One of my fave books into a TV show...
Plot summary
The protagonist is Lloyd Simcoe, a 47 year old Canadian particle physicist. He works with his fiancée Michiko, who has a daughter, Tamiko. Another researcher and friend is Theo Procopides.
The fallout from the flash forward occupies much of the first part of the book. The consequences include the death of Michiko's daughter as an out-of-control vehicle plows into her school. Oddly, no recording devices anywhere in the world functioned in the present during the event. Security camera tapes show noise and even recording devices in television studios show nothing until the event is over. This is interpreted as proof of the observer effect in quantum theory. With the awareness of the entire human race absent, "reality" went into a state of indeterminacy. When the awareness returned, reality collapsed into its most likely configuration, which was one in which moving objects had careened out of control in the direction they were already headed.
The deaths of several characters are forecast by the "flash forward". Anyone who did not experience it is assumed to be dead in the future. This includes Theo Procopides. Some people report reading about his murder in the future. However as time goes by it seems that the events of the future are not predestined. Some people, depressed by their visions of their own dismal futures, commit suicide, thereby changing those futures. The story begins to take on the features of a murder mystery, as Theo attempts to prevent his own murder. His brother Dimitrios, who aspired to be a writer but saw himself just working in a restaurant in the future, is one of the suicides.
At CERN, the scientists plan a repeat of the run, but this time warning the world of the exact time, so that preparations can be made. However, there is no "flash forward", but the LHC does find the Higgs boson.
One of the consequences of the event is that Simcoe is put on a list by a billionaire who is researching practical immortality.
Soon after this discovery, the riddle of the "flash forward" is solved. At the same time as the LHC was running, a pulse of neutrinos arrived from the remnant of supernova 1987A. The remnant is not a neutron star, but a quark star, a superdense body of strange matter. Starquakes cause it to emit a neutrino pulse at unpredictable intervals. As the date at the other end of the "flash forward" approaches, a satellite is launched into an orbit close to that of Pluto, from where it can give several days warning of another neutrino pulse arriving. The neutrinos travel slower than light, since they have mass, and thus a radio message (though the book uses the notion of "faster-than-light communication" involving tachyons) from the satellite will arrive at Earth before the neutrinos do. The intent is to run the LHC again and create another "flash forward".
Theo Procopides, meanwhile, discovers a fanatic attempting to sabotage the experiment blaming the LHC staff for his wife's death in the first flash forward. In a chase sequence through the tunnels containing the LHC equipment, he is able to stop this, preventing his own murder in the process.
It turns out that the neutrino pulse arrives on the exact day which everyone experienced during the original event. The world stops and rests at the appointed time, but this time nobody experiences anything, except for a few. Simcoe experiences a vision of himself moving through time for billions of years (suggesting that the next neutrino burst would be billions of years in the future and last for one hour), his consciousness existing in different artificial bodies, presumably supplied by the immortality researchers. He is aware of the billionaire being with him in some of these situations.
When the event is over, there is general puzzlement over why nothing happened. Simcoe comes to realize that the effect connects two periods of quantum disturbance occurring within the lifetimes of the individuals involved. Since there will be no more events in the lifetimes of any living people, nobody experience a "flash forward", except for those, like himself, who are secretly associated with the immortality project. However, when he is offered the treatment after his vision, he decides to change the future yet again and refuses it. It is implied that Theo will be offered the treatment as well. The novel ends with Theo contacting Michiko in the hopes of living out the rest of his life with her.
Now, compare that to this:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/96286/flashforward-a-first-look-at-flashforward#s-p1-st-i0
Plot summary
The protagonist is Lloyd Simcoe, a 47 year old Canadian particle physicist. He works with his fiancée Michiko, who has a daughter, Tamiko. Another researcher and friend is Theo Procopides.
The fallout from the flash forward occupies much of the first part of the book. The consequences include the death of Michiko's daughter as an out-of-control vehicle plows into her school. Oddly, no recording devices anywhere in the world functioned in the present during the event. Security camera tapes show noise and even recording devices in television studios show nothing until the event is over. This is interpreted as proof of the observer effect in quantum theory. With the awareness of the entire human race absent, "reality" went into a state of indeterminacy. When the awareness returned, reality collapsed into its most likely configuration, which was one in which moving objects had careened out of control in the direction they were already headed.
The deaths of several characters are forecast by the "flash forward". Anyone who did not experience it is assumed to be dead in the future. This includes Theo Procopides. Some people report reading about his murder in the future. However as time goes by it seems that the events of the future are not predestined. Some people, depressed by their visions of their own dismal futures, commit suicide, thereby changing those futures. The story begins to take on the features of a murder mystery, as Theo attempts to prevent his own murder. His brother Dimitrios, who aspired to be a writer but saw himself just working in a restaurant in the future, is one of the suicides.
At CERN, the scientists plan a repeat of the run, but this time warning the world of the exact time, so that preparations can be made. However, there is no "flash forward", but the LHC does find the Higgs boson.
One of the consequences of the event is that Simcoe is put on a list by a billionaire who is researching practical immortality.
Soon after this discovery, the riddle of the "flash forward" is solved. At the same time as the LHC was running, a pulse of neutrinos arrived from the remnant of supernova 1987A. The remnant is not a neutron star, but a quark star, a superdense body of strange matter. Starquakes cause it to emit a neutrino pulse at unpredictable intervals. As the date at the other end of the "flash forward" approaches, a satellite is launched into an orbit close to that of Pluto, from where it can give several days warning of another neutrino pulse arriving. The neutrinos travel slower than light, since they have mass, and thus a radio message (though the book uses the notion of "faster-than-light communication" involving tachyons) from the satellite will arrive at Earth before the neutrinos do. The intent is to run the LHC again and create another "flash forward".
Theo Procopides, meanwhile, discovers a fanatic attempting to sabotage the experiment blaming the LHC staff for his wife's death in the first flash forward. In a chase sequence through the tunnels containing the LHC equipment, he is able to stop this, preventing his own murder in the process.
It turns out that the neutrino pulse arrives on the exact day which everyone experienced during the original event. The world stops and rests at the appointed time, but this time nobody experiences anything, except for a few. Simcoe experiences a vision of himself moving through time for billions of years (suggesting that the next neutrino burst would be billions of years in the future and last for one hour), his consciousness existing in different artificial bodies, presumably supplied by the immortality researchers. He is aware of the billionaire being with him in some of these situations.
When the event is over, there is general puzzlement over why nothing happened. Simcoe comes to realize that the effect connects two periods of quantum disturbance occurring within the lifetimes of the individuals involved. Since there will be no more events in the lifetimes of any living people, nobody experience a "flash forward", except for those, like himself, who are secretly associated with the immortality project. However, when he is offered the treatment after his vision, he decides to change the future yet again and refuses it. It is implied that Theo will be offered the treatment as well. The novel ends with Theo contacting Michiko in the hopes of living out the rest of his life with her.
______________________________________________
Now, compare that to this:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/96286/flashforward-a-first-look-at-flashforward#s-p1-st-i0
