We're Going to Cover That In Phase 2

The answer is “maybe never.” One my favorite movie quotes all time is from Spaceballs – its the classic “We’re looking at now, sir. Everthing that happens now is happening now…” quote (I’ve included the entire quote after the jump). However, a young astrophysicist named Peter Lynds has forumlated a theory which states that “time” is merely an illusion, that time has no divisible unit and therefore there is no “now,” only sequences of events. I know what you are thinking – “Whoa.” I’ll give you a second to process that.

He came up with this idea after watching IQ back home in New Zealand – I shit you not. After the movie, he couldn’t shake the idea that if Zeno’s paradoxes are true, then there is no such thing as a discrete slice of time. So, he began working on a paper stating as such and eventually it was published to widespread notoriety.

His theory threatens to turn the entire physics universe on its head and here’s the best part: he’ a 30 year old college dropout living in a hillside flat described by a Wired reporter as a “cross betwen a tree house and a Hobbit hole.” In fact, the entire Wired article about Peter Lynds is a fascinating read and I heartily suggest you read it.

As promised, one of my favorite quotes of all-time:

Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?

Colonel Sandurz: Now. You’re looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now.

Dark Helmet: What hapened to then?

Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.

Dark Helmet: When?

Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We’re at now now.

Dark Helmet: Go back to then.

Colonel Sandurz: When?

Dark Helmet: Now!

Colonel Sandurz: Now?

Dark Helmet: Now!

Colonel Sandurz: I can’t.

Dark Helmet: Why?

Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.

Dark Helmet: When?

Colonel Sandurz: Just now.

Dark Helmet: When will then be now?

Colonel Sandurz: Soon.

Dark Helmet: How soon?

Private: Sir.

Dark Helmet: What?

Private: We’ve identified there location.

Dark Helmet: Where?

Private: It’s the moon of Vega.

Colonel Sandurz: Good work. Set a course and prepare for our arrival.

Dark Helmet: When?

Private: 1900 hours.

Colonel Sandurz: By high noon tomorrow they will be our prisoners.

Dark Helmet: WHO!?