Posts tagged video

This is what happens when you mess with the Large Hadron Collider

In my last post there was much talk of monorails, puppies, and Flashforward, which is a book that came out in 1999. So why am I suddenly down with 1999? It’s all thanks to ABC Studios’ desperate need to spackle some twisted-timeline programming into the gaping hole that will be left when their mega-hit Lost completes its final season this year. Their solution is a FlashForward for TV, loosely based on the novel.  The premise that both the book and TV show share is that for some reason every human on Earth passes out for two minutes and during that time sees their life at a specific date in the future.  In the book it is 21 years in the future, in the TV show it is 6 months in the future (set in the present time, the show chooses the date they plan for the season finale).

Actually other than the basic premise just described there seem to be few similarities. The book takes place around CERN, and the LHC turn-on is the likely culprit.  The TV show, on the other hand, is set in Los Angles with some FBI agents that don’t have a clue about the cause of the flashforward and presumably at least the entire season will be devoted to piecing together the clues.

Technically all this information may constitute a spoiler, at least according to this Bad Astronomy post.  I assume what they are referring to is the fact that the LHC may turn out to be the culprit in the TV version. Of course I didn’t go to any trouble to warn you about spoilers because that is just absurd. The connection to CERN in the book is pretty damn easy to run across (try the third line of Google’s “flashforward“), and there is no reason they couldn’t come up with a different explanation, the surprise of which wasn’t recorded in great detail 10 years ago.  So, I’m betting the LHC won’t be up for an Emmy next year, but it wouldn’t hurt for those of you around CERN to keep your eyes open for film crews.

Time magazine has a video interview with Robert Sawyer about his book, the TV show, and CERN (it’s embeded in that “spoiling” Discovery Mag post and also below). After speaking about the book and CERN, the issue of what might be revealed in the TV show is brought up, and of course Sawyer declines to comment.

Also, if you crave even more, CERN has some video interviews with Robert Sawyer and John Ellis about Flashforward.

FlashForward is on a mid-season break right now, but it will be back in March and for now you can watch the 10 already broadcast episodes on Hulu. (Sadly, Hulu doesn’t work outside the US.  Those at CERN or generally engaged in unAmerican living: Tekzilla explains how to use an open proxy. In the Tekzilla video they use proxy-list.org which has given me useful proxies, though it can take a few tries and, as they say on Tekzilla, for security reason you definitely shouldn’t use these for anything but watching videos.)

Also, for even more physics going awry you should definitely check out the short film “Rift” (found via Discovery News).  Its hard to imagine this wasn’t inspired by the LHC considering it was made last year, if you watch the spinning atom-ish orbs during the presentation you will note that RHIC gets the blame. Also note that “Rift” has the best opening line in cinema, “Morning Mr. Scientist, I made blueberry pancakes!” Have I ever gotten that from my wife? I think not. Mostly it is just “Hey Mr. Lazy, I don’t care if you were up all night tending your batch jobs, get up and make me some cream of wheat!”

If you continue “reading” you can enjoy both the first episode of FlashForward and Rift embedded below.

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