The Stories We Tell Ourselves

THINK BACK TO that tragic scene near the end of James Cameron’s Titanic when, after the ship has sunk, Rose clings to some fl otsam. Her lover, Jack, tries to hang on, only to slip away as hypothermia overcomes him. From a cinematic perspective, Cameron’s storytelling skills were particularly powerful: you could almost feel the frigid water enfold you, and you could easily project yourself into the fi erce and intimate solitude of the moment. From an astrophysics perspective, however, that scene was all wrong.