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Laid back; chilled out.

Monday, May 01, 2006

ABYSS

Hot damn, I’m losing it. I’m starting to read more and more. Not only that, but after the reading the thinking doesn’t stop when I sleep, or try to anyway. Sir Isaac Newton’s & Albert Einstein's intellectual fever, a much, much milder strain than theirs though, seems to have hit me. [Difference is, I might think about it but will not come up with anything!] It's gotten to be so bad I even haven’t gotten a haircut or shaved for the longest time – there isn’t any time for any of that! I need more time to read, and think! I seem to be especially partial to stuff about space & time. The idea that space is both unimaginably vast yet so infinitesimal is fascinating to me, as is the hypothesis that time isn't necessarilly consistent.

Say, for instance you were floating around in space taking in the sights, right by the Earth. Haley’s Comet whooshes past you at a distance – assuming it was that time of the century - and there’s all sorts of other debris flying around, thanks to NASA.


They leave parts of spacecraft floating around thinking they'd be harmless, but sooner or later the debris starts orbiting something and pretty soon starts moving at crazy-fast speeds. In one experiment, a fleck of paint went through a six inch thick slab of steel – that’s how fast it was moving – thousands of miles per second.

Anyhow, Haley whooshes by, faster than a missile but utterly silent. You pray that flecks of paint won’t rip through you. That bluish-looking planet over there is Earth. The moon is lazily working through its elliptical orbit around Mother Earth. The sun is over there, fiery as ever and huge, beaming the entire spectrum, infrared and UV rays everywhere. Assuming your vision has crazy zoom in real-time, you see the 9 planets in the solar system. But wait, there’s one more planet that’s even further away than Pluto, and it’s circling our sun too! Not only does it exist, but it has a ‘moon’ circling it! You remind yourself to throw away all those textbooks that erroneously stated that there were 9 planets in our solar system, and keep going.

As you move out of the solar system, you see plenty of other ‘suns’ all over the place. Considering that it took you a couple of hundred years to get out the solar system - if you were to live that long - at spacecraft speeds, you might need to bring along lots of food and drink, your wife/husband or girl/boyfriend, as well as plenty of toilet paper; the squeeze for recreation - oh, and for procreation in case you kick the bucket in mid-flight - and... you know what the toilet paper’s for.

On second thought, take a few other couples with you. You wouldn't want any incestuous relationships developing - unless you're from West Virginia. [ouch!]

After eenie-meenie-minie-moe-ing the potential destination, you'd just sit around, mess around and wait until, several generations later after you’re long gone, your children’s children's children get to the aforementioned destination. They then take pictures and video clips which they transmit back to Houston, the photos hitting Houston’s satellites some 400 earth years and a gazillion AUs later [Astronomical Units].

The clincher is though, that the journey, to you and yours, only took, say 250 years, but to the people on earth it might've been 400 years!

Which begs the questions: What is time anyway? Is time dependent on where in space you might be, on what celestial body you might be on or near? For instance, on the threshhold of an event horizon, does time stay suspended forever?

What I’m trying to convey here is the utter vastness of space and the apparent complexity of time, and just how small we are compared to everything else. Not only is it humbling when I think of it like that, but it makes me curious as hell about everything coz I realize I really don’t know anything.

Hence my latest obsession of reading about general relativity and nebulas and quantum physics and quantum foam and quantum tunneling and black holes – not those black holes – and event horizons and…. and all that scientific mumbo jumbo.

Hot damn, *sudden revelation* I AM a geek!

That does it; I need to stop thinking about this sh*t. I need a beer. And a shave.

48 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your one crazy mofo d. get that beer!!!

Anonymous said...

My purpose in life has been fulfilled......tryin to make u realize that u r a geek, and embracing it. It took some time, but ur there. Enjoy! U need something stronger than beer. lol. N i won't argue w/ the shave cuz even brad lost his hotness when he went caveman on us a few years back.

|d®| said...

>Anon: Ha ha, make that two!

>D: See, you always said so, about the geek thing, but now I know for sure. Just because I don't talk about it doesn't mean I don't think about it, right? [Take that anyway you will!]

I guess I'll go grab a "ka-Bud Light na Vodo," as v^6 would say.

& relax; best believe I shaved; I look myself again.

Anonymous said...

You? a geek? NOOO!! I and anyone else who knows you could have told you that d, anyway, i've been doing a lot of reading myself on the spiritual paranormal side of it, actually further from my religion, mostly Vampires and Witches and the devil and the like, nothing as mind boggling as you but very interesting stuff..i've been reading a lot of Anne Rice [author of interview w/the vampire] so need i say more??A1

Anonymous said...

