8 'Yeah, Science!' Moments In Film And TV

8. The Best Botanist On This Planet - The Martian

Yeah yeah, we get it. I love The Martian, you love The Martian, Neil deGrasse Tyson loves The Martian. We all love The Martian.

As well as being a great movie in general, the reason I can't shut up about it is that it's such a beautifully crafted love letter to science. There's a lot in there to make a science nerd go 'oooh': The rediscovery of Pathfinder (genuine chills), the gravity assist (if you ignore the fact that this basic of spaceflight had to be explained to the chief of NASA) and the hexadecimal alphabet Watney uses to communicate with Earth (they didn't have to do that, but they did, and I love it). The accuracy goes right down to the custom made sand created for the movie to look exactly like martian sand.

We could go on, but that's not the point.

The reason The Martian gets science fans in a tizz is its attitude to science. It's so refreshing to see a scientist sit down and figure stuff out, and not in the plot-device Sherlock Holmes way, but by a process of trial, error and repetition. He's even a botanist for god's sake - pretty sure that's not on Hollywood's approved list of cool science jobs.

There are no hero moments, no shortcuts and no miracles when it comes to The Martian and, as tragic as it sounds, that is very exciting.