max s. gerber(the latest shot)

i probably watch more TV than is good for me. certainly my DVR has more of a backlog at any given point than i can comfortably manage. if i were a different kind of person i’d blame my parents – a showbiz family who, as i was growing up, not only had a television set in every room (including their bathroom), but would sleep with the TV on, too. on several occasions i would attempt to turn it off after they fell asleep, but they’d just simply wake up, turn it back on and go to sleep again. eventually i had to settle for very carefully and subtly turning the volume down. my father claims that he can only fall asleep if there’s something on that he wants to watch.

this week, of course, the big TV news is that lost is finally over. yes, i am a die-hard lost fan. it covers absolutely everything i love about fantastical stories, and everything i hate about real life (i.e., camping, being stuck outdoors). nick warner is a theoretical physicist at USC, but you can find him on the DVD extras of lost’s fifth season, espousing on the physics of time travel. it’s something the producers put together called “lost university”. it consists of warner and a couple other physicists talking about some of the theoretical science that gets woven into the show.

so, is there real science on lost? eh. . .mostly not. just things stretched and used as plot devices or to make characters sound smart, or (my favorite reason) to show a sense of wonder that could come from actual things applied in a fantastical manner. for nick warner, i think that’s the point, too. they’re not discussing lost as a serious scientific treatise, but i think the hope is that the show (and the “lost university” DVD extras) might get people who would otherwise ignore such things to be interested in science. at the theoretical level, physics really could sound indistinguishable from magic to some of us.

warner says that the key factor in deciding whether he contributes to things like this (or anything involving the intersection of science and the entertainment industry) is the question: “will this make me look like an idiot?”

good advice. perhaps i should apply the same thinking to photography.

[and just in case any of you are paying attention and have become annoyed with the subject heading for this (and similar posts). . .yes, i am aware that i've hardly kept up the scientist posts weekly. in my defense it was entirely my intention to do so, and trust me, i've got a long, long backlog of scientist pictures to do it . . . but, you know. . .things get in the way. so they're not going to be weekly, of course, but i'm keeping the damn title. just because.]