“The next to last track on the album [Fordlândia] is named after an actual research paper, ‘Guidelines for a Space Propulsion Device based on Heim’s Quantum Theory’, which seriously proposes a method of faster-than-light space travel. Burkhard Heim was a German physicist who dedicated much of his life to developing a method of space travel. He worked as an explosives expert during WWII and he was seriously handicapped in an explosion, leaving him without hands and mostly deaf and blind. He became a recluse and, despite his serious disability, worked tirelessly for the rest of his life searching for a unified theory of everything, which he thought possible by linking general relativity with quantum theory. His philosophy and ideas have a strong mystical character. His work, despite its considerable eccentricity, is slowly gaining acceptance in the physics community. The string orchestra was recorded in Prague and the percussion in Reykjavik and Tokyo. The percussion track is performed live by Matthias Hemstock with some editing and overdubs.”
— From Jóhann Jóhannsson, “A Track-by-Track Commentary on Fordlândia“
(See “The Tragic Tale of the Rocket Maker” for an account — likewise accompanied by music from Jóhannsson — of yet another mystically inclined scientist who is linked to the history of rocketry and space travel, and who also suffered, and in this case died, from an explosion.)