions of highly unrealistic assumptions. One assumption in math is a concept as simple and elementary as linearity, which appears in linear regression for example, is unrealistic. An example in physics is I think lack of air resistance. I have no idea how negligible this is, but a lot of the scenarios in secondary school physics assumes this.
The preceding paragraph is the basis for the maths and physics tags. For example, the 'quantum-physics' tag says that quantum theory
is best known for being highly-complex, non-intuitive and difficult to verify experimentally.
- Other