Left, a symbol from the TV show Lost. Right, the CMS detector at CERN.
Physics buffs may very soon see something very familiar on Lost.
Producers of the hit TV show have followed the progress and physics of the Large Hadron Collider very closely, according to a recent article in Popular Mechanics. Physicists have dispelled the idea that the high-energy accelerator could create tiny black holes. But Lost producers plan to include another far-out type of scenario in the show’s fourth season, which they say will involve a time-travel plot.
Some speculate that time travel on the show will become possible after a high-energy accelerator located on the remote island tears the space-time fabric.
Popular Mechanics says:
Lost is the first mainstream TV show since Mr. Wizard to make science cool again. Across thousands of Web sites devoted to Lost, obsessive viewers analyze screen captures, debate theories of living in purgatory and play online games in trying to answer the ultimate science question: What is this damn island?
I've only recently become a Lost fan, so the entire show is still a big mystery. I can't wait to see how high-energy physics can fit into the more-fiction-than-fact scientific plot line.
