| The
"Tachyonic Antitelephone" is a Dadaist sculpture, built by Gary
Nickard, UB assistant professor of visual arts and media study. Nickard
says the sculpture pays homage to a thought experiment devised by
astrophysicist and author, Gregory Benford, who described an "antitelephone" which
uses theoretical subatomic particles with no mass, tachyons, that can
travel faster than the speed of light and, by definition, travel
backwards in time.
Nickard explains, "If you made a call on this
phone, Benford said, your message would travel backward so fast as to
precede the call itself, thus violating causality and proving the
principle of special relativity false. Your message would only 'get
through' so to speak, if you didn't make the call, an an apparent
incongruity that recalls the 'logic' of Dadaist artists, whose art
touted conversely by discordant and unseemly."
To take part in a self-guided tour, dial 1-888-744-0529, then 10.
For more information on Dadaism, click here.
| 
Click on the photo for a slideshow |
|