Snap out of it!
proceeds to deliver a hot slap to d's face!
Well at least you are honest enuff to admit that you are a geek!LMAO!!!!!!

CiikuMrsBabes said...

Embrace it..... There is no use fighting!!!

I have been known to be dorky and look at me.... I have embraced it!!!

|d®| said...

>A1: That's wsup! The paranormal makes good reading, I must say. Hence my liking Dean Koontz.
Hmm, maybe we can one day sit and discuss the Big Bang theory! ;)

>Aco: LOL! 4 real tho, I just might need that slap! Keep practicing the swing!

>Buff: To thine own self be true, right? Sometimes tho, it might seem to other folks like purple haze has me up in the clouds flying with the birds!

Anonymous said...

Yup..u know that i'm all for it, we can discuss the whole Big Bang theory or whatever.. i'm open to all kinds of theories..& you can break it down for me, i must warn you, i am kinda slow so you'll need to go slow motion for me;)..A1

|d®| said...

>A1: Ha ha, too funny!

That's fine with me, we can go over it as fast or as slow as you wish. Matter of fact, I'll match my pace with yours!

And, if we still don't grasp it, we can discuss it again, as many times as you'd wish!

Anonymous said...

LMAO...yall just gave new meanin to "slow wind for me"...lol.
>d: to thine own self be true? touche...to he who doesnt speak of wat he is thinking...be true to urself n others...take that either way u wanna. Or is it one of those "thou shalt not speak of that which we do not speaK"...lol.

Lookin like urself again? N that would be..........the u I met back when or the u I saw a few weeks back? hmmm....

Enough distraction. Keep at it...n don't get too blazed. N don't party alone...that's not cool. (Readin b/w the lines: Holla when ur thinkin bout gettin the party started)

|d®| said...

LOL @ 'thou shalt not speak of that which we do not speak.'
Well, my tongue has been known to wiggle uncontrollably; how about that? :)

Trust you to notice my purple haze comment. Hmm, from experience, maybe?

Anonymous said...

Yo.....lmfao at ur tongue comment...n i'll leave that there...need i reference the gas price email???? lmao!

If not Me, who else would notice all ur lil quirks? Never forget that. lol. Tell Steve-O I said wats up.

Experience? Wat experience (briefly thinks of JMU n returns back to reality)

Anonymous said...

Speakin of ur geek-tendencies, the mere fact that u have Pinky n the Brain there speaks for itself....

|d®| said...

>D: You know imma tell Steve-O too. His girl will come over there riding shotgun, literally!

Notice how Pinky & The Brain always fail in their quest to take over the world?

Yeah, I'm back to looking like myself, the >d® you met a couple of weeks back, I mean. Looks like imma stay this way. Or did you like the old me better? :)

Anonymous said...

So should I infer that u consistently fail at the same task as well???? Hmmm...

Ur saying met as if I met u for the first time...tho it was a reunion...lol...the old u was fine for that time, but as time evolves, so do people. I'm sure i'm not the same person either....in a lot of ways I am, but in some, definitely different.

Anonymous said...

One weekend of watching Sci-fi channel and National Geographic channel and you get all NEBULA and super NOVA on us. not to mention 15 minutes of web surfing, event horizons and sh*t. My suggestion, stick to formula 1 or the kind of programs this is way off your league.... aspiring and dreaming is ok. A little of some knowledge is sometimes dangerous.... lol

|d®| said...

>D: Oh, you're DEFINITELY not the same person I met all those years back.I won't tell you now, on cyberspace, how you've changed. Imma tell you this tho, if you were good then, you're even better now.
This is for the benefit of anyone else reading this: I'm not sucking up to D trying to get her to let me in. Let's just say I've been forced to be the semblance of a sacrificial lamb - not to be sacrilegious - for D once or twice!

>Ura: True, the little knowledge I have of this stuff is maddening. It's almost as if the more you learn about it the more you don't know anything about it!
Oh, and it all started from a book I was reading a while back. I'm sure I'll get over this stuff after a while.

Anonymous said...

LOL @ W.Virginia.. that's cold man! That post was deep ma broda... It's funny what it takes to make you get some perspective on life. Me? Ocean city and looking at the buildings on the boardwalk and thinking they're permanent. Looking at the ocean and realizing no, that's permananent!

250 years though is kinda long regardless of how you slice it... Then what if jamaa bores you just after the kajunction of moon and uranus... you are so screwed... you might as well be in West Virginia *ka-dum-chu*

Girl next door said...

