Most summers I usually mix in some discussion of a science fiction movie or three. There were fewer options this year, but I did manage to see Tenet. I suppose in the present context we should spend a moment just on that fact. I was able to see the film at a local drive-in theater. With all respect to theater staff doing their best, it is not clear to me that any cleaning and distancing protocol can eliminate the SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk of sitting in the same room with strangers for 2+ hours. Cleaning and masks and … [Read more...] about Science Corner: If I Could Turn Back Time
time travel
Science Corner: Back to the Present
You don't need a DeLorean to see that this year is going to bring a lot of Back to the Future references and time travel talk. It's fitting, then, that physicists have actually succeeded in constructing a quantum time machine. Well, sort of. (Isn't that always the way with quantum physics?) It turns out, one can create subatomic systems under one set of conditions, and they will also behave as if they were under a different set of conditions. The first intuition is probably to imagine doing something slowly as a way … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Back to the Present