A BEAUTIFUL MIND
REEL LIFE Mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. (Russell Crowe) meets and marries wife Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) while teaching at MIT and remains wed to her to this day. Nash also scribbles his theories in grease pencil on various windows of the Princeton campus. And speaking of writing implements, what's the origin of that mysterious faculty pen ceremony?
REAL LIFE As many critics have noted, some of Nash's biography--such as his alleged dalliances with men and his divorce from (and subsequent remarriage to) Alicia--was fudged in the name of cinematic clarity. "The relationship in real life is much more complex, and also essentially the same--they married, they divorced, they spent decades living together in the same house through the journey of his illness, they remarried," says Mind scripter Akiva Goldsman. Nash did have a habit of doodling on windows. "[Mathematicians] seem to write everywhere--cocktail napkins, tabletops, walls, and windows," says Goldsman. The scribe also admits that presenting pens to professors who excel in their fields isn't really a Princeton phenom: "It's a consolidation of about 20 Ivy League rituals." Too bad Goldsman couldn't work in the school's real-life Nude Olympics (officially banned in 1999).
OCEAN'S ELEVEN
REEL LIFE During the gang's heist at the Bellagio safe (shared by the nearby MGM Grand and Mirage casinos in the film), Don Cheadle ignites an electromagnetic "pinch"--a kind of bomb he'd stolen from a government weapons lab--that cuts Las Vegas' electric power for 30 seconds.
REAL LIFE Shockingly possible, up to a point. Pinch technology is currently being explored by the U.S. military, says Daniel A. Fleisch, coauthor of Electromagnetics With Applications, though a thief would have a harder time pinching a pinch than Cheadle did. Security would likely exceed the film's two oafish guards, and the device would be larger and more cumbersome. Furthermore, the blast would fry all nearby computers--including those George Clooney and Co. use moments after the movie's explosion. Bellagio spokesman Alan Feldman, who denies that his casino shares a common safe with any others, says the Bellagio is "in discussions" on how to combat a "pinch" attack. Should it ever happen, he admits, "clearly, everyone would be in the dark."
(Additional reporting by Gregory Kirschling)
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