The Science of Stephen King

Eating less meat is another proven way to create less demand for livestock, thus lessening carbon emissions. According to a study published in 2017 in the journal Environmental Research Letters, red meat can have up to a hundred times the environmental impact of plant-based food. According to some estimates, beef gives off more than six pounds of carbon dioxide per serving; the amount created per serving by rice, legumes, carrots, apples, or potatoes is less than half a pound.5 While you are tweaking your diet, take a look at the appliances in your kitchen. If you have the means, purchase Energy Star products, and replace old “energy hogs.” This would also be a good time to organize your fridge and pantry in order to reduce how much food you waste. The average American throws away 40 percent of the food they purchase. And while you’re still in your kitchen, consider giving up disposable plates, napkins, and silverware!

In 2015, Bramble Cay melomys, rodents living in Australia, were the first animal known to be extinct due to human-caused global warming.

These may seem like a lot of changes, but each small step, along with sweeping changes by the government and environmental scientists, can keep our planet healthy for future generations.

At the end of Under the Dome, Julia Shumway must find a way to convince the “leatherheads” to let the remaining citizens of Chester’s Mills live. She, finally, is able to convince one of the aliens that Julia and her fellow humans are beings with lives. That they matter, and deserve to live. This heart-to-heart works, and the dome is removed, allowing those trapped to breathe fresh air. One wonders if Earth, and its many creatures on the brink of extinction, could appeal to humans in the same way, if we would take our part in global warming more seriously?

SECTION FIVE

The 2010s

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

11/22/63

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas. The details of that day and the conspiracy theories surrounding it have fascinated people for decades. One of them is Stephen King. He was in high school at the time and recalled, “we got in the car and the radio was on … and the guy came on and said, ‘the President is dead’ and there was just total silence.”1 Ask anyone who was alive in 1963 where they were during the Kennedy assassination and they will probably be able to tell you.

Four sitting presidents in the United States have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963).

King got the idea for the book and said:

I’d like to tell a time-travel story where this guy finds a diner that connects to 1958 … you always go back to the same day. So, one day he goes back and just stays. Leaves his 2007 life behind. His goal? To get up to November 22, 1963, and stop Lee Harvey Oswald. He does, and he’s convinced he’s just fixed the world. But when he goes back to ’07, the world’s a nuclear slag-heap. Not good to fool with Father Time. So, then he has to go back again and stop himself … only he’s taken on a fatal dose of radiation, so it’s a race against time.2

In the novel 11/22/63, Jake Epping does indeed use a portal to travel back in time and try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. What is the science of time travel? To understand more about this complicated topic, we interviewed Dr. James Hedberg, a physicist and director of the City College of New York Planetarium.

Kelly:“Time travel is featured in Stephen King’s novel11/22/63. Now, while not all scientists believe time travel is possible, could you start by explaining Einstein’s theory of time as a ‘fourth dimension’? And what about his theory of relativity?”

James Hedberg: “Time as a fourth dimension is an idea that predated Einstein by many centuries, but, yes, is generally associated with his theory of relativity. Prior to his (and other contemporaries’) work, time would have been considered a dimension that was independent of the other three spatial dimensions. The postulates of relativity however require that time and space no longer be independent dimensions but instead are joined, mathematically speaking, into one four-dimensional object known as spacetime. Phenomena such as time dilation and length contraction are a result of this joining.”