Team Temple grills these every week. All year. I don’t exaggerate when I say they are the best steaks I’ve ever had. You can use this method for beefsteaks, but why would you? Porksteaks are way more flavourful. It is a sad day indeed when we run out and can’t get more until the farmstand opens on Saturdays. We prefer nice thick t-bone chops with a good mix of white and dark meat and a nice fat-cap (it’ll crisp off).

There are three keys to porkchop nirvanna: DRY, OIL, REST.

1: Marinate

First thing I do is marinate them with a few splashes of Bragg soy/aminos. I don’t marinate long, just enough to get a bit of umami seeping in. Probably if I did longer, they’d be even better. I take the chops straight out of the fridge for this. I don’t bother letting them pre-warm to room temp. I think this helps keep more of the thick chops rare/med-rare while the outside gets the right amount of crisp/char.

2: Dry

Key number one to crispy chops on the BBQ is to dry them off as well as you can. The best way to do this is with a couple pieces of paper towel. If I use the wettest towels on the chops first, working your way to the new, I can get the total down to one small ‘select-a-size’ per chop. Not too wasteful, and the dryness makes a HUGE difference.

3: Salt

Lay the chops in a (dry!) bowl and sprinkle salt fairly liberally on both sides. Koshering salt works best because you can get more coverage. Don’t be shy with it, most of it will drip off, but it’ll really make a difference in the flavour and crispiness.

4: Season

Make up the rub. I just sprinkle some flavours that work well with the chops. Through much experimentation, I’m currently doing the following. Amounts are guesses based on the relative proportions for four large chops. You almost can’t have too much rub, because it will slough-off with the excess oil.

• 2tsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp chili flakes (for citrus high-notes, not spice)
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds (roughly crushed)
• 1tsp onion powder
• 1/4tsp granulated garlic
• 1/2tsp aleppo pepper (just a touch for the earthiness, not spice)
• 1tbsp clubhouse greek salad seasoning

5: Oil

Key number two is to pour on lots of olive oil, probably half-a cup. Then mix the chops, seasoning, and oil together in the bowl. You want enough oil that they’re well slathered in it, with a bit of standing oil in the bottom of the bowl.

(Aside: Costco’s Kirkland-brand organic olive oil is FANTASTIC, the best tasting we’ve found for under gold-bullion pricing. It’s quite inexpensive, but amazingly good for raw applications, never woody. It’s what we use for cooking too.)

Slathered in oil is the best way to get a good sear on a propane barbecue.

6: Preheat

BBQ prep. Get the barbie REALLY hot. I throw on all burners full-whack with the lid down until the lid-thermometer pegs out, usually over 700f. When it’s up to temp (and the sizzle guards may be glowing orange near the burner), turn off one side of the BBQ, but keep the hottest part going.

7: Burn!

Chops go on the hottest part of the grill with the LID OPEN. Don’t mind if the olive oil is drippy, but don’t bother trying to get extra oil on the chops. Try to put the fattiest parts over the hottest heat. You’re basically trying to render/crisp the fat on the outside as fast as possible. By that time the rest of the meat will have just the right amount of grilling.

Flames will be *much* higher. You'll be too busy to photograph at their height.

Warning! Because the chops are dripping in oil, they WILL BURN! This is the secret to getting those perfectly crispy chops. The oil will burn, turning the chops into a bonfire, but the ablative burning of the oil and fat-cap will actually protect the chops from burning. Or some such. It’s science and it works. Have faith that the divine pork spirits will protect your chops.

Monitor closely, but DON’T PANIC. Watch carefully, because they should only sit in the bonfire for a handful of seconds before the outside is perfectly charred. Also, please don’t burn your house down. Er. Maybe I should have put that warning first. Keep the lid up while the conflagration is happening!

Grill until the outside is perfect, then move to indirect heat. Move the chops around, trying to get each side of each chop to the nicest looking amount of char. It won’t take long at all. Once they look beautiful, move each chop to the side of the grill with the burners off. They’ll still be blue in the middle, but the outside is done.

Total time over direct heat is maybe 3-4min. Keep your eye on the (flaming) prize!

Sear until it looks delicious, then move to indirect heat.

8: Bake

After all chops are moved off the direct heat (and any flash flames have died down) keep the one side of the grill still burning, but close the lid for indirect heat finishing. You’re going to essentially bake the chops until their internal temp is 105°F. Check the internal temp regularly.

(Aside: The best thermometer I have found is the ThermoWorks Thermapen instant-read thermometer. The ThermoWorks DOT is the best leave-in thermometer, which will make every roast and turkey easier and better. These two are in my absolutely essential kitchen kit.)

Sometimes the chops are different thicknesses and will cook at different rates. I put the cooler chops higher up to cook a little faster. My BBQ has a rack along the back of the grill, and on the indirect side, the top part of the rack will get more heat than the grill surface (lid-closed the heat fills from top down).

I like my chops medium-rare, and taking thick chops off at 105F will result in them being closer to medium, but with rarer bits right near the bone. Thinner chops can cook faster, but I don’t like to take them off before the others, because they’ll start to cool. You want them to retain their heat so they can finish cooking while resting. If some are done early, I move them to the cooler parts of the grill (on my grill up at the front corner opposite the side the burners are still going).

Note: The indirect baking accellerates as it heats up. It can take a while for the chops to get from 80-90, but from 90-120 can go fast!

Total time for indirect baking is probably another 4-5min. Less if you don’t open the lid frequently, which I do often to check the temp.

9: Rest

Key number three: they MUST rest to finish cooking. Quickly remove chops to a plate, piling them together to best retain heat (porkies at the bottom of the piggy pile will cook more). Quickly cover tightly with foil and remove to small insulated space. The microwave is a perfect little resting box. Er… don’t turn it on. ;)

After at least 10 min of resting (20 is ideal, we eat salad while they rest), the high heat on the outside will have sunk in to the middle, finishing the cooking to tender perfection. If you cut into them at 105F, they’ll be pretty blue, but after 10min resting, they’ll be at least med-rare. Sometimes I overshoot medium-rare, but they still wind up super tender with this resting method. Plus, with thick, bone-in porkchops, you’ll always have less well-cooked bits near the bone.

Pink pork is good. We buy good pork, and you haven’t really had to worry about rare pork in the past few decades (statistically it’s safer than beef), so we don’t mind it quite rare near the bone. Dial it in to your tastes.

10: Enjoy!

Try not to make obscene noises (unless your dining partner’s into that). And most importantly, I’d love to hear how it goes!    

