Word: somehows
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...named after an Oliver Sacks book on synaesthesia, the condition in which senses are confused so that one can "hear" colors, for instance, and Fran Healy's vocals on the album are so delicately beautiful it seems you can almost feel them on your skin. Somehow Healy manages to sound vulnerable without being precious or self-pitying. Perhaps it's the counterbalancing of pained lyrics (the title of their first single "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" says it all, really) with catchy choruses. Or maybe it's the occasional moment of sunshine through the rain, such...
...certain levels, the university teaches close analysis: to imagine in detail the places we are, to consider their intricacies. But the in-between places, the difficulties of journey, are somehow eased. The secret of flight is both a quick and far-reaching connectedness and a selective sight. Use wisely, we can bypass all kinds of roadblocks; use poorly, we become blind to what we have passed over...
...mechanism for time travel using cosmic strings, thin strands of energy millions of light-years long, predicted by some theories of particle physics (but not yet observed in the universe). You could try to construct a cosmic-string time machine by finding a large loop of cosmic string and somehow manipulating it so it would contract rapidly under its own tension, like a rubber band. The extraordinary energy density of the string curves space-time sharply, and by flying a spaceship around the two sides of the loop as they pass each other at nearly the speed of light...
Stephen Hawking has addressed the problem in a different way, proposing what he calls a chronology-protection conjecture. Somehow, he argues, the laws of physics must always conspire to prevent travel into the past. He believes that quantum effects, coupled with other constraints, will always step in to prevent time machines. The jury is still out on this question. We may need to develop a theory of quantum gravity to learn whether Hawking is right...
...start of the 21st century, alas, all that remains of these happy visions are a few scattered cloud-seeding programs, whose modest successes, while real, have proved less than earthshaking. In fact, yesterday's sunny hopes that we could somehow change the weather for the better have given way to the gloomy knowledge that we are only making things worse. It is now clear that what the world's cleverest scientists could not achieve by design, ordinary people are on the verge of accomplishing by accident. Human beings not only have the ability to alter weather patterns on local, regional...