ATDTDA (13) - bilocations

[kelber at mindspring.com]

P. 355 in the Iceland Spar section of the book seems to pave the way for the upcoming Bilocations section.  It's a small, pithy passage which seems to cover some of the major themes of the book - 
light, space, time, entropy:

Zambini the magician:  

" Bringing out a small, near-perfect crystal of Iceland spar. 'Doubles the image, the two overlap,
 with the right sort of light, the right lenses, you can separate them in stages, a little further 
each time, step by step till in fact it becomes possible to saw somebody in half optically, and
instead of two different pieces of one body, there are now two complete individuals walking around, who are identical in every way, capisci?'" (bottom of p. 354-355)

The process is irreversible, he explains.  It's not an optical problem, it's a problem of the unidirectional nature of time. The result:  Zambini's created a series of doubles, leading to lawsuits and other headaches.  The film "The Prestige" came out a couple of weeks before ATD and
deals precisely with this intersection of magic and science.  Worth seeing for anyone who hasn't already (and much better than the book version).

Laura