Day 11: Quantumfisix—J.M.S.

First of all, how does my little brother know these big words? Second of all, I love him, he’s adorable, and I’m going to petition the International Science Society to change the spelling because Micah’s way is better! He is going to be a very smart man when he grows up if his 10 year-old self is any indication of what he could become.

I have said it before, and I don’t mind saying again: There’s a reason I’m not in the Math Department. Or the Science Department for that matter. God knew just what He was doing when He put me in the English Department. That being said, I don’t mind one little bit sharing what I know about quantumfisix.

Being a child of the 80’s there are a few trendy things that have stuck with me over the years. 80’s and 90’s television is a case in point. I could spend a whole day talking about MacGyver. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and He-Man ranked pretty high up there too. Then there’s Bonanza, Wild Wild West, Star Trek (the original, Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine), The Incredible Hulk, Knight Rider, Remington Steele, and Father Dowling to name a few.

Then there was Quantum Leap. I was fascinated by the notion that someone could jump back and forth across time. The plot was that a quantum physicist named Dr. Sam Beckett was hard pressed to come up with tangible results for the project he was working on or the government would cut his funding, so he rashly stepped into the machine he was developing, called the Quantum Leap, before all the bugs were worked out. He vanished. And reappeared as someone else from an earlier time. Dr. Beckett performed a quantum leap at the end of each episode for five seasons, each time prefaced by his characteristic “Oh boy”, each time trying to right a wrong or fix a problem to make the world a better place, each time wishing his next leap would be the leap home. His side kick all along the way was a cigar smoking, straight talking observer from his quantum physics lab back home named Al who always appeared in holographic form and was Sam’s one link back to the time he came from. We’re left to wonder with the last episode of season 5 as to whether or not Sam ever made it back home or if he kept leaping, righting wrongs, and performing acts of kindness for the rest of his life. As a kid, I hoped he kept leaping just because of the utter fun and adventure of the concept. As an adult, I hope he made it home at some point, if only for a little while.