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Physics

Speculative novel layers Groundhog Day with existential dreaminess

Solvej Balle's newly translated speculative novel, On the Calculation of Volume (parts I and II), examines the numbing effects of time through the old trope of being stuck in a single day. It is an effective meditation

By Gerardo Bandera

10 April 2025

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Solvej Balle’s protagonist lives the same day on repeat

VICTOR HABBICK VISIONS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy

On the Calculation of Volume (parts I and II) 

Solvej Balle, translated (from Danish) by Barbara J. Haveland

Faber & Faber (UK); New Directions (US)

On his 70th birthday, Albert Einstein received a manuscript from his friend, the logician Kurt Gödel, that mathematically demonstrated something he had conjectured, but never proven: according to his general theory of relativity it was possible for space-time to bend and close in on itself, creating a loop to the past.

It was an extraordinary development, but one that troubled many…

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