Geeks are cool!

|d®| said...

>Muts: I see you know about the notoriety of West Virginians!
And you're right. The ocean definitely makes one think about all that deep stuff - so beautiful yet so ominous, all at the same time.

>Next Door: I'm glad - no, ecstatic - that you think so! Hmmm, I wonder what the rest of the population thinks about that tho!

Anonymous said...

Some geeks r cool...some. lol. 10 points for suckin up by the way!!!

|d®| said...

Some geeks, huh? You got jokes, I'll give you that.

Me sucking up? I never suck up. I wouldn't describe it as suck anyway, and not in that direction! :)

Anonymous said...

lmfao!!! Way to take it out of context.....deny it all u want...

|d®| said...

To thine own self be true, remember?

Or should I say:
as a man [or woman] thinketh, so is he?

Anonymous said...

N for u, that's a LOT!!! or is it...i will agree with you on both counts tho...just be careful wat u preach...u might be going against what it is that you actually do...

|d®| said...

Ha ha! I give up!
Hot damn, I never can win in a battle of wits against you, can I?! You're just about the only one I know who beats me practically every time, & that's not EZ! That's why I f*cks with you!

Anonymous said...

lmao....No comment

|d®| said...

What, no spiffy comeback?! :)

Anonymous said...

i'm choosing not to dig the whole any deeper...i'm lookin out for you homes...

|d®| said...

The only holes I'm scared of are black holes. Not all of them tho.

Anonymous said...

pray tell...rather, don't...ur right tho bout one thing...u need to stop!!! (I predict an angry phonecall, n 3 hours of a tirade, that will follow with uh huhs, n an interruption of ur basketball game...brace urself)

|d®| said...

No such thing! The tirade comes after basketball, how about that?!

Anonymous said...

riiiiight...u forget i know u...the thought of a "silent period" kills u, so u wouldnt let it happen by not pickin up...semantics...it will be made during the fourth quarter, clincher time, just to spite u....(knock on wood, before it actually happens n the intended uses my rantings against u)

|d®| said...

You know I always handle mines D. Please believe it!

But I think a sidebar from now on would be a good idea. And no, I'm not chickening out or anything! Batter up! Catch you on E!

Anonymous said...

U all up on the alphabet...D, E...wats next? Batter up? (thinkin of Nelly's Batter up...feat. George Jefferson)lmao...oh i never said "chickenin out"...maybe ignore it n sayin wateva....lol

Anonymous said...

Tihihi - can I interrupt this exchange and make a comment - or do I need to give you guys room to get a room?

Very interesting post this - Welcome to the fold geek - and get a beer and a stool - LOL

I have always had this conversation with people who look at me funny - anything SPACE always gets my attention - and was laughing happily at your geekiness shining through like the stars.

I wonder how it would feel to be in space - all that light, or that space... I saw the mostest perfect sunrise when I was on the way to kenya at 6am 37000 feet two weeks ago. Man, that drove me wild (yes, I realise I hadnt really slept and the oxygen deprivation does stuff to your brain)

Question though: With that whole 250yr biz, you would definitely be dead by then and once you die en route, doesnt your carcass become another orbiting mass and then you get... LOL dude I seem to be more geekier than you.

Geekery rules I tell ya..
How are you though?

Guessaurus said...

I'll be back - thoughts derailed

|d®| said...

Ha ha! SG2, my interaction with D is, to say the least, extraordinary. Think of her as Kerry Washington and me as her favorite but totally undeserving groupie!

Moving right along - glad you share my enthusiasm for the abyss, if I may refer to it as such. Maybe we can one day, hopefully in this lifetime, encounter each other in our spacesuits and play tag!

Anonymous said...

Whoosh - that was me passing by on my way to work.
Weeeeee !!! you didnt just abbreviate me to SG2 - as a Stargate - SG1 freak that so made my morning - when I grow up and go up I wanna be Jack O'Neil - he is so me that sometimes I answer his questions long before he does - freaky. Although I also love Daniel Jackson - and had a crush on Jonas Quinn - he is sooo cute.

Earth to G - Get off the starry scary spacey thingy.

My one dreamy dream is to go into space - and I dont care if I die en route, become space debris or run out of oxygen before the famous words: Houston, we have a problem

When we meet, we have to have a 'no farting rule' though - and that is just the basics - tihihi did I mention that I need to write a whole post on this.

Geekery rules - I maintain

Anonymous said...

>d...flattery, flattery....undeