Radiolab
Beyond Time
Friday, March 04, 2005
Einstein's Theory of Relativity may have implications on the concept of choice. Namely, that there is none. Do we choose what movie to see tonight? No. (It's already been chosen, some say.) Do we choose to wiggle our finger? No. (Already wiggled.) This hour of Radio Lab features conversations with scientists and an entire cast of characters who are all waging battle against time – or at least the common sense view of time. We'll visit a particle accelerator where scientists recreate the moment just after the beginning of time...and also a Dublin artist whose life is a 19 century time-experiment. We end in the Mojave desert, where geologic time flows like a frozen hourglass.
A Simpler Time
Have you ever wished you could time travel, like in the movies? Artist Terry Wilcox asks us to imagine 1,594 years into the future, when his sculptural clock will chime. A particle accelerator jockey at Brookhaven National Laboratory takes us 45 feet away from the beginning of time. And Swedish producer Marcus Lindeen introduces us to David McDermott, an artist who devotes his life to ignoring the present.
» See David McDermott and his art
More about Brookhaven National Laboratory
Interested in art which considers time? Visit The Long Now Foundation
- "A '75 Scicura" Chas Smith - An Hour Out Of Desert Center - Cold Blue Music
- "The Man With The Harmonica" The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic - As Time Goes By
- "Saddest Tale" Duke Ellington - The Duke: The Essential Collection 1927-1962
No Special Now
It's not only artists who rebel against time, many physicists too take issue with our standard notion of clock time. Some even deny time exists at all. Blame Einstein. We peer into pandora's box of post-Einsteinian physics with Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and Lisa Randall to consider the implications of a world without time or choice. Complicating matters, neurologist V.S. Ramachandran offers yet more evidence that free will, even with something like wiggling your finger, is an illusion.
Visit Michio Kaku's website
Visit Lisa Randall's website
Visit Brian Greene's website
Brian Greene's Book: The Elegant Universe
Visit V.S. Ramachandran's website
- "Exurgency" Zoe Keating - One Cello x16
- "Monopolist" Efterklang - Tripper - The Leaf Label
- "Funny How Time Slips Away" Elvis Presley - Today, Tomorrow, & Forever
Mojave Road
Finally, producer Ben Adair takes us on a tour of the Mojave desert and, in the process, confronts his own brevity in the face of geological time.
Ben Adair is the host and producer of Pacific Drift on KPCC
Death Valley National Park
Visit a Virtual Museum of the Mojave Desert
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