Lights, Camera, Ants! Wait, no, Action!

Ant-man and the Wasp poster
created using images by Ladinog78 [1] and Hannaford [2]

HMC Bee Lab is going to see Ant-man and the Wasp, Marvel’s newest action film. Personally, I am very excited - I love superheroes - but moreover, I am really looking forward to seeing the ways Marvel incorporates real science concepts into this film.

Ant-man dodges bullets with a ant
by Adour [3]

Now, for those of you who aren’t fully-fledged members of the Marvel fandom, Ant-man is a superhero with the ability to shrink down to the size of an ant and grow to the size of a small building. He can also communicate with ants and lift incredibly heavy things. To explain and portray these super human abilities, Marvel screenwriters worked very closely with quantum physicist, Spyridon Michalakis, and cinematographers consulted with entomologist, Steven R. Kutcher.

The product of this partnership was impressive. Actual footage of scampering ants was used and much of the movie’s plot is based on the physics behind tiny matter. In the film, there is travel into the famous quantum realm, characters stuck in quantum entanglement, and a reference to biologists’ favorite micro-animal - the practically indestructible tardigrade. Even the least plausible aspect of the movie, Ant-man’s ability to grow and shrink, was given a basis in reality. In the original comics, Ant-man is said to harness the “Pym particle”, a fictitious subatomic particle, used to change his size. In the comic, this involves moving mass back and forth from another dimension. Although this magic particle with access to another dimension is completely unreal, Spyridon Michalakis was able to give the writers some science to work with.  He compared the Pym particle to muonic matter, a matter made of atoms with muons, massive negatively-charged particles, in place of electrons. This switch allows for the storage of more mass in less atoms, which would means those atoms take up less space. There is, of course, a giant leap between making muonic matter and shrinking humans, but the thought of a real life parallel is exciting.

I am pleased to see more science incorporated into our favorite superhero films, but I was a little miffed to find both Marvel and the media focused more on explaining the physics of Ant-man than the biology. Although Ant-man is able to mind-control one of the most behaviorally complicated critters, ants, this power is not really explained. Lucky for us, a few biologists have posited that epigenetic pheromone signaling could help explain the power’s mechanics, so hopefully Marvel will follow suit. And truthfully, the science doesn’t have to be entirely accurate to be inspirational and thrilling, so I can’t wait to see what comes next in the science world of Marvel!

HMC Bee Lab, on our way into the theater to see Ant-Man and the Wasp! [4]

Further reading:

For more information on Marvel’s fabulous consulting scientists:

Spyridon Michalakis

Steven R. Kutcher

For more information about science in Ant-man and the Wasp:

NBC article on the Quantum physics of Ant-man and the Wasp

NY Times article explains the science behind Ant-man’s suit

Media Credits:

[1]: Photo of text by Ladinog78, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ant-Man_and_The_Wasp.png

[2]: Photo of figurines by Hannaford, https://www.flickr.com/people/27745117@N00/

[3]: Comic Art by Adour,  http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Marvel_Database:Image_Policy, http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Scott_Lang_(Earth-616)/Gallery?file=Ant-Man_Vol_2_1_Samnee_Variant_Textless.jpg
[4]: Lab selfie by Prof Donaldson