THE SCIENCE OF DARK SERIES

DARK  the series that everyone is talking about, the series that everyone is recommending to each other, the series which is being called arguably the greatest science fiction series ever produced. Dark is the Netflix original first ever German science fiction drama. The plot of the series revolves around the town named Winden mysterious events are occurring (occasional flicking of light accompanied by birds falling dead in mass quantity) including mysterious disappearance of kids [*stranger things vibe*]. Characters of the story come from 4 major families in Winden but the most important element of the story is TIME TRAVEL which makes this series unique and intriguing. Yes, this is not the first time that time travel has been used; infact time travel has been a major plot for movies like the classic "Back to the Future" series to most recently "Avengers Endgame". So why is dark different and special, the thing is dark has perceived and depicted time travel in a way that has been never done before, it forces you to see the concept of time from a whole different angle where the past, the present, and the future are interconnected and can influence each other.

                                      

As the story unfolds it throws more puzzles towards you which are unguessable and yet it only binds and hooks you more to the story. But this is not the only thing that makes dark mind-bending; besides its excellent cinematography and sound effects, its superb use of actual scientific concepts & paradoxes mixed with deep philosophical thoughts that create a bizarre aura around it. So lets dive a little deep into its science; firstly the type of time travel that dark deals with is called temporal/causal loop where the future can also influence the past and with this type of travel comes the paradoxes, the most popular one used extensively in the series is the Bootstrap paradox.

Bootstrap paradox (or ontological) is a paradox of time travel that occurs when a future event is the cause of a past event which in turns is the cause of the future event both events exist in space-time, but their origin cannot be determined [confusing?😅].In layman terms an object or information is sent back to the past from the future this creates an infinite cause-effect loop in which object doesn’t have a origin anymore, it exists without being created,an example will clear things up;

Suppose a time traveler read and understood theory of relativity by Einstein’s book and then went back in time to young Einstein and taught him the theory and gave him the book before returning to his timeline. Einstein then claims that it is his own work, publishes the book, over the following decades the theory is published countless times until a copy of it eventually ends up in the hands of the original time traveler who then goes back to Einstein and cycle continues, here the information[theory] and book are in endless loop, but the question arises where did the theory originate we cannot say it came from time traveler as he himself learned it from Einstein but we also cannot say it came from Einstein as he was taught by traveler, so who discovered the theory?  

(This all may seem weird but Einstein himself said distinction between the past present & the future is stubbornly persistent illusion)                                                                                                     

Next up is Predestination paradox; In this one a person traveling back in time becomes the part of the events & even may have caused the initial events that inspired that person to travel back in the time in the first place, the history is unaltered and attempts to change past events merely result in fulfillment of that event thus asserting that “there is no free will”.                                                                   

Consider a example ;                                                                                                                  

 you are sent back in the time to prevent the destruction of world’s greatest library caused by fire, you try to figure out the problem but the event happens in such a way that you accidentally start the fire in the first place that ultimately destroys the library, so you were the once who caused the event in first place which in future has forced you to travel back thus nothing ultimately changes [more examples]

One more (*last one*) scientific concept that has been extensively used in dark is Quantum entanglement [knot] this not a theoretical concept (like previous ones) rather an observed phenomenon; In quantum entanglement pair of particles are entangled with each other, these entangled particles so tied together that actions(measurement) performed on one particles somehow affects the other particle too,even if they are on the opposite sides of the universe. Their quantum state is linked to each other. Einstein famously called it “spooky action at a distance”. Dark uses this phenomenon though in a slightly different form.

Other concepts showed in dark are; The Schrodinger’s cat [link], parallel worlds[link],loopholes etc.    

Dark somehow manages to use these awesome concepts and paradoxes to create a complicated yet a brilliant story-line which always makes you anxious for answers and leave you in awe in  every episode.In my opinion such series should be more appreciated and produced as they teach and depict science using awesome storytelling to the general public and specially youth.  

  

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-MOHIT PAL