“Which of Those Two is Now?” Famed Physicist Asks Twilight Zone-ish Question

You can’t just park your brain in neutral when you’re a Twilight Zone fan. Sure, some episodes are just a lark, but more often than not, your assumptions will be challenged and your horizons expanded — though always in an entertaining way. We wind up looking at our world differently.

Or even, considering the sci-fi trappings of many classic episodes, beyond our world.

“I Shot an Arrow into the Air”

I couldn’t help thinking of this aspect of the Zone when I first heard an Alan Parsons album called The Time Machine. It starts with the title track, then segues into a one-minute piece called “Temporalia.” Instead of singing, though, we get some narration from an Oxford professor named Frank Close, who is a famous particle physicist.

Against a backdrop of music that sounds like we’re drifting through space, Close says: