Today's Science Fiction Device is the Box from Shane Carruth's ultra-low-budget science fiction film, Primer. I am a big fan of this film and its commitment to mundane reality, which adds amazing weight to its commentary on the ethical complexities of meaningful innovation. If you've never seen Primer, it's about two software engineers who set out to improve on an existing idea for a machine that will inhibit the affects of gravity on objects, but accidentally discover time travel instead.
The time travel device, per the non-flashy convention of this film's aesthetic approach, is a simple, grey, metal box. It appears to be made of sheet metal, plywood, and pvc pipe and contains palladium that the characters salvage from the catalytic converter of a car. I won't say more, since the film is built around explaining the science of this box and the ramifications of using it, but let's just say that science, my friends, even speculative fiction low-budget film science... is fucking crazy.
And if you like fucking crazy science and its philosophical implications, you should check out the Primer Official Forums. It isn't really active anymore, but wow, what a fan community. Physics hobbyists got real on that shit. And I imagine that given you're the kind of person who likes to read this blog, then you might also be a brilliant fucking scientist. So chew on the sweet, sweet fat of this archived meeting of minds, and thank me later.
