Quantum Theory: You Have to Keep Thinking About It

KEN KORCZAK:

Many years ago when I was a boy I found a book in our small-town library called "Relativity for the Millions" by MARTIN GARDNER. It was an attempt to explain the bizarre concept and implications falling out of Einstein's theory of relativity. The book was among about a half-dozen similar books that caused me to become a part-time theoretical physics junkie for life.

If you're like me -- that is, not a genius -- then the concepts of quantum mechanical science can be nothing less than mind-numbing. They present endless paradoxes, things that seemingly "can't be." The quantum scenario gleefully takes a wrecking ball to the basic world view we are comfortable with -- that of the now 300-plus-year-old mechanistic "billiard ball" universe of the great Isaac Newton.

I have found over the years that frequently revisiting some of the most difficult concepts of quantum physics helps me gain deeper understanding over time. Even when you find that you can grasp something intellectually, it's still can be vexing to absorb it psychologically. For example, it goes against our feelings of common sense to think that something can have a dual nature -- such as a particle existing both as a singular "object" and a "waveform" at the same time.

Anyway,I just finished reading another excellent book which discusses the implications of quantum theory -- it's "TAL: A Conversation With and Alien." See my review here: A QUANTUM DISCUSSION

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Space Opera Lives ... And Lives... And Lives ...

KEN KORCZAK:

It's incredible to think that space opera has been around for at least 100 years now.

The term "space opera" was coined in 1941 by a science fiction fan by the name of Wilson Tucker. Tucker would later become something of an author in his own right. Labeling a certain kind of SF "space opera" was not a compliment, but a denigration of what Tucker considered an inferior form of the genre.

Tucker defined space opera as "hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn."

But today space opera is still going strong. It is a standard sub-genre of science fiction, and there are plenty of new authors who are undaunted about "grinding out" what certain snooty literary types might dismiss as "hacky" stuff.

As for me, I don't like hacky, formulaic space opera much either, but I wax philosophical about it. If there's a market for it, if a demographic enjoys reading it, and if a writer can make a few bucks -- what's wrong with that?

Anyway, here is my book review of a new space opera offering by Canadian writer Chris Reher. SPACE HUNTER

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Mayo Clinic doctors saw Bigfoot in Minnesota?

KEN KORCAK:

For several years I wrote a popular column that was running in more than a dozen newspapers throughout Minnesota. It was called "Minnesota Mysteries" and it explored tales of the strange and unexplained. These stories and more were later combined into my now popular book, MINNESOTA PARANORMALA.

My column and book today prompt a lot of calls, many of the anonymous, from people who have had their own encounter with the bizarre. A case in point is the story I have linked below -- a man claims that two doctors of the prestigious Mayo Clinic found themselves literally face-to-face with Bigfoot on a camping trip in northern Minnesota. The year was 1965.

Check out this amazing story: MINNESOTA BIGFOOT ENCOUNTER

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