x dismiss this message
Did you know you can edit this page?
-
Sign Into Shelfari
-
Choose something to edit
-
Save your contributions
see page history
Description edit
A scientific experiment begins, and as the button is pressed, the unexpected occurs: everyone in the world goes to sleep for a few moments while everyone's consciousness is catapulted more than twenty years into the future. At the end of those moments, when the world reawakens, all human life... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Lloyd Simcoe: Canadian-born researcher. Particle physicist. 45 years old. Director of "the experiment." A specialist in quark-gluon plasma.
- Michiko Komura: Engineer for Sumitomo Electric, specializing in superconducting-accelerator technology. Lloyd Simcoe's fiancee. 35 years old.
- Theo Procopides: Lloyd Simcoe's research partner. Physicist. 27 years old.
- Gaston Beranger: CERN's Director-General.
- Rusch: The man who will attempt to kill Theo 'in the ring.'
- Jake Horowitz: A research physicist at CERN.
- Jiggs: Add a description of this character.
- Doreen
- Carly Tompkins: A meson researcher working at TRIUMF in Vancouver, Canada.
- Bernard Shaw: A reporter for CNN.
- Wendy: Wendy is the director of a solar observatory searching for neutrinos who helps provide the link for how the flashforward occurred.
- Joan: Michiko's daughter in her vision, although she is not named until her birth.
- Sven: A technician at CERN working with Lloyd Simcoe.
- Tamiko Komura: Michiko Komura's daughter who dies as a result of the first flashforward.
- Dimitrios: Theo's brother who commits suicide after seeing his vision.
- Marie-Claire Beranger: Gaston Beranger's wife. A lawyer.
- Marc Beranger: Gaston and Marie-Clair's son.
- Della Robbia
- Frau Drescher: Helmut Drescher's wife.
- Helmut Drescher: A shoe salesman. Frau Drescher's husband and Helmut Drescher Jr.'s (Moot) father.
- Moot: Helmut Drescher Jr. 7 years old. A police officer in the future.
- Hiroshi: Michiko Komura's ex-husband and Tamiko Komura's father.
- Cheung: An intriguing character who is a Hong Kong native who leaves it before its return to China and moves to Canada to continue his business operations. When we first meet Cheung, he is 66 years old and plays a more vital part, although a completely hidden part, to the ending than is known at the time.
- Raoul
- Korolov: A mysterious link in one person's vision who becomes the link between Lloyd Simcoe and Cheung.
- Antonia
- Sanduleak: A crucial feature of the flashforward's explanation.
- Tipler
- Dyson: A part of Lloyd Simcoe's second vision, when he begins to understand the role Cheung plays in the future.
Quotes edit
-
“Ozone depletion was substantial; people wore hats and sunglasses, even on cloudy days”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
-
Free will is an illusion. It is synonymous with incomplete perception. —Walter Kubilius
Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers -
In TI, the cat sends out an actual, physical “offer” wave, which travels forward into the future and backward into the past. When the offer wave reaches the eye, the eye sends out a “confirmation” wave, which travels backward into the past and forward into the future. The offer wave and the confirmation wave cancel each other out everywhere in the universe except in the direct line between the cat and the eye, where they reinforce each other, producing a transaction.
Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers -
Chaos theory said that small changes in initial conditions must have big effects over time.
Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers -
He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over. —Beilby Porteus
Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers -
“An alternative timeline, of course. That’s completely reasonable, given MWI.” The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics says that every time an event can go two ways, instead of one or the other way happening, both happen, each in a separate universe. “Specifically, the visions portray the universe that split from this universe at the moment of your LHC experiment; they show the future as it is in a universe in which the time-displacement effect did not occur.”
Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers -
In the 1980s, he proposed an alternative explanation: TI, the transactional interpretation.
Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers -
George Lucas still hadn’t finished his nine-part Star Wars epic.
Highlighted by 8 Kindle customers -
Frank Tipler is?” Lloyd frowned. “A candid drunk?” “What? Oh, I get it—but it’s Tipler with one P. He wrote The Physics of Immortality.”
Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers -
Lost time is never found again. —John H. Aughey
Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers -
“This kind of cube, which shows someone’s life path through spacetime, is called a Minkowski cube:
Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
Organizations edit
- CERN: The European Organization for Nuclear Research, where the bulk of the novel takes place.
- Sudbury Neutrino Observatory: Add a description of this organization.
- United Nations
First Sentence edit
The control building for CERN's Large Hadron Collider was new: it had been authorized in A.D. 2004 and completed in 2006.
Series & Lists edit
This book is in Significant Speculative Fiction (Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror). (community list)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Robert J. Sawyer (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Tor Books
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1999
ISBN: 0312867123
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor Books
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1999
ISBN: 0312867123
Page Count: 320
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 813.54
Subjects edit
Popular Tags
See all 50 tags
Movie Connections edit
- Flash Forward (IMDb): 2009 TV Series
More Books Like This edit
We’re hiding the errata, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book, books that cite this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.
