Flashforward (novel)
Encyclopedia
Flashforward is a science fiction novel by Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer
first published in 1999. The novel is set in 2009. At CERN
, the Large Hadron Collider
accelerator is performing a run to search for the Higgs boson
. The experiment has a unique side effect: the entire human race loses consciousness for about two minutes. During that time, nearly everyone sees themselves roughly twenty-one years and six months in the future. Each individual experiences their own future through the senses of their future self. This "flashforward
" results in countless deaths and accidents involving vehicles, aircraft, and any other device needing human control at the time of the experiment. The novel inspired the 2009 television series FlashForward
.
The fallout from the flashforward occupies much of the first part of the book. The consequences include the death of Michiko's daughter as an out-of-control vehicle plows into her school. Oddly, no recording devices anywhere in the world functioned in the present during the event. Security camera tapes show noise and even recording devices in television studios show nothing until the event is over. One character interprets this as evidence in support of the observer effect in quantum theory
. With the awareness of the entire human race absent, "reality" went into a state of indeterminacy. When the awareness returned, reality collapsed into its most likely configuration, which was one in which moving objects had careened out of control in the direction they were already headed.
The deaths of several characters are forecast by the flashforward. Anyone who did not experience it is assumed to be dead in the future. This includes Theo Procopides. Some people report reading about his murder in the future. However as time goes by it seems that the events of the future are not predestined
. Some people, depressed by their visions of their own dismal futures, commit suicide, thereby changing those futures. The story begins to take on the features of a murder mystery, as Theo attempts to prevent his own murder. His brother Dimitrios, who aspired to be a writer but saw himself just working in a restaurant in the future, is one of the suicides.
At CERN, less than two months after the original flashforward, the scientists plan a repeat of the run, but this time warning the world of the exact time, so that preparations can be made. However, no flashforward occurs, and the LHC instead finds the Higgs boson
; what the experiment was originally designed to produce.
Soon after this discovery, the riddle of the flashforward is solved. At the same time as the LHC was running, a pulse of neutrino
s arrived from the remnant of supernova 1987A. The remnant is not a neutron star
, but a quark star
, a superdense body of strange matter
. Starquakes cause it to emit a neutrino pulse at unpredictable intervals. As the date of everyone's visions approaches, a satellite is launched into an orbit close to that of Pluto
, from where it can give several days warning of another neutrino pulse arriving. The neutrinos travel slower than light, since they have mass, and thus a radio message (though the book uses the notion of "faster-than-light communication" involving tachyons) from the satellite will arrive at Earth before the neutrinos do. The intent is to run the LHC again and create another flashforward.
Twenty-one years after the original flashforward, the satellite sends an alert to Earth; another neutrino burst is approaching. CERN was mostly abandoned several years earlier, and there is a mad rush to prepare the near-defunct LHC on time. Many of the original builders and operators have since deceased, and Theo is one of the few staff still at CERN. Informed of a fault with some equipment in the collider tunnel, he heads down to repair it, and discovers a fanatic attempting to sabotage the experiment, blaming the LHC staff for his wife's death in the first flashforward. In a chase sequence through the tunnels containing the LHC equipment, Theo is able to stop this, preventing his own murder in the process.
It turns out that the neutrino pulse arrives on the exact day which everyone flashed forward to, at the exact time. The world stops and rests at the appointed hour, and exactly as predicted, everyone blacks out. However, this time around the blackout is for approximately one hour, and it is reported that no one experienced any vision at all. Simcoe — now retired, divorced and re-married — is confused, as he experienced a vision of himself moving through time for billions of years via a succession of neutrino bursts. He observes his consciousness persisting in different artificial bodies. He is aware of another person being with him in some of these situations.
When the event is over, there is general puzzlement over why nothing happened. Simcoe comes to realize that the effect connects two periods of quantum disturbance occurring within the lifetimes of the individuals involved. Since there will be no more neutrino bursts in the lifetimes of any living people, nobody experiences a flashforward, except for those who are secretly associated with an immortality project controlled by the person Lloyd sees in his second flashforward. In particular, living Nobel laureates are being offered the chance to participate. However, it is unclear whether or not Lloyd accepts the treatment, depending upon the interpretation of "forgetfulness" he describes to his wife. It is implied that Theo will be offered the treatment as well. The novel ends with Theo contacting Michiko, Simcoe's ex-wife at this point, in the hopes of kindling a romance he has considered for over twenty years.
and determinacy
, the Copenhagen interpretation
, Transactional interpretation
and the Omega Point. The latter is put in a Christian
context, through the character of Cheung, the rich Christian capitalist
who finances the immortality project. In a "NewsFlash" in the novel, Pope Benedict XVI
(who was pope when the novel takes place, but not when it was written) reserves judgement on whether the Flashforward was a miracle or not.
between September 24, 2009 and May 27, 2010. It differs from the novel by following non-scientists, including lead characters FBI Special Agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes
), Special Agent Demetri Noh (John Cho
), and an FBI team investigating the Flashforward. The adaptation also changes the blackout time from under two minutes to two minutes and seventeen seconds, as well as the flashforward moving consciousness six months forward, not twenty-one years; time progresses normally during the event, and security cameras capture footage of people blacked out for the full time period. A character named Lloyd Simcoe does appear. However, he only partly resembles the character in the novel.
The story was also changed from taking place primarily in Geneva, Switzerland, (at and around the CERN facility), to the United States, primarily Los Angeles, California. Also, the flashforward event was portrayed as a terrorist attack, as opposed to the result of unforeseen circumstances.
Robert J. Sawyer
Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 20 novels published, and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and many anthologies. Sawyer has won over forty awards for his fiction, including the Nebula Award ,...
first published in 1999. The novel is set in 2009. At CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
, the Large Hadron Collider
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
accelerator is performing a run to search for the Higgs boson
Higgs boson
The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. Its existence is postulated as a means of resolving inconsistencies in the Standard Model...
. The experiment has a unique side effect: the entire human race loses consciousness for about two minutes. During that time, nearly everyone sees themselves roughly twenty-one years and six months in the future. Each individual experiences their own future through the senses of their future self. This "flashforward
Flashforward
A flashforward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards are often used to represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future...
" results in countless deaths and accidents involving vehicles, aircraft, and any other device needing human control at the time of the experiment. The novel inspired the 2009 television series FlashForward
Flashforward
A flashforward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards are often used to represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future...
.
Plot summary
The protagonist is Lloyd Simcoe, a 45-year-old Canadian particle physicist. He works with his fiancée Michiko, who has a daughter, Tamiko. Another researcher and friend is Theo Procopides.The fallout from the flashforward occupies much of the first part of the book. The consequences include the death of Michiko's daughter as an out-of-control vehicle plows into her school. Oddly, no recording devices anywhere in the world functioned in the present during the event. Security camera tapes show noise and even recording devices in television studios show nothing until the event is over. One character interprets this as evidence in support of the observer effect in quantum theory
Introduction to quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the body of scientific principles that explains the behavior of matter and its interactions with energy on the scale of atoms and atomic particles....
. With the awareness of the entire human race absent, "reality" went into a state of indeterminacy. When the awareness returned, reality collapsed into its most likely configuration, which was one in which moving objects had careened out of control in the direction they were already headed.
The deaths of several characters are forecast by the flashforward. Anyone who did not experience it is assumed to be dead in the future. This includes Theo Procopides. Some people report reading about his murder in the future. However as time goes by it seems that the events of the future are not predestined
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
. Some people, depressed by their visions of their own dismal futures, commit suicide, thereby changing those futures. The story begins to take on the features of a murder mystery, as Theo attempts to prevent his own murder. His brother Dimitrios, who aspired to be a writer but saw himself just working in a restaurant in the future, is one of the suicides.
At CERN, less than two months after the original flashforward, the scientists plan a repeat of the run, but this time warning the world of the exact time, so that preparations can be made. However, no flashforward occurs, and the LHC instead finds the Higgs boson
Higgs boson
The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. Its existence is postulated as a means of resolving inconsistencies in the Standard Model...
; what the experiment was originally designed to produce.
Soon after this discovery, the riddle of the flashforward is solved. At the same time as the LHC was running, a pulse of neutrino
Neutrino
A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a half-integer spin, chirality and a disputed but small non-zero mass. It is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected...
s arrived from the remnant of supernova 1987A. The remnant is not a neutron star
Neutron star
A neutron star is a type of stellar remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles without electrical charge and with a slightly larger...
, but a quark star
Quark star
A quark star or strange star is a hypothetical type of exotic star composed of quark matter, or strange matter. These are ultra-dense phases of degenerate matter theorized to form inside particularly massive neutron stars....
, a superdense body of strange matter
Strange matter
Strange matter is a particular form of quark matter, usually thought of as a "liquid" of up, down, and strange quarks. It is to be contrasted with nuclear matter, which is a liquid of neutrons and protons , and with non-strange quark matter, which is a quark liquid containing only up and down quarks...
. Starquakes cause it to emit a neutrino pulse at unpredictable intervals. As the date of everyone's visions approaches, a satellite is launched into an orbit close to that of Pluto
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
, from where it can give several days warning of another neutrino pulse arriving. The neutrinos travel slower than light, since they have mass, and thus a radio message (though the book uses the notion of "faster-than-light communication" involving tachyons) from the satellite will arrive at Earth before the neutrinos do. The intent is to run the LHC again and create another flashforward.
Twenty-one years after the original flashforward, the satellite sends an alert to Earth; another neutrino burst is approaching. CERN was mostly abandoned several years earlier, and there is a mad rush to prepare the near-defunct LHC on time. Many of the original builders and operators have since deceased, and Theo is one of the few staff still at CERN. Informed of a fault with some equipment in the collider tunnel, he heads down to repair it, and discovers a fanatic attempting to sabotage the experiment, blaming the LHC staff for his wife's death in the first flashforward. In a chase sequence through the tunnels containing the LHC equipment, Theo is able to stop this, preventing his own murder in the process.
It turns out that the neutrino pulse arrives on the exact day which everyone flashed forward to, at the exact time. The world stops and rests at the appointed hour, and exactly as predicted, everyone blacks out. However, this time around the blackout is for approximately one hour, and it is reported that no one experienced any vision at all. Simcoe — now retired, divorced and re-married — is confused, as he experienced a vision of himself moving through time for billions of years via a succession of neutrino bursts. He observes his consciousness persisting in different artificial bodies. He is aware of another person being with him in some of these situations.
When the event is over, there is general puzzlement over why nothing happened. Simcoe comes to realize that the effect connects two periods of quantum disturbance occurring within the lifetimes of the individuals involved. Since there will be no more neutrino bursts in the lifetimes of any living people, nobody experiences a flashforward, except for those who are secretly associated with an immortality project controlled by the person Lloyd sees in his second flashforward. In particular, living Nobel laureates are being offered the chance to participate. However, it is unclear whether or not Lloyd accepts the treatment, depending upon the interpretation of "forgetfulness" he describes to his wife. It is implied that Theo will be offered the treatment as well. The novel ends with Theo contacting Michiko, Simcoe's ex-wife at this point, in the hopes of kindling a romance he has considered for over twenty years.
Philosophical and scientific issues discussed
The novel discusses free willFree will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
and determinacy
Determinacy
In set theory, a branch of mathematics, determinacy is the study of under what circumstances one or the other player of a game must have a winning strategy, and the consequences of the existence of such strategies.-Games:...
, the Copenhagen interpretation
Copenhagen interpretation
The Copenhagen interpretation is one of the earliest and most commonly taught interpretations of quantum mechanics. It holds that quantum mechanics does not yield a description of an objective reality but deals only with probabilities of observing, or measuring, various aspects of energy quanta,...
, Transactional interpretation
Transactional interpretation
The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics describes quantum interactions in terms of a standing wave formed by retarded and advanced waves. It was first proposed in 1986 by John G...
and the Omega Point. The latter is put in a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
context, through the character of Cheung, the rich Christian capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
who finances the immortality project. In a "NewsFlash" in the novel, Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
(who was pope when the novel takes place, but not when it was written) reserves judgement on whether the Flashforward was a miracle or not.
TV adaptation
The FlashForward television series based loosely on the novel aired on ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
between September 24, 2009 and May 27, 2010. It differs from the novel by following non-scientists, including lead characters FBI Special Agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes
Joseph Fiennes
Joseph Fiennes is an English film and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayals of William Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love, Sir Robert Dudley in Elizabeth, Commisar Danilov in Enemy at the Gates, Martin Luther in Luther, Merlin in Camelot, and his portrayal of Mark Benford in the...
), Special Agent Demetri Noh (John Cho
John Cho
John Yohan Cho is an American actor and musician, best known for his roles in the American Pie films and the Harold & Kumar films . He also starred in the critically acclaimed hit film Better Luck Tomorrow...
), and an FBI team investigating the Flashforward. The adaptation also changes the blackout time from under two minutes to two minutes and seventeen seconds, as well as the flashforward moving consciousness six months forward, not twenty-one years; time progresses normally during the event, and security cameras capture footage of people blacked out for the full time period. A character named Lloyd Simcoe does appear. However, he only partly resembles the character in the novel.
The story was also changed from taking place primarily in Geneva, Switzerland, (at and around the CERN facility), to the United States, primarily Los Angeles, California. Also, the flashforward event was portrayed as a terrorist attack, as opposed to the result of unforeseen circumstances.