Physicists explain science of ‘Palm Springs’
How Black-owned bookstore in Phoenix got national spotlight
When Ali Nervis opened Grassrootz Books and Juice Bar in 2019 near Phoenix’s Eastlake Park neighborhood, he wasn’t expecting it to get national attention. But shortly after he created the store’s website, the orders came rushing in. The support stemmed from Black Lives Matter protests that took place worldwide after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in police custody in March. The protests birthed a movement to support Black-owned businesses in June. “We got 100 orders of the same book in two days,” Nervis said. “It was great to see the support, but it also was very nerve wracking.” Nervis said the store was mentioned in several posts shared on social media calling for the community to support Black-owned businesses. It was nerve wracking because Nervis didn’t have 100 copies of Robin DiAngelo’s book, “White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” and his distributor was sold out of it, too. “We literally just launched our online store. I mean, we hadn’t done any online sales yet, we were small,” Nervis said.
Most people would probably say there has been at least one day in their life that deserved a redo.
After finishing the new Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti romantic comedy “Palm Springs,” you may be wondering if there really is a way to get that second chance, or if your next trip into a cave after an earthquake will trap in you in some sort of never-ending time loop of your sister’s wedding like it did in the movie.
Never fear: The Arizona Republic talked with two experts, one particle physicist and one astrophysicist, who agree this isn’t something that could happen accidentally on Earth. This does not mean, though, that time loops are a physical impossibility out there in the universe.
Daniel Whiteson, a professor of particle physics at University of California Irvine, broke down the possible scientific explanations behind the time loop that forces characters Nyles (Samberg) and Sarah (Milioti) to relive the same day forever.
“It’s possible to have these closed time loops in general relativity,” Whiteson said, talking about Albert Einstein’s 1915 theory of general relativity that provides the bedrock of modern physics and our understanding of the universe.
General relativity describes how massive objects like planets and black holes warp both space and time, like a bowling ball on a trampoline. The warping of space and time, or as physicists
Instead of panicking, he sent an email to customers to apologize for the potential delay in receiving their packages. Not only were Nervis and his distributor selling out of books, but delivery also was slowed due to the new coronavirus pandemic.
“People emailed us back and said, ‘We want to support you.’ It was really heartening to see during this unprecedented time for the country as well as us as a business,” Nervis said.
“It wasn’t like an Amazon transaction, just buying a book. They were intentionally making a decision to invest in a Black-owned bookstore.”
Most orders have been delivered, though some titles like, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” are still on backorder.
Some of the most popular book orders from Grassrootz have been “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap” and “Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.”
Nervis is currently working to expand the store’s inventory. The bookstore is currently closed to the public but hosts a live story time event for children on Fridays on the bookstore’s Facebook page.
Once the store reopens, it will also have a juice bar and coffee shop inside. Nervis also plans to open the space up to the community as a worker owned collaborative workspace.
Until then, shoppers can browse and buy online.
“To see the books that people are getting, it shows they’re intentionally trying to unlearn and relearn the truth about our history and the truth about our society,” Nervis said.
“(As a bookstore) we find ourselves in the position to help educate our society and hopefully, we can bring sustainable change. It’s all based off of buying these books from our bookstore.”
Details: Grassrootz Books & Juice Bar, 1145 E. Washington St., Phoenix. grassrootzbookstore.com.