This week I watched an old flick called The Quiet Earth, a movie made in New Zealand in the 1980's. Often cited as a brilliant sci-fi film I have been intrigued by it for years and took the plunge when I saw it was on You Tube.
The story is essentially a variation of The Omega Man about the last person on Earth. The catastrophe at the start of The Quiet Earth is an accidental apocalypse brought on by an experiment called Project Flashlight.
The last man on Earth is played exceptionally well by the leading man and his descent into near-madness is fabulously well acted. The introduction of two more survivors is fascinating but it is the final scene shown below which really delivers with its towering clouds flanking an emerging Saturn rising over the horizon.
This enigmatic vision made me think about that man's final day. I imagine that this last day and the end of all nature has captured peoples' imaginations for millennia. An example which I personally find very poignant is this painting by Stephen Lack called Boys in the Last Tree shown below [Stephen Lack was the actor who played Cameron Vale in the sci-fi film Scanners].
The end of days also makes me consider mathematical ideas like probability and the concept of certainty. What happens to them when the laws of physics break down during extinction level events like entering a black hole or the death of the universe? OK, there won't be any scientists left to measure anything but will probability and certainty continue as long as time does in some form?
I ask this as a kid was recently faced with the probability of the sun rising each day. Clearly its a dead cert and I would have thought a yardstick of certainty at that. It got me thinking though about the last day on Earth when it will cease to be a certainty anymore.
Have you any thoughts on this matter readers or is it a certainty that you've logged off?
