MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated G
141 minutes

view trailer

format: 35mm

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

2001: A Space Odyssey will be preceded by a talk by MIT Professor Dava Newman. This FREE event is part of the Giant Leaps: The 40th Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing series, and is sponsored by the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

A four-million-year-old black monolith is discovered on the moon, and the government (while hiding the situation from the public) sends a team of scientists on a fact-finding mission. Eighteen months later, another team is sent to Jupiter in a ship controlled by the perfect HAL 9000 computer to further investigate the giant object--but on this trip something goes terribly wrong. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece of filmmaking. Director and (with Arthur C. Clarke) co-screenwriter Stanley Kubrick has created a visual and aural spectacle that stands as one of the greatest achievements ever put on celluloid. The film begins with the "Dawn of Man" segment, on the evolution of apes, and then ventures into the future, taking a look at what the world might be like in the first year of the 21st century. Kubrick's film is a triumph of technological storytelling, with stunning sets and a brilliant, overwhelming soundtrack. Long dialogue-free scenes sparkle with indelible images backed by powerful orchestral music, culminating in an unforgettable, inscrutable tale of birth and rebirth, human evolution and artificial intelligence, the past and the future. [www.rottentomatoes.com]

Alone among science-fiction movies, “2001'' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe.
      -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times. Read this review.

Dr. Dava Newman is a Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems at MIT and affiliate faculty in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program. She is also a MacVicar Faculty Fellow (a chair for making significant contributions to undergraduate education) and Director of the Technology and Policy Program at MIT. She leads the MIT Portugal Program's Bioengineering Systems effort. Dr. Newman specializes in investigating human performance across the spectrum of gravity. She was Principal Investigator (PI) for the Space Shuttle Dynamic Load Sensors (DLS) experiment that measured astronaut-induced disturbances of the microgravity environment on mission STS-62. An advanced system, the Enhanced Dynamic Load Sensors experiment, flew on board the Russian Mir space station from 1996-1998. Dr. Newman was a Co-Investigator on the Mental Workload and Performance Experiment (MWPE) that flew to space on STS-42 to measure astronaut mental workload and fine motor control in microgravity. She is currently the PI on the MICR0-G space flight experiment to provide a novel sensor suite and study human adaptation in extreme environments. She is an expert in the areas of extravehicular activity (EVA), human movement, physics-based modeling, biomechanics, energetics and human-robot cooperation. As a Co-I for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), her finite element modeling work provided NASA the first three-dimensional representation of bone loss and loading applicable for long-duration missions. She has an active research program in advanced EVA including space suit design, life support technologies, and human-robotic cooperation. She also focuses on engineering education involving active learning, hands-on design and information technology implementation to enhance student learning. Her curriculum efforts strive to find new ways to stimulate students and actively involve students in their own learning. Dr. Newman has published an Engineering and Design text and CDROM (2002). She was named one of the Best Inventors of 2007 for her BioSuit(tm) system by Time Magazine. Her BioSuit(tm) system is currently being exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Super Heroes show (May-Sept. 2008).