Physics - Illusions of Reality
Friday, July 18th, 2008Here are a couple of videos which, if you have not seen before, are guaranteed to blow your mind. If you have never ventured into the world of physics and quantum mechanics, then forget everything you thought you knew about reality. As humans, we tend to simply accept our reality as we hear, touch, feel, taste, and see it, however there is a whole underlying world that is much more exotic and much more complicated than the illusions generated by our perceptions.
The first video is a BBC special called “The Illusion of Reality” in which Professor Jim Al-Khalili’s takes you on a journey by exploring the building blocks of our universe, Atoms. In this 58min documentary, he will guide you down a path of science and discovery that will most likely end with you re-evaluating your philosophy of what is real.
The second video is a short clip called “The Double Slit Experiment” which is a simplified, animated, re-creation of the experiment which sheds a little more light on the “Measurement Problem” which is brought up briefly in the first video.
One of my favorite books of all time has to be “The Beach” by Alex Garland. The book is about a young man and his journeys to a remote island where he discovers a commune of travelers already living there surviving almost solely off the land. But this was no ordinary beach. This beach, was a beach of all beaches. A beach with a beautiful lagoon completely isolated from the rest of the ocean and thus the rest of the world. Ever since I read this wonderful novel, I have longed for such a place in my fantasies assuming that no such place could ever exist anywhere but. At last, tharrr she is. Only in my wildest dreams have I seen such a place, and only in my most far fetched fantasies have I dreamed of doing what french explorer and adventurer Xavier Rosset is about to embark on. A 300 day trip to live alone on a remote tropical island in the South Pacific where he will take only a swiss army knife, a machete, and a video camera accompanied with a solar panel to re-charge the camera that he will use to film a 52 minute documentary. All in total seclusion without the hassle of dealing with other traveler’s BS. I envy you Xavier and wish you safe journeys as you live out one of my most precious fantasies. I cannot wait to see the documentary. 
