Out Of Control

Conditions: Cold.

No Limits

A long, long time ago I posited on the speed of light, and whether it was an absolute limit or not. And I was laughed at, for being so naive. But if there is one thing I have learned, is that those who absolutely know something, are doomed to constant consternation. So when scientists at CERN announced that experiments they had been conducting show that Neutrinos were traveling faster than light, despite months of checking and double checking the results, I must say I felt a little bit better about the world.

The result could turn out to be an embarrassing miscalculation by scientists—or portend a leap into a science fiction territory where particles theoretically travel backward in time. While a confirmation of the finding wouldn't mean anything has changed about the universe, scientists' understanding of how it works would be thrown into disarray.

"It would be the biggest physics discovery in a century because we'd have to completely revise everything from subatomic physics to what we know about how the universe evolved," said Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada.

Like many physicists mulling the development, Dr. Turok was skeptical. He said neutrinos reaching the Earth from a supernova explosion have been observed to be traveling at the speed of light, which doesn't agree with the latest finding. Other scientists questioned the setup of the experiment and whether statistical errors might have affected the conclusion.

- online.wsj.com/

Well of course now the wider scientific community has to have a go at interpreting the results, and who knows someone might simply have calibrated the wotsit the wrong way. But, I hope not. I hope the impossible is actually possible, and I hope the laws carved into stone by our forefathers are capable of cracking.




Film Review: Senna.

Considering it's subject, I figured a documentary about Ayrton Senna would not get much interest, so imagine my pleasant surprise at finding a completely packed cinema ready for a heady 2 hour exploration of the life and times of the great Brazilian Formula One racing driver. The Senna Prost wars was essentially what got me hooked on the sport when I was but a lad, and this doco encompasses that as it tells Ayrton's story as he joins F1 in the mid eighties, up to his dramatic death in the mid nineties. Now, F1 fanatic that I am, I already know Ayrton's story so it's perhaps a bit unfair to review how filmmaker Asif Kapadia has tried to tell the tale. But I figure most of the audience should have some idea too, so game on. Asif has constructed a very incisive, raw, and brilliantly human portrayal of Ayrton, touching upon the important points of his life and career, and using the footage available to best effect to really tell this tragedy, for it is a tragedy that Ayrton died so young, so violently, and so publicly.

That being said, I did have a couple of problems with the film. First and foremost is the lack of a narrator. It was a brave, and no doubt complicated, choice to use the various sound bytes of people to "narrate" the documentary, and it does work reasonably well. But I feel it simply doesn't explain enough, nor really inform and prepare the audience for the ups and downs of the decade of F1 racing we wade through. We really needed someone to help construct what was going on and better keep a good consistent tone. In a similar vein, I felt some important points were either briefly mentioned, or missed completely. A better appreciation of the time line, and a better summary of the races not only making up the championships, but also defining the battles and skirmishes between Senna and his competitors, would have helped immensely.

That being said, some of the background stuff shown was brilliant in how it really showed Senna's spirit, both good side and bad, and showed how the sport was and is ultimately made up of and run by human beings, with all their flaws and differences acting as spice to the meal. Of course one of the most flawed characters was Senna himself, and yet despite how cutting this film is about Senna's competitors, it never really offers up even a mild criticism of it's subject. Knowing as I do the Real Story of what happened back then, I think that's pretty unfair to essentially twist things to the detriment of the likes of Prost, Balestre, and even Michael Schumacher, who don't really get a chance for rebuttal. I understand documentaries can become very very political in order to get made at all, but frankly at the end I almost felt compelled to inform the audience on what was left out, as well as praise what was put in. Still, an incisive and emotional telling of what is ultimately a tragic tale of triumph. Four Wheels out of Five.


- Peace out