Think proton packs and the Ecto-1 are completely the stuff of imagination? Think again - it looks like the proton pack, at least, is based on hardcore science, all thanks to the help of one handy physicist (who, we can presume, ain't afraid of no ghosts).
Resident particle physicist and former MIT senior postdoctoral associate James Maxwell acted as a technical adviser for the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot starring Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and Melissa McCarthy. According to an exclusive in The Boston Globe, the production team relied heavily on Maxwell to make the proton pack look and work as realistically as possible for the movie - that is, as realistic as one could get in a fictional world where ghosts like Slimer feel free to swamp New York City's Times Square.
"The first thing that they asked me was, 'How would a proton pack work with as few huge leaps of miraculous science as possible?' " Maxwell admits in "Busting Ghosts with Science," a video which goes behind the scenes of the making of the film, as well as how the ghostbusting accoutrements that pop up in it were configured in the first place.
According to Maxwell, the general makeup of one of the film's proton packs represents a hyperminiature version of a particle accelerator. The OG packs from the original Ghostbusters franchise were based on the type of accelerator used at the time, which ran on a cyclotron, which uses two electrodes and a particle that starts in the center of the wheel-shaped component. As the cyclotron spins, the particle "spirals outward, gaining speed."
For the reboot, Maxwell realized that another type of accelerator - a synchrotron, which bends particles into one concentric or ring-like path to build up a concentration of energy - would be more with the times.
"Particle accelerators are real. Superconducting magnets are real - the big leaps of faith are actually doing it in the space [of the proton packs] that's allowed," he said.
The scientist, who is currently affiliated with the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, also revealed that math formulas that appear on whiteboards throughout the movie - stuff the Ghostbusters presumably use for their busting - are actually real and were incorporated into the set by a "former colleague."
The impetus behind the reality-based tech is mostly due in part to Paul Feig, the reboot's director.
"I didn't like the idea of [the Ghostbusters in the film] being handed technology," he explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "I wanted to see it develop."
"I'm such a tech head," he added.
Ghostbusters will premiere in theaters on July 15.
Check out the recently released trailer for the Ghostbusters reboot in the video clip below.
Source: The Boston Globe
