UC Santa Barbara physicist and SFI External Professor Jim Hartle advised producers of the movie Thor as they created the comic book universe for the hammer-wielding superhero.
According to Discover magazine, Hartle and other selected scientists helped producers "construct a coherent framework for the Marvel universe...having the world of these films ultimately 'make sense.' It’s not our world, obviously, but there needs to be a set of 'natural laws' that keeps things in order."
The scientists also, reportedly, helped shape Natalie Portman's character of Jane Foster, a scientist.
Read the Discover article (May 4, 2011)