Avery Krieger

Nelson

Documentary Analysis

9 Feb 2022

English 12 Capstone Film Review/Analysis

PART I: Choose a film related to your topic area to watch. (Documentaries are recommended

and strongly encouraged, but not required.) Then, answer the background questions below to

create a well written paragraph. (5 points)

1. Title of Film: Atom: Clash of Titans

2. Genre: Science

3. Date watched: 2/9/22

4. Personal rating: 9/10

5. Explain the rating you awarded: I thought that the narrator, Jim Al-Khalili, explained

everything in a good way, and taught new things, but at times it was hard to follow all the

different scientists and their assistants.

PART II: Answer each question below in a well-developed paragraph using professional

language and proper spelling, grammar, and mechanics. Each paragraph is worth 5 points for a

total of 35 points. Remove the questions before submitting.

6. “Clash of Titans” is a documentary film showing the discovery of the atom, as well as

how we’ve developed our idea of what it is. The beginning portion describes the conflict

between Ludwick Boltzmann along with some other allies and the rest of the scientific
community. Boltzmann believed that all matter could be divided into small fundamental

particles, the atom, but other scientists believed that it was evil and sacrilegious to say

that God’s creation could be reduced that way. After some time of dealing with these

accusations, Boltzmann killed himself. What he didn’t know is that Albert Einstein had

published a paper proving the atoms’ existence less than a year earlier. Einstein's paper

described that tiny pollen grains would “dance” back and forth when floating on water,

bumped around by the molecules and atoms in the water. The next section of the video

talks about how we’ve discovered the actual structure of the atom. The first step was

Ernest Rutherford’s gold leaf experiment, where he shot alpha rays through a very thin

gold leaf where it hit a phosphorescent screen. After seeing the particles did go through

the gold leaf, he told his assistant, Hans Geiger, to see if any of the alpha particles would

turn around and hit near where they were sent from. Geiger discovered that it did happen,

which Rutherford used to determine that most of the atom was empty space, with a tiny

dense nucleus. He also said that the atoms electrons must orbit around the nucleus, which

broke the established scientific system because the electrons should lose their energy and

crash into the nucleus, which doesn’t happen. The next scientist to contribute to the

structure of the atom was Neils Bohr. He was determined to discover why the atom didn’t

collapse and why it was so much empty space. He used the idea that each substance

releases a different wavelength of light as it heats up to develop the idea of the quantum

jump. It’s the idea that an electron can only exist in distinct “orbits,” and instantaneously

jump between those orbits.

7. I chose this film because it seemed more like an introduction to the atom, giving a

foundation to understand more advanced ideas. The narrator, Jim Al-Khalili, also has

Ph.D. in physics and has received several awards, such as Officer of the Order of the

British Empire and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Scientific Communication.

8. One perspective is how there isn’t any one person responsible for ideas in science. For

every one discovery, there are many scientists making small advancements or writing an

equation, such as when Albert Einstein used the work of Robert Brown, Brownian

motion, to prove mathematically that water was made of atoms. Another perspective of

science is how it’s extremely rare for something in science to be done changing. Ideas are

always growing and involving, such as how when the atom was discovered, it was found

it was made of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Then Bohr discovered that atoms had

different energy levels in his Bohr model. Next came Schrödinger realizing that we can

never know exactly where an electron is at a given time, creating the clouds of

probability with the electron cloud in the quantum mechanical model. Even something

that seems as fundamental as gravity has the unknown possibility of the graviton. The

final perspective shown by Atom is how there’s never a scientist that’s always right. An

example of this is how Einstein went to his grave refusing to believe in quantum

mechanics. When talking about how he didn’t believe in Heisenberg's uncertainty

principle that it was impossible to know the speed and position of a particle in a moment

of time, he said that “God does not play dice with the universe.” He believed there had to

be some law or equation to remove the randomness in quantum mechanics, which keeps

getting proved wrong.

9. The goal of this film was to educate people on the discovery of the atom. That was

accomplished by chronologically talking through the people and ideas involved. From the

atom's first discovery to what it was made of to its structure, the narrator builds up from

what has already been established. The documentary also uses visuals such as old photos,

reenactments, and simulations of some of the experiments to keep the watcher engaged.

10. I learned about some of the people who contributed to what we’ve learned about the

atom, such as Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, and Ernest Rutherford. There were also several

ideas about what the atom is and how it works. There was basic information, such as that

protons, neutrons, and electrons exist, as well as their sizes. More advanced topics like

quantum jumps and the electron cloud were touched on but not too much as to make it

hard to understand.

11. This film has opened several new topics I might investigate. I find a lot of ideas related to

quantum mechanics interesting, such as quantum jump, electron cloud, and I could look

at other ideas in that realm. There are also other elementary particles, like the electron,

that make up the protons and neutrons in the nucleus, known as quarks. Unlike a lot of

other information about atoms, quarks are something that I only vaguely know about, so

they’d be a worthwhile pursuit. There are also some topics that I know exist but weren’t

covered in the documentary, such as the bonds that form molecules, that I will probably

investigate before finalizing the capstone project.

12. This film helps teach people what the atom is, the history of its discovery, and the people

who contributed to its discovery. A lot of people probably find this topic boring, but Al-

Khalili presents and explains these ideas in a way that is entertaining and engaging.

However, at times he gave off the impression that the separate groups of scientists were

enemies fighting, while in reality, it was a lot calmer and more measured discussion.