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“I know.” Two words, famously ad-libbed by Harrison Ford after many repeated takes of the scripted “I love you too” line. Two words that evoke love far more powerfully than any hallmarkian sentiment in this or any other galaxy. In all of cinema, in all its rich and romantic history, “I know” is certainly the most romantic ad-lib. And in my estimation, “I know” is high among the most romantic lines, full stop.

It is in one of the darkest moments of The Empire Strikes Back, in all of the Star Wars franchise really, when Han Solo replies with those two little words to Leia’s tearful and frighted admission of “I love you.” And in that moment we witness a breaking of character. Not merely the breaking of the fourth wall by Ford with his ad-lib, but the abandonment of a mask behind which Solo had been hiding for so long.

At first blush, it might sound in-character for Solo. Another in a long line of the snappy repartee that had characterized his and Leia’s relationship. But it was more than that. His was a naked and vulnerable return of her statement of love.

Up to that point their relationship had been adversarial, full of romantic friction. Solo had been pressing his suit with Leia, but in a ‘scruffy’ sort of way, the way a scoundrel would. From Leia’s perspective, Solo’s pursuit had seemed not motivated by love, but perhaps by a mere desire for conquest.

Leia had been rebuffing his passes, uninterested in a shallow relationship. But all the while she obviously has feelings for Solo (see the scene on the Falcon in the worm/cave when they kiss for the first time).

I'm "nice men".

But when the shit hits the fan big-time in Cloud City, when there’s no more time for messing around with unimportant matters, Leia abandons all pretexts. It’s likely to be her last time ever seeing Han, and she’s filled with sadness and regret. She needs to tell him that she does truly love him.

Solo, whose cad-like behaviour was as much a pretext to cover his own true love as Leia’s protests had been, who had been enjoying the ‘game’ of fencing back and forth with Leia, and who is about to be lowered to his almost certain death (whether from the carbonite or from what awaits him on the other side of the hibernation), looks back at Leia after her expression of love, and says, “I know.”

Two little words. And in that moment, he’s not just acknowledging that Leia loves him, but that he has known for some time. He’s acknowledging that he has been in love with her too, and that the game they’ve been playing isn’t necessary any longer.

Solo isn’t being cool as he’s about to meet his fate. Instead he is abandoning those childishly status-consious defense mechanisms, the ‘protections’ that he has always wrapped himself with. Those same ‘protections’ that have prevented him from ever truly connecting with another person on a deep level. In his most desperate hour, Solo at once makes himself completely vulnerable by surrendering himself to love, and also draws upon the immeasurable strength of love in order to face his fate.

Such is the magic of love, it can provide strength beyond imagining, but only to those who open themselves wholly to the vulnerability of unrequited love and to the unbearable pain of true love lost.    

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A whisper of breeze ruffled the airfield’s August-browned grass. The sky overhead was warm and inviting. With unlimited visibility, the bright blue canopy appeared as if it had pulled back from the earth to provide extra airspace beneath. One lone cotton-cloud lazed over the horizon. Two eagles circled effortlessly high overhead. It was a perfect day for flying.

Pilot Rod Rees strode across the lawn. A young man in the Summer of 1963, my Uncle Rod was little older than I was when I first heard the story of his maiden flight. My mother Arlene, only a girl then, saw no trace of fear as her older brother approached the field. His eyes were set, his face was determined, and his aircraft was slung confidently under his arm.

After weeks waiting for the kit to arrive, after a summer holiday spent indoors on painstaking assembly, after his fingers had become calloused from fine tooling and his lungs ravaged by glue fumes, the day had finally come for his dream to take flight.

Aircraft fuelled and pre-flight checklists completed, Rees glanced yet again at the listless pine-bough windsocks overlooking the R-Bar-Eagle farm’s upper horse paddock —newly rechristened the Galiano Island Airfield. He bent low over his aircraft and, with a high whine and a puff of blue smoke, the engine coughed to life. Rees cycled the controls and adjusted the radio’s trim knob one last time. He looked up, taking two half-steps backward.

The plane burst forward.

With shocking acceleration, the little craft jounced over the turf. Far sooner than expected, as if it had been all those weeks itching to break the reins of gravity, the plane bolted into the sky.

Uncle Rod’s labours paid off in that one moment. His creation at last tasted its first breath of sweet summer air. Its wings, nearly as wide as an eagle’s, waggled in excitement before flexing.

As if in triumph, the plane thrust one wingtip skyward. In an almost playful motion, it continued its roll, flipped onto its back, and drove straight into the ground.

It all happened in the space between breaths. The quick takeoff, the brief flight, the sudden return to earth. There was a shocked stillness, the only sound a muffled whine coming from beneath the belly-up aircraft. Rod stood stunned. As if waking with a start, he killed the struggling engine and dashed over to search for survivors.

For a long time Rod examined and prodded at the shattered propeller and crooked wings. My mother watched her brother’s efforts from beneath the shade of the old pine at the end of the drive. She knew from hard-earned experience that the fiery look in his eyes meant not to say anything as he passed on his way to the garage, nor on his way back with the jerrycan of fuel.

Soaring high above, two eagles floated on endless thermals. Aside from a cloud of black pyre-smoke rising from the farm below, it was a perfect day for flying.

–

Prompt: CBC Canada Writes “Bloodlines Challenge”.

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Turkey, turkey, turkey! Here it is, my mother’s amazing turkey dinner recipe, straight from the source [with my notes added in brackets].

I know that everybody’s partial to their mother’s cooking, but my mom’s turkey dinner is always outstanding! It’s her secret weapon for getting me over to the Island to visit. I’m a horrible son. (Sorry Mom!)

It’s not as specific as a cook-book recipe, but it doesn’t need to be. Anybody with a cook’s soul should breeze through it (chef-ery not required). Post your questions, and I’ll answer below. (My Mom may even too!)

Stuffing

• italian bread, extra long sliced loaf [D'Italiano works great, so do more squirrely breads]
• onion
• garlic
• celery
• italian sausage [Costco hot italian is outstandingly good italian sausage for any recipe!]
• mushrooms [I use white, but you can use whatever floats your boat]
• red pepper
• eggs
• salt
• pepper
• sage
• poultry seasoning
• butter
• olive oil

Make sure that you freeze the loaf of bread ahead of time so that it is easy to cut into cubes without it getting squishy.

Put some olive oil and butter in a large saute pan. If your italian sausage is in casing, remove and crumble into pan as many to taste, say 5 or 6 for a full loaf of bread [I use 4 or 5 of the big Costco sausages, about 600-700g]. Add onions and brown along with sausage.

In the meantime finely chop one or two celery stalks, loads of garlic, and as many mushrooms as you like [I use lots, you can't have too many!].

When the sausage is browned, turn down heat and add the celery, garlic, mushrooms, some more olive oil and too much butter for anyones good. I use lots of butter as it gives a nice flavour [It's turkey dinner, leave your food-conscience at the door!]. Add quite a lot of sage – again to taste – bearing in mind it will diffuse through the bread so if it seems too strong, it probably wont be. I’d say about 2 tablespoons at least, maybe more. Add about the same, or a little less in poultry seasoning. Grind in some pepper, but don’t use too much salt as the butter is salty. Also at this time add water to the pan, enough to make it all quite moist but not soupy.

Let this concoction simmer while you dice the bread. I use almost the whole loaf for a 20 pound-ish turkey. [I use the whole loaf with all that sausage and mushroom to ensure a side pan of stuffing. It's the best part!]

Place the diced bread in a large bowl and beat about 4 or 5 eggs. Toss the eggs gently into the bread mix then add the sausage/seasoning and toss gently. You may need to add a little more water to the sausage/seasoning mix before mixing with bread. You want a bread mixture that is moist but not soppy.

At this time toss in the diced red pepper and you could add apple or nuts or whatever at this time as well. [I'm preferential to just the red pepper, no nuts or apples.]

Stuff it all into the turkey cavity. [Very Important: Never stuff the cavity full! It will make your turkey take hours longer to cook. Only ever put an inch or so of stuffing in the cavity, make sure there's plenty of room for hot air. Go right ahead and stuff the neck-flap full though!] If you have too much [Likely!] you can put the excess in a buttered oven dish and refrigerate for a while. You only want to cook the stuffing in the dish for about an hour at the end. [I also add some turkey drippings into the extra pan of stuffing to give it that same turkey flavour].

Turkey and Gravy

• butter
• olive oil
• chicken or turkey “Better Than Bouillon” [this stuff (and the veggie one) is magical]
• fresh rosemary
• turkey!

[I always brine the turkey beforehand. It really doesn't take long, and results in an amazingly tender bird. The best brine recipe follows an easy to remember mnemonic: "Quarter-Quarter-Quart". Use a Quarter cup of white sugar and a Quarter cup of table salt for every Quart of warm-to-hot tap water (multiply these amounts for as much brine as you need). This makes a pretty strong brine, way stronger than the overnight varieties. Brine for no more than 45 minutes (three 'Quarts' again!). For smaller pieces of chicken/pork-chops I only do 20-25 min. Very important: After brining, rinse the bird thoroughly, inside and out, to remove all the salt!]

Stuff some butter [and sage, rosemary, and other aromatics] under the skin of the turkey breast. Slather outer skin with a little butter and olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Now the secret for the BEST turkey…

Place the turkey in a roaster and add about an inch of water to the pan. I also add about a tablespoon of turkey “better than boullion”, then cover the roaster. If you do not have a covered roasting pan, make a tent of foil making sure to make it as air tight as possible. It’s better to have a covered roaster.

Place the roaster in the oven and turn up heat to about 425 degrees. As soon as you can smell the turkey beginning to cook [might be a couple hours if your bird is cold], turn down the heat to about 350 degrees. Depending on size of bird, cook for about another hour or less, then remove the lid. There will now be about two or more inches of water in the pan as all the water they inject into the birds to make them heavier has now leeched out. The bird will also look a sickly white … don’t panic!

At this time remove the lid and cover loosely with a tent of foil … don’t seal … just cover.
Cook for another half hour or so depending on size of bird, then CAREFULLY pour off all the liquid in the bottom of the roasting pan into a saucepan [Best to remove the turkey from the roaster to do this. If you have turkey lifters, great, but if not, you can stick a chef's knife edge-down into the cavity, and lift the whole bird on the back edge of the knife]. Return turkey to oven. The liquid you poured off will be clear-ish … don’t panic. [You can pour some of this liquid into the extra pan of stuffing at this point.]

Boil the liquid VIGOROUSLY in the sauce pan until it renders down to a nicely thick brown goo. Pour this over the turkey and return the turkey to the oven with just a loose cover of foil. By now you should have only about a half hour of cooking left, so it should be browned just perfectly. [After the turkey is done, remove it from the pan and cover to let it rest for at least 15-20 minutes. Best to use a meat thermometer to determine this and slightly adjust the times in this recipe accordingly.]

For gravy, add a little white wine to the roasting pan to deglaze. Then add a little more water, some flour, and some turkey “better than boullion”. Depending on how much dripping there is in the roasting pan, you may have to add some packaged turkey mix to the gravy. [I always add a couple or few packages, enough to make 3-4 cups of gravy. It's got to last all week, and I like lots of gravy! When it combines with the turkey drippings, it's so good.] Reduce this down until it looks like gravy. I also add a sprig or so of fresh rosemary near the end.

How’d it work for you?

Hope that helps! The first time we tried it, it turned out perfectly, and now we make it whenever we have an excuse now!

I’d love to hear how it works out for you. If you have tips or tricks, share them below. I’ll try them out and incorporate them into the above.    

The post Best Turkey and Stuffing Recipe (or How Mom Gets Me to Visit) appeared first on is this your homework?.

He prepared the explosives with slight care, quickly, casually, the ritual well-practiced, components proportioned more or less precisely, burner tuned just-so to an unmarked setting, the steel lid lowered for even heating and explosive containment.

Sirens sang, foreboding shrieks and squawks and shearing sounds, as the vessel was shaken and slid across the element, stirring untouched its contents. Intermittently the concoctor ceased his agitation and crooked an expert ear to the silence, listening for sizzling, steady but not slow, energetic but not angry. It mustn’t burn. Burning meant acrid smoke, accusatory smoke, overpoweringly aromatic smoke, smoking evidence that lingered, alerted the neighbours, testified to his activities, testified to his inexpertise.

An explosion surely overdue, his doubts began to mount. Was it too hot? Not hot enough? Was this batch going to explode? *pop* The first explosion always a surprise, always a relief. *pop-pop-pop* The explosions came faster, faster still. The tin-can rat-a-tat-tat of the popping startled his senses, stimulating salivation before sent was detected.

Still shaking, sliding, stirring the pot, he watched, trance-like, the stochastic explosions sending kernels careening, chaotically clanging and caroming off the pot with each pop, pop, pop.

Eyes drying and mouth watering, he stood mesmerized by the turmoil. Blasted blossoms burst like frozen fireballs, each concussion showering the seething mass with corn-husk shrapnel, triggering secondary and tertiary explosions as ticking time-bombs tumbled.

At last the cacophonous barrage began to abate. But not the stirring, shaking, sliding. He knew the risk of burning was highest now, knew that explosive packages had to be sifted toward the heat, had to be detonated before the now-dry pan overheated.

Three seconds. Three seconds without a pop was all that could be afforded. One—*pop* The clock reset. One…*pop* Reset. One… two…*pop* Reset again. One… two…*pop* Too long, three seconds was too long this time. One… two… —burning, it was going to burn— three! He doused the burner, threw back the lid, and dumped the steaming contents into the waiting container.

Perfect popcorn.

–

Prompt: “Exercise One: Being Gorgeous” from Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Popcorn Colonel image: corn soldier by ~oridan2 on deviantART.

Featured: CBC Canada Writes    

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If you haven’t ever seen It’s a Wonderful Life, or even if you have seen it, but don’t remember it well, do yourself a favour and go watch it. It is one of those somewhat rare classic films which still holds up amazingly well today. More than that, it isn’t at all the sappy, corny movie that most people assume it is or mis-remember it as.

Whether they’ve seen it or not, most know it for Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey running through Bedford Falls, yelling “Merry Christmas!”; and of course for the sacharine-sweet Zuzu proclaiming “Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings!”; all culminating with the tearful reprise of Auld Lang Syne. Those are the images that everybody –everybody who doesn’t remember the film well– recalls immediately upon hearing its name. And I’d agree, if those scenes were indicative of the overall tone of the movie, it would indeed be a sappy mess, hardly worth watching, save for when you desperately need a simple and sweet bit of holiday fluff.

But that is not the feel of the movie! Far from the cinematic snow-globe that most mis-categorize it as, It’s a Wonderful Life is surprisingly dark, very witty, and truly entertaining. The film is thoroughly rewarding even to more refined modern-day audiences. And while it has been elevated to Christmas canon, very little of it actually occurs around Christmastime, and it certainly isn’t your standard holiday fare.

The reason for the dissonance between the perception and the reality of the film is obvious; for decades television network and advertising executives have slavishly adhered to the Law of Classic Films, the law mandating that all, and only, the most clichéd moments of classic films must be repeated, ad nauseum, in every advertisement or reference to said films.

What makes It’s a Wonderful Life such a surprise to the first-time viewer is that, while its runtime is a hearty 130 minutes, all of those oft-remembered, oft-rehashed, and awfully sweet moments occur in the final 7 minutes of the film. While the final few minutes are indeed a super-concentrated distillation of the essence of Christmas, they serve as a well-balanced counterpoint, a satisfying glaze, too sweet on its own, but just perfect as the topper to the body of the film. These clichéd, over-sweet moments work so beautifully well, because the first two hours of the film are a long, dark study in the psychological torture of George Bailey.

Hitting Close to Home

This poor, good, but not too good man constantly has his dreams dashed, all his hopes and aspirations for life repeatedly and thoroughly yanked from his reach, cruelly withdrawn just as he is about to grab for one tiny modicum of happiness, as if the world were out not just to get him, but to toy with him, to manipulate him, to drive him towards his getting himself in a cold, lonely act of miserable suicide. It’s a Wonderful Life is a hard cruel film, especially so for those who have, or have had, their own unrealized dreams.

And it is powerful because the viewer shares George’s dreams, hopes for him to leave Bedford Falls, to see the world, to build bridges, raise skyscrapers, and do the other things. We want this for George, not because those are wonderous and fanciful dreams, but because the stifling mundanity of George’s life parallels dramatically the choices and sacrifices most of us are obligated to make ourselves. We root for George to blow out of Bedford Falls, because his is a story that embodies the ‘What if?’, the secret, somewhat disappointed question in the back of our minds, that hidden promise of the paths not taken, the wistful regret which most of us share and with which all of us can sympathize.

So when the rug is inevitably and repeatedly yanked from beneath George’s feet, we feel its affect resonate with our own unrealized aspirations. And yet this is skillfully done; we share frustration with George’s plight, but not the cheated frustration of lazily contrived deceit, not the sort of feeling evoked when we watch Lucy yank the football out from Charlie Brown’s feet. These inevitable and endless reversals don’t share that same artifice that makes the viewer angry at the entire contrivance.

Instead, George is presented with the very real, very mundane difficulties we encounter in our own lives. And while we secretly wish that George might turn his back on his responsibilities and his family, might finally flee for his long longed-for life, ultimately George makes the decisions that we ourselves would very likely make, indeed the decisions that we ourselves very likely have made, when standing in his shoes.

"But George, they'll vote with Potter otherwise!"

George’s struggle is inherently more identifiable, more visceral to the viewer, not because the slings and arrows he suffers are of epic, earth-shaking proportion, but because they are the thousand cuts of everyday living, the constant postponement of a better life, not some unattainable fantasy, but a cloyingly close existence, a promise just out of reach, just visible on the horizon, ever receding, a tantalizing mirage that fuels thirst more sharply than would a hopelessly barren landscape.

And just when George finally submits to his destiny, when he packs away his exotic and adventurous aspirations, when he replaces them with the solidly practical dreams of a solidly practical family existence, his resignation of hope perhaps most depressing of all, when George finally appears happy with his life, at last the stage is set for one final and terrible blow. As if unsatisfied with merely crushing his dreams, at the very moment George abandons his aspirations and settles for the life he has, the cruel world takes it all away.

Despite the more momentous reversal, the viewer can still share in George’s plight. More keenly felt than the destruction of our own lives, we all know and fear the uniquely biological terror-shame of bringing ruination to one’s family and children. Little wonder that George descends into panicked madness. And when he does, we are along for the ride.

What follows is a topsy-turvy depiction of a world without George Bailey, a world of almost-familliar scenes filled with Dickensian shadows pantomiming all the base fears of the ego: friends having forgotten you, siblings dead, mother not recognizing you, your home uninhabited, children gone, and your poor wife become a spinster. Save perhaps for that last one, each of these fears resonates with us today; and all build to an intolerable torture for George Bailey, a hellish reality against which prison, poverty, and privation are preferred.

The Light at the End

It is against this backdrop of misery that the final seven minutes of the film are portrayed. After two hours of watching George take his lumps both figuratively and literally, and long after you’ve begun to wonder how on earth this film could ever be considered a Christmas movie, the unending emotional spiral finally sweeps heavenward. And it is a welcome change at that. No longer do those oft-remembered scenes taste of unbearable treacle. Instead, George’s shouts of merriment through Bedford Falls now bring joy to our hearts; Zuzu’s pronouncement of angel advancement garners nods of ascent; and the heartwarming rendition of Auld Lang Syne, now seeming more spontaneous than staged, perhaps even brings to our eyes the same heavy, happy tears seen in George’s own.

The film depicts a surprisingly grim tale, but it is not without its warmth and humour too. While ultimately descending to frighteningly dark depths before the final redemption, much of the film is filled with wonderfully enjoyable scenes, funny and touching moments that feel unexpectedly real, identifiable, scenes remembered far more fondly than the classic clichés most commonly recalled. The first act is filled with such scenes of surprisingly sharp dialog and effectively genuine moments between characters.

"This is a very interesting situation!"

Many of my favourite parts are these light-hearted and genuine glimpses into the richly textured community of Bedford Falls and into the unexpectedly wry mind of George Bailey. The school dance is delightful, as is George and Mary’s walk home in its aftermath, the latter starting sweet but turing just a touch naughty. Our preconceptions of George are turned on their head when we see the arch look in his eyes, the realization dawning that a fella could have some fun with a naked girl hiding in a hydrangea bush, his playful teasing of Mary revealing a mischievous side of George Bailey that is both unexpected and fun.

So much more than a Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life is a parable about hope and sacrifice and about the value of life. It is a fun film, a touching film, and, for one which features an angel (2nd-class), a surprisingly real film. It is a quality tale filled with thoroughly enjoyable moments, delightfully quirky scenes that stick with you long after the final echoes of Auld Lang Syne fade away.

It’s a Wonderful Life is a film which absolutely deserves a first-time viewing and thoroughly rewards revisitation. And why not at Christmas?    

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I love Instagram. And yet, I’m not very fond of the style of Instagram photos. I don’t share the vitriolic distaste that some have for the Instagram style; I simply don’t find the look to be to my taste whatsoever. Rather, it’s the appeal, the very phenomenon of its success, and the beautiful way in which it affects the way we view and appreciate digital photos that I find both fascinating and intriguing.

On its surface, Instagram’s obvious appeal is its timely and trendy evocation of things retro. No doubt a large part of its meteoric success has been due to the fact that it not only oozes hipster-chic, the retro cool du jour, but it also makes masterful use of the very best of social media modernity. If there’s one thing hipsters like more than looking cool, it’s being able to look cool in front of their entire social circle.

But Instagram is more than just hipster douchebaggery. It has a more primal draw. Whereas the hyper-concious pursuit of what’s considered capital-C “Cool” is very cerebral, an activity requiring an agonizingly analytical approach by the Painfully Cool, Instagram speaks to us most strongly on a much deeper, more innate level.

Instagram’s deeper and more universal appeal is its ability to evoke nostalgia for the way photography used to make us feel. Through advanced technological fakery, they’ve managed to reproduce some of the magic of those poor-quality, candid Polaroids that simply speak to us in a special way, a way in which the undoctored snaps that come out of our phones and digicams do not.

When you peer deeply into a digital photo, you eventually arrive at the pixel level, a solid barrier beyond which you know, with a certain cold finality, that no more detail is to be found. However with analog media like film (and painting, sculpture, etc), the image is made up of real objects, globules of photosensitive molecules which have infinite fractal complexity.

While the pixelation of the digital medium, like the depressingly honest clap a casino dealer performs at the end of a shift, reveals that nothing more is hidden, analog film has no abrupt transition, instead performing a magician’s sleight of hand, smoothly redirecting attention from the detail of the scene to that of the medium.

A low resolution Polaroid snapshot might capture only a tiny fraction of a scene’s detail compared to a high-resolution digital photo, but that Polaroid has no hard barrier between the truth of what was captured of the scene and the artificial information, the noise inherent in the medium. This gradual blend of detail distinguishes film photography like Polaroids from what we’ve been accustomed to from the digital photography we typically encounter in our travels along the intertubes.

With the infinite detail available in film, we’re free to peer closer into the photo. Our imagination isn’t hamstrung by the reality of detail that is truly and accurately represented, instead it’s free to explore and find its own imagery among the unbound detail of the noise and film grain, as it is when staring into the sky on a cloud-dotted day or a star-filled night.

The magic of Instagram is that it they’ve found a digital formula which approximates that limitless detail of film. In a case of addition via subtraction, they apply scratches, noise, blurring, oversaturation, and overexposure, all of which actually reduce the detail of the scene, but also serve to more skillfully hide that barrier of absolute truth captured of the scene.

True, that cold digital barrier still exists. The sense of the unbound imagination that is present in a Polaroid is only artificially replicated in an Instagram photo. And yet, I find that it doesn’t really lessen the effect. As evidenced by its near-universal appeal, I think the formula that they’ve hit upon truly does have a deeper effect than just its retro photographic style. Perhaps someday a successor to Instagram will come along and find a way to capture that essence of infinite detail, but without the trendiness of the somewhat clichéd style.    

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The debate on whether or not the goalie should be ‘fair game’ when he leaves his crease was recently rekindled in spectacular fashion when Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic hit Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller during their game on November 12th.

It was a relatively common play that developed at about the two-thirds mark of the first period: Lucic and Miller were each racing for the puck, Miller getting there first, swatting it aside. What made this particular play uncommon was the fact that Lucic did not lay up or try to avoid Miller, as is almost always the case. Instead Lucic held his course, braced for impact, and plowed into Miller, sending the goalie cartwheeling, his mask flying.

Miller didn’t play the third period, but stuck around to give NHL fans and wags a rare treat indeed: an honest interview, one entirely devoid of tired platitudes or sports clichés; Miller called Milan Lucic a “Gutless piece of shit.”

During the sleepy days of mid-November hockey, the hit by Lucic and the ensuing lambasting by Miller serve up high-drama indeed. Sports writers’ column-inches, normally intimidatingly large at this time of year, are suddenly frightfully claustrophobic, radio call-in programs have their lines lit up by countless armchair Bettmans and Shanahans, and office coffee kitchens have seen sharp rises in the attendance at daily hockey-talk scrums. The only topic of discussion of course is “Why can’t you hit the goalie?”, the Lucic-Miller Incident serving as nucleation point for the issue that has always been simmering on the back of the hot-stove.

I’ve often asked the question; I’ve wondered why should goalies be treated any differently from players when outside their crease. But as someone who became a goalie rather late in life, I’ve found a new perspective on the conventional wisdom and arcane mystery that surrounds the hockey goaltender.

And so, with this somewhat unique viewpoint, I’ll dip my oar into these muddied waters, I’ll explain why you absolutely cannot allow goalies to be hit.

Goalies are Vulnerable

They may not look it, wearing 45lbs of protective equipment, but goaltenders are incredibly vulnerable. It’s not obvious when looking at them in their suit of armor, but essentially all of that protection is facing forward. To a very close approximation, a goalie has zero protection on his sides and back. No shoulder or rib protection, nothing protecting the spine or back, only that which is absolutely required to stop a puck.

When you think about this it makes sense, goalie gear is heavy and bulky, it affects movement greatly. Anything that can be shaved off without affecting puck-stopping will help the goalie’s mobility, ultimately helping make saves.

And also, as illustrated by the image of the Lucic-Miller hit and the video below, a goalie’s mask is attached to his head rather loosely by elastic straps. They are designed this way in order to absorb the impact of a puck, with the unfortunate side-effect of often being knocked off when involved in a collision.

Miller suffered a mild concussion from the hit. While it’s unclear, it could very well be due, not to the initial hit, but to the small bump his head made on the ice when he laid down after it. Fortunately, Miller’s concussion appears to be relatively minor (as minor as concussions can be). However, as the terrible case of Don Sanderson recently illustrated, having a goalie’s mask knocked off in a collision can be extremely dangerous.

Okay, no surprise so far, goalie gear is meant to protect from puck impacts. What’s worse though, is that when involved in a collision, wearing goalie gear can be far more dangerous than wearing nothing at all.

That 45lbs of equipment is quite bulky and hangs out in front of the body. This results in the goalie’s centre of mass being considerably off-balance from the regular human body or even a skater’s in his gear. It’s no coincidence that goalies tend to walk like very pregnant women, they are considerably imbalanced. This imbalance, coupled with the fact that goalies are wearing giant mattresses on their legs, can make it far more difficult to protect oneself by falling safely.

The bulk of the equipment can lead to some rather awkward falls, but where it can be truly dangerous is when the equipment goes one way, but the goalie’s body goes another. For example, almost all goaltenders have their legs tied to their pads at the foot. In order to butterfly though, these pads are free to rotate about the leg, until of course, stopped by the toe-ties. However, if conditions are right, even a relatively minor impact, can put a goalie out of commission for the season, even a career.

In the video above Brian Boucher is involved in a fairly low impact collision in which he sprained both his knees. If you watch the over-head angle at the 1:10 mark, you’ll see why. When Boucher’s teammate falls atop him, he is flattened to his back between his feet, with his pads held flat against the ice, their toes pointed out to the side. Because Boucher is tied into his pads, his toes are also forced outward. I speak from experience when I say that your legs cannot bend in such a way where your heels touch your hips and your toes are pointed outward. Legs cannot do that, the weak link, the knees, tear to shreds.

Fortunately for Boucher, his double MCL strain wasn’t as bad as it could have been. However, others have been less lucky. No small number of goalies have had their careers ended, or significantly affected by serious injury due to relatively minor impact.

The main reason why you have to protect the goaltender is that they are more vulnerable than any other player on the ice. Of course, that reason alone won’t suffice for the Milburys of the world or for those for who share their blustery viewpoints. For these types, an increased rate of injury to the players is not sufficient reason to disallow the hitting.

Injured Goalies are Bad for the Game

Players are growing bigger and faster, their equipment is constantly getting lighter, more maneuverable, allowing them to shoot harder and more accurately. Yet despite this upward trend in shooter skill, goals have been decreasing. The explanation for this is largely due to a renaissance in goaltending that started in earnest with Patrick Roy and his butterfly.

Patrick Roy (pictured here without fingers in his ears) hoists his second Stanley Cup.

Now more than at any time in hockey history, the goaltender is the most important player on the ice. Teams live and die by the quality of their netminder, fans look at a blowout as a failure of just one of the twenty players on the team, and as a result, the goalie is usually pulling in superstar-level salary.

There are many in the hockey world that think goalies have gotten too good, that a ‘lack of scoring’ is hurting the game. Proposals surface from time to time, suggesting that the size of the goalie equipment be drastically reduced or the size of the net increased, all with the aim to increase scoring.

What proponents of these ideas don’t understand though is that scoring isn’t what makes hockey exciting. Instead it’s Scoring Chances that make the game thrilling. Being surprised when a weak shot beats the goalie isn’t nearly as suspenseful or exciting as watching a breakaway or a 2-on-1 develop, or seeing a skater race toward the back-door, hoping to blast a one-timer past a diving goalie.

Toronto Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer makes a diving save in an inevitable loss to the Washington Capitals.

Whether or not one thinks it is a good thing, it is undeniable that the goalie’s effect on team performance is monumental. Even outstanding goaltending can’t save a terrible team effort, but merely average goaltending can turn a win into a loss.

The top 60 or so goalies in the world are playing in the NHL, and the skill discrepancy between the top and the bottom, even among the top 10 goalies, is huge. If the injury rate were to increase, the overall skill level of active goalies would reduce dramatically.

The pinnacle of any sport is best-on-best competition. Anything that would increase the chances of the best and most important players sitting out with injury, would only serve to diminish the game.

Injured Goalies are Bad for Teams

As has been evidenced by the recent surge in concern over player concussions, reaching a fever pitch just after the biggest cash-cow star in the game suffered one because he wasn’t looking where he was skating, the owners of the league are very keen to protect their investments.

Even if you don’t care whether more goalies become injured, whatever your feelings on the relative worth or importance of the goaltender, you must understand and appreciate their value as assets to teams. When a team pays many millions of dollars for something, whether a superstar goalie or the world’s fanciest whirlpool machine, it is imperative that they can make use of that asset.

⌘-v: Rick DiPietro is injured.

Every dollar on the injured reserve list serves no value whatsoever, it is money flushed down the toilet. Worse, if a team has a Six Million Dollar Man out with injury, that money is still eating up precious salary cap space. Improper management of that cap space, bad luck, or both (see Rick DiPietro of the New York Islanders above), can doom a team to mediocrity for years.

All other considerations aside, General Managers and owners simply can’t afford to increase the already high risk of injury for their extremely valuable goaltender assets.

Goalies Will Always Be Special

I understand the sentiment: “If the goalie leaves his crease, he must accept that he’ll be hit.” That’s an inherently fair way to play. Unfortunately the fairness of that proposition is outweighed by the monumental practical implications of making goalies ‘fair game’.

In the real world, the goaltender is special. They wear special gear, they are subject to special rules, they have special talents, they have a very special effect on the team’s performance, and of course they are subject to special treatment by their teammates, dictated by a host of strange and mysterious superstitions and customs.

It shouldn’t be surprising or worrying that goalies need special protection on the ice.

Evidence that the Sabres once knew about protecting the goalie.

How Does the League Protect the Goalie?

The rules of hockey state that players must essentially do everything in their power to avoid colliding with the goalie. Hopefully the above will illustrate why that is a good thing. The question becomes one of what to do if a player doesn’t try to avoid the goalie, as Lucic most certainly did not. Let us make no bones about it, Lucic absolutely, without shadow of a doubt, intentionally hit Miller. Suggestions otherwise are sophistry of the highest degree.

Personally, I understand why there was no suspension, because there’s no real precedent for it. But there needs to be, and very soon. The league has officially endorsed Lucic’s play, categorizing it no differently than a hooking penalty in the form of a mild tug on the wrists. That’s dangerous for goalies, the game, and for every team’s multi-million dollar goaltending investments.

The GMs need to address this very soon, or it will be open season on goalies. Fortunately, it appears that these discussions are taking place. Unfortunately, even stiff suspensions won’t change the fundamental problem at hand.

Punishment is not Prevention

The league is currently struggling with some serious changes to the way the game is played. It has become necessary to make new rules and identify new suspension criteria where before it was not necessary. In years past, the players did a fairly good job of policing their own conduct, ensuring that nobody did anything egregiously harmful to each other as a whole.

Certainly stupid, non-hockey-related violations did occur, but when they did, the matter would be addressed by players on the other team (in a line brawl) as well as by players on the same team (behind closed doors).

The Broad Street Bullies discuss the Hockey Code with the Vancouver Canucks

It may seem ironic to suggest that players beating on each other is actually an important part of maintaining a healthy respect among players, that fighting in hockey actually keeps players safe, but one has to understand the climate.

To function at the elite level of hockey, teams must be at war with each other, players must compete at the very limit of their capacity for violence. But that violence must be controlled, contained within the bounds of the sport. On the ice, there must be a code of conduct which prevents players from doing seriously unacceptable acts. The threat of being beaten up by the other team isn’t what prevents these acts.

Instead, it is the core value system instilled in a player throughout their hockey lives, the ethos that certain acts are so wholly unacceptable, they require immediate violent reaction. It is this code of immediate, visceral outrage which actually prevents players from acting out themselves. They understand at the cellular level what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable in hockey and what is not. They learn this in the trenches with their comrades. It becomes internalized. It keeps the unacceptable barbarity out of the war.

At least it used to.

Now however, we’re seeing a sharp rise in the number of seriously injurious actions that players are visiting upon each other across the board. Hockey has always been a tough game, but there used to be a code. The folksy days of hockey players looking out for one another, sometimes with tough love, are long gone.

What Happened to the Hockey Code?

What Lucic did violated a very important hockey-player code of conduct, an unwritten rule which carries far more weight among players than the one which is written in the rule book. The goalies are protected, they always have been, everybody knows that. But Lucic decided to play otherwise.

For me, much more worrying than Lucic’s indiscretion was the absolutely shameful response from the Buffalo Sabres. They did nothing. They did nothing immediately afterward, and they did nothing in the 45 minutes of play following the incident. Tim Thomas said that he was expecting to get hit in reprisal, but surprisingly never did. That’s usually all but automatic. As a goalie I understand this all too well; the one thing I ask of my teams is to not run the other goalie, knowing that I will be the target of retribution.

Lucic broke an important part of the hockey players’ code, but the breach in that code that the Buffalo Sabres made was even more serious. Standing up for one’s team, and especially one’s goalie is a big part of the bedrock foundation of that code. But that solidarity was nowhere to be found among the Sabres players on the ice or on the bench. That they did absolutely nothing after seeing Lucic barrel over their goalie demonstrates a very worrying state of affairs among today’s hockey players.

I’m hopeful that this code isn’t completely dead. I have faith that there are enough veterans and true hockey players in the League that there can be a renaissance in the respect shown for one another. No rule changes, no suspensions will ever make that happen, it can only come about if players league-wide hold each other accountable to that code. You can bet that Tim Thomas didn’t like what Lucic did. I just hope he talks to him about it.    

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My collective psyche has been thinking a lot about you today.

Science Geek Craig loves how you torture me by pretending to fall asleep when I tell you about the latest amazing developments in cosmology or quantum physics. And together with Woo-Woo Hippy Craig, they both wonder if finding you was some kind of atemporal karmic reward for being the better person that I have become since I’ve known you.

Playful Craig loves how much fun you are to be with, while Sports Craig is somewhat sheepish, but infinitely grateful for the seemingly endless patience you have for letting me go off and chase plastic or swat rubber out of the air.

Teddy Bear Craig loves when you fall asleep with your head on my chest, while Fozzie Bear Craig loves when you laugh at my jokes, but delights ever more when you groan at them, giving me the opportunity to flog them.

Chef Craig loves your complete silence when you really enjoy something I’ve cooked you, and Foodie Craig loves your newfound passion for baking, broiling, and braising.

Romantic Craig loves to dance with you in front of fountains, in parks, and in our living room, while <redacted> Craig loves to <...redacted...> and of course <...redacted...> all while <...redacted...>, it being legal now, because we’re married.

Empathic Craig loves to support you while you de-stress about work or life, while Emphatic Craig loves that you support me –”You tell them, honey.”– while I whargarble about hockey commentators or the makers of the cable box or other trivial matters.

Catboy Craig loves that you love our fur-babies as much as I do, that you surprise and delight Arizona by unexpectedly chasing her, and that you can bring pure, unadulterated joy into Jones’ life just by dancing with him when you get home, or by using him as a cat-bazooka as you storm the living room.

Moviephile Craig loves that we have such similar taste in movies, both good and bad, still feeling awed and proud and lucky that Goonies played a none-too-small part in our meeting each other, not to mention being secretly jealous that you had rediscovered Predator before I had.

Photog Craig loves that you have unlimited patience for me when I stop to take a picture of something random, feels especially lucky at what a willing and absolutely gorgeous model you are, whether all dolled up or just out of bed, and looks forward to the many, many more adventure shots of our feet in exciting and memorable locales that are yet to be taken.

Narrator Craig loves to hear you fall asleep while I read stories to you by the light of Code Red, delights when you drift near the surface ten minutes after I’ve stopped reading to let me know that you think you missed that last part, and absolutely adores that, for some strange reason, you feel a little guilty for falling asleep during a bedtime story.

Eight Year Old Craig loves that he’s found the best friend he never had growing up, while Eighty Year Old Craig looks forward to the next several decades of growing old together, but never growing up.

Unanimously, we all agree that every day since we’ve met has been better than the last. So every day with you is literally the best day of my life.

With all my heart and soul, I love you more than watermelon.
Craig
    

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News of a potentially huge breakthrough in physics, that the Cosmic Speed Limit may have been violated, has taken the world by storm this past week. As a fan of science in general and physics especially, I am excited not only by the observations reported, but also by the fact that physics, of all things, is capturing the interest of the general population.

While we occasionally hear news reports on cosmology, updates on the age of the universe or beautiful glimpses at the jeweled treasures of our galaxy, and while the happenings at the LHC sometimes percolate up into the level of the general news, it is infrequent that these reports truly grab the attention and spark discussion among the wide population.

Yet the recent news that something has perhaps violated the ‘law’ that nothing can travel faster than light –a physical principle right up there with E=mc², one which every child has known since they sat upon their mother’s knee– has been lighting up internet forums, social networking news-feeds, and office lunchrooms.

With this article, I’ll try to shed some light (har!) on the recent developments, and hope to share a bit of my enthusiasm (and skepticism) of the news.

What happened?

The news has come that a group of scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, have recorded observations where sub-atomic particles have been measured to travel faster than the speed of light. They fired neutrinos from Switzerland at a detector in Italy and clocked a time for the ~730km trip which was 60 nanoseconds (0.00000006 seconds) faster than light could have travelled that same distance in a vacuum (that will be important later).

Scientists say they have fired neutrinos below-ground, faster than the speed of light from a laboratory in Geneva, to a laboratory 545 miles away in Italy.

[Associated Press]

As expected, an observation such as this has been met with considerable skepticism. Indeed the group of scientists at CERN (not the same CERN team that is doing physics at the Large Hadron Collider) have spent the past two months reexamining their experiment, trying to find a flaw in it which would explain the results without violating c (the speed of light in a vacuum). So far they haven’t been successful, but they’re still not willing to go so far as to say these neutrinos have travelled faster than c. Instead they are asking for help from the physics community, asking for their colleagues around the world to try to replicate the experiment, and perhaps find any flaws in the experiment which would preserve c as the cosmic speed limit.

It’s important to realize the razor thin margin at which light speed was supposedly broken. The results point to a speed which caused the neutrinos to arrive 60 nanoseconds faster than expected, with a margin of error of 10 nanoseconds. The speed measured was just 0.002% faster than the exact value expected by all of modern physics. There are an extraordinary number of mundane explanations that could introduce such a tiny, tiny variance. For example, an error of only 18m in the calculation of the roughly 730km distance between the emitter and the detector would be sufficient to account for the faster than light claims.

Even if the distance between those two locations is known down to within 18m, there are a whole host of variables that come into play, each of which can affect the measured result. Not the least among these is the fact that neutrinos are a very tricky species. It is unfathomably hard to detect a neutrino. A neutrino will happily zoom through a light-year of lead with only a 50% chance of interacting, or ‘hitting’ anything. Experiments which deal with them have to make their measurements, not on individual particles as can be done with light, accelerated electrons/protons, etc, but rather they have to fire billions and billions of neutrinos at a detector before they can even hope to have one hit and be noticed. Some pretty hairy statistical analysis is then used to extrapolate what happened.

How is “c” different from “the speed of light”?

Depending on how often you peruse the science section of your news-aggregator of choice, you may somewhat frequently hear of events, particles, phenomena, etc that travel faster than the speed of light in a given medium (air, water, fibre-optic glass, etc). This could certainly cause confusion as to why this week’s news is any different. The confusion is caused by a bit of ambiguity in the language used in the reporting these various events.

The constant “c” is “the speed of light in a vacuum”. This is not the same as ‘the speed of light’ or ‘the speed that light travels’, because we know that light is often slowed from c by its medium.

The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 1.079 billion km/h

Physics knows of and expects that light waves/photons can be slowed by the medium through which they travel. When light travels through air or water or glass, it is slowed from it’s ‘normal’ speed, c, by that material. We understand this physics very well, as it is necessary to explain how something as simple as a prism works (light of different energy/colours is slowed at different rates, resulting in a separation).

Some things can even move faster than light waves can move through a given medium, because they aren’t affected by that medium in the same way that light itself is. This physics is also very well understood, but even in these cases where things are traveling faster than light, nothing is travelling faster than c.

What’s so special about “c”?

What’s interesting about c is that it is a calculated constant which comes out of the math in Maxwell’s equations on electromagnetism. Indeed, it was the fact that the value for c is not dependent on physical measurements, that its value comes out of the equations themselves, that gave Einstein his lightbulb moment (har!), leading him to his theories of Special and General Relativity.

Einstein’s revelation was that, since the math dictates c, and since no matter where you are or how you’re moving, math will work the same way, then therefore light will always travel at c (when not slowed by a medium). Einstein’s brilliance was in how he interpreted the consequences of that basic principle.

Traveling faster than c simply breaks the math of Maxwell’s equations and the math upon which most of the past century’s physics has been built. Numerous predictions of physical reality have come solely out of the math contained in those equations. Some of these predictions, like those of relativity, at times can make the universe look like a funhouse mirror. Yet over and over, these mathematical predictions have been verified to occur in our physical reality via an incredible number of laboratory experiments, astronomical observations, and technological advances.

Why so skeptical?

Much of modern physics simply wouldn’t work if Maxwell’s equations and those derived from them weren’t able to stand up to the extremely rigorous poking, prodding, testing, and attempts to break them that have occurred over the past century as part of the progress we’ve made in just about every area of physics. Yet the idea that these neutrinos have travelled faster than c would mean that Maxwell’s equations are incorrect in a deeply fundamental way.

While we’re certain that we have a lot more to learn about physics on the grandest and smallest scales, it is difficult to believe how this bedrock of modern physics could be so marvelously predictive and accurate in describing the universe around us, while at the same time being completely wrong about c as the cosmic speed limit.

Faced with the results of one experiment, an experiment in which the particles were measured to travel so very, very close to exactly the figure of c we expect, even one in which the scientists have been so careful, skepticism is the natural reaction to those who think rationally and scientifically.

That said, it would be absolutely wonderful if this were true. Superluminal speeds would lead the way to a new area, perhaps even a new era, of physics and technology. It would hallmark the arrival of a vast amount of fundamentally new knowledge of how the universe works.

I’d be willing to bet a large amount that this result turns out to have a mundane explanation. Though, I would dearly love to lose that bet.    

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