Sunfall - Jim Al-Khalili #Review

This is probably JAK's first fictitious novel brought out in a story-telling style. Nearly ten chapters from the beginning would let one grope for the matter the author is trying to convey. However, this would also cover some scary facts about the Earth's magnetic field flip and the ignorant powerful politicians unable to understand the seriousness. (Could not help but remember the HBO's narration of the Russian leader's satire over Chernobyl and presently the underscored warning by the Chinese leaders over Covid-19)

The Earth’s magnetic field flickers and fades, with deadly radiation and particles in the solar wind reaching the Earth’s surface, and life on Earth is endangered as the flip of the POLES is on the anvil. Jim suggests that the North would become South as it happens every few times a million years and the last time it flipped was some 40,000 years back. But the irony is that it might take about 10 years to get the flip complete, during which time we would be exposed to some dangerous change in the life-style on the Earth (Read climate catastrophe and all equipment dependent on GPS).

Given our thin understanding of how the planet’s protective field is generated and maintained, and why it regularly flips its polarity over geological time, the scenario is plausible. Jim’s intimate acquaintance with the scientific community now kicks in to create a series of realistic vignettes of young scientists reacting to the challenge and struggling to come up with an effective response.

In the early chapters, sometimes the physics and technology get too mundane but Shireen’s escape from Tehran with old- school deception of the agents was enjoyable. The slow pace of the initial chapters shifts gear after the devastation in Rio; the motor bike escape of Sarah was enthralling; the crash landing of Indian Airlines etc. His experience with various science bodies (one such is LIFE SCIENTIFIC) is sufficient to prove right his apprehension about the world body giving dumb-response to the dangers lying ahead.

When scientists are ignored and the politicians or beureaucrats play spoil-sport, the blame-game takes a surrealistic turn.

The character Marc Bruckner mentioned with colour blindness defect might be a reference to John Dalton, the atom discoverer who himself was colour blind but managed to write a scientific paper on colour blindness- a.k.a Daltonism. The author describes Marc Bruckner’s theoretical work to create the ODIN project (fictional though) artistic in a beautiful paragraph. Theoretical physics is highly esoteric and the popularity of this work is well preserved and projected in this book. Peter Higgs managed to predict Higgs particle almost 50 years ahead using mathematics alone.

The use of quantum entanglement (QE) to interact with the locked-down AI at the Mag8 in Jordan, from Washington DC requires one to understand the weirdness of quantum entanglement. QE basically equals magic in our daily ‘classical’ world. In Quantum Mechanics, one object can actually be in two or more places at the same time, spin in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions at the same time, walk through solid walls as though invisible, communicate instantaneously with its paired object even separated by galactic distances faster than the speed of light etc. The latter is called quantum entanglement and has been actually proven.

The author has paid tribute to a lot of people, from his sister to some wonderful scientists that he has interviewed in his popular radio show, The Life scientific.  Jim is of Iraqi-Persian ancestry and in his own Life Scientific interview, has spoken about how he never went back to his land of birth and early childhood. Jim has also spoken about the legacy of Arabic science which once had dominated the world; science was never a sole occidental construct but legacy of many civilizations over history of mankind.