Skip to main content

Specters in Space-Time

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Particle Panic!

Part of the book series: Science and Fiction ((SCIFICT))

  • 542 Accesses

Abstract

One of the most over the top mad scientists I came across while researching popular media for this book is Dr. Albert Obgrabco from the animated series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers 1986 episode “Trouble at Texton”. Texton is a moon on which the erratic Obgrabco pushes his moon-encircling accelerator to energies way beyond safety limits (in fact beyond the energy of the Big Bang). His goal is to crack open the universe to confirm his hypothesis of parallel universes before his forced retirement. The heroic Galaxy Rangers respond to a distress call from the lab’s mainframe computer SAM, but they are unable to stop the evil Obgrabco from realizing his goal. An extraterrestrial from another dimension falls through a crack in space-time and risks its own life to stabilize the fracturing moon long enough for the Galaxy Rangers to escape.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 19.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 27.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    There’s that pesky B-word again, being used in a scientific context, when the word “expect” would have been more accurate and neutral (in terms of not confusing it with an article of faith).

References

  1. A. Huang (dir.), Rift, Intelligent Life Productions (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  2. M. Tegmark, Parallel Universes, Sci. Am. 288, 40–51 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  3. P. Hess, The Real Science of the God Particle in Netflix’s The Cloverfield Paradox, Inverse, https://www.inverse.com/article/40935-cloverfield-paradox-higgs-boson-god-particle; V. Mukunth, The Cloverfield Paradox Is a Textbook Case of How Not to Use Physics in a Movie, The Wire, https://thewire.in/film/the-cloverfield-paradox-review

  4. J. Onah (dir.), The Cloverfield Paradox, Paramount Pictures (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  5. R. Lambie, The Cloverfield Paradox: How God Particle Changed, Den of Geek, http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/cloverfield/270788/the-cloverfield-paradox-how-god-particle-changed

  6. S. Gallagher, The Cloverfield Paradox: What Does The Ending Really Mean?, WhatCulture, http://whatculture.com/film/the-cloverfield-paradox-what-does-the-ending-really-mean

  7. CERN Researchers Apologize For Destruction Of 5 Parallel Universes In Recent Experiment, The Onion, https://www.theonion.com/cern-researchers-apologize-for-destruction-of-5-paralle-1819579830

  8. L. Page, Attack of the Hyperdimensional Juggernaut-Men, The Register, https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/06/lhc_dimensional_portals/

  9. M. Ward, Cern [sic], the Large Hadron Collider and Bible Prophecy, Prophecy Update, http://www.prophecyupdate.com/cern-the-large-hadron-collider-and-bible-prophecy.html

  10. S.B. Giddings, S. Thomas, High Energy Colliders as Black Hole Factories: The End of Short Distance Physics, ArXiv, https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0106219

  11. D. Brin, Earth (Bantam Books, New York, 1994), p. 660

    Google Scholar 

  12. R. Rappaport (script), Back from the Future, Lab Rats, season 1 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  13. D. Brin, Earth (Bantam Books, New York, 1994), p. 427

    Google Scholar 

  14. S.B. Giddings, Black Hole Production in TeV-Scale gravity, and the Future of High Energy Physics, ArXiv, https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0110127

  15. W.G. Unruh, R. Schützhold, On the Universality of the Hawking Effect, ArXiv, https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0408009

  16. D. Overbye, Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html

  17. B. Unruh, Where Do the Particles Come From?, Effective Models of Quantum Gravity Conference, https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/conferences/effective-models-quantum-gravity

  18. E. Vance, Outsmarting the CERNageddon, Nautilus, http://nautil.us/issue/4/the-unlikely/outsmarting-the-cernageddon

  19. S.B. Giddings, M.L. Mangano, Astrophysical Implications of Hypothetical Stable TeV-scale Black Holes, ArXiv, p. 1, https://arXiv.org/pdf/0806.3381.pdf CERN-PH-TH/2008-025

