Letters to the editor for Friday, Feb. 26, 2016

‘As Time Goes By’

Regarding Ron Knecht’s commentary on the movie “Casablanca,” it is certainly on my shortlist of the best movies ever made. I can add another interesting aspect of the movie, which is the song “As Time Goes By.”

The song was written in 1931, not too long after Einstein’s relativity theories were published and during the time when quantum mechanics was initially being developed. This was a period when the foundations of what people knew and believed about their physical existence were for the first time being challenged in a big way. The verses leading up to the chorus address these anxieties and explain the chorus:

This day and age we’re living in

Gives cause for apprehension

With speed and new invention

And things like fourth dimension

Yet we get a trifle weary

With Mr. Einstein’s theory

So we must get down to earth at times

Relax relieve the tension

And no matter what the progress

Or what may yet to be proved

The simple facts of life are such

They cannot be removed.

By the time of the movie only the chorus was being sung and it was generally thought it was all there was to the song. This movie and song even made it into theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lisa Randall’s book “Warped Passages.” Perhaps at the end of the movie Ingrid Bergman flew off into the fourth dimension.

Randy Grossmann

Carson City