  20. R. Plaga, On the Potential Catastrophic Risk from Metastable Quantum-black Holes Produced at Particle Colliders, ArXiv, https://arXiv.org/abs/0808.1415v1

  21. S.B. Giddings, M.L. Mangano, Comments on Claimed Risk from Metastable Black Holes, ArXiv, https://arXiv.org/pdf/0808.4087.pdf

  22. E. Penrose, A Critical Review of Safety Papers Concerning Black Holes at the LHC, Risk Evaluation Forum, http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/LHC_safety.pdf

  23. B. Koch, M. Bleicher, H. Stöcker, Exclusion of Black Hole Disaster Scenarios at the LHC, ArXiv, https://arxiv.org/abs/0807.3349; M.E. Peskin, The End of the World at the Large Hadron Collider? Physics 1, 14 (2008); R. Casadio, S. Fabi, B. Harms, Possibility of Catastrophic Black Hole Growth in the Warped Brane-world Scenario at the LHC, ArXiv, https://arxiv.org/abs/0901.2948

  24. P. Burda, R. Gregory, I.G. Moss, Vacuum Metastability with Black Holes, ArXiv, https://arXiv.org/pdf/1503.07331.pdf

  25. A. Cho, Tiny Black Holes Could Trigger Collapse of Universe—Except That They Don’t, Science, http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/tiny-black-holes-could-trigger-collapse-universe-except-they-dont

  26. S. Hossenfelder, Could Black Holes Destroy the Universe, Starts with a Bang, https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/could-black-holes-destroy-the-universe-de8a3135856f

  27. H. Osborne, Mini Black Holes from LHC Are Not Going to Bring About the Collapse of the Universe, International Business Times, https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mini-black-holes-lhc-are-not-going-bring-about-collapse-universe-1514203

  28. Does CERN Create Black Holes?, CERN, https://angelsanddemons.web.cern.ch/faq/black-hole

  29. J. Beahm, M. Felsher, C. MacMillan, Sympathy for the Devil: An Interview with John Carpenter, in John Carpenter (dir.), Prince of Darkness, Shout! Factory Collector’s Edition Blu-ray (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  30. K. Thorne, Black Holes and Time Warps (W. W. Norton and Co., New York, 1994), pp. 483–491

    Google Scholar 

  31. T. Takács (dir.), The Black Hole, Millennium Films (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  32. A. Schapker, G. Godfree (script), Things You Can’t Outrun, The Flash, season 1 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  33. R.J. Sawyer, Flashforward (TOR, New York, 1999), p. 63

    Google Scholar 

  34. L. Zwerling, S. Hoffman (script), Countdown, FlashForward, season 1 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  35. I.Ya. Aref’eva, I.V. Volovich, Time Machine at the LHC, ArXiv, https://arxiv.org/abs/0710.2696

  36. R. Highfield, Time Travellers from the Future ‘Could Be Here in Weeks’, The Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/large-hadron-collider/3324491/Time-travellers-from-the-future-could-be-here-in-weeks.html

  37. D. Mandel, B. Kelley (script), Treehouse of Horror 23, The Simpsons, season 24 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  38. E. Farhi, A.H. Guth, An Obstacle to Creating a Universe in the Laboratory. Phys. Lett. B 183(2), 149 (1987)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. E. Farhi, A.H. Guth, J. Guven, Is It Possible to Create a Universe in the Laboratory by Quantum Tunneling? Nucl. Phys. B 339(2), 417–490 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. A. Linde, Hard Art of the Universe Creation, ArXiv, https://arXiv.org/pdf/hep-th/9110037.pdf

  41. G. Benford, Cosm (Orbit, London, 1998), p. 246

    Google Scholar 

  42. G. Benford, Cosm (Orbit, London, 1998), p. 368

    Google Scholar 

  43. S. Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992), p. 33

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Larsen, K. (2019). Specters in Space-Time. In: Particle Panic! . Science and Fiction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12206-5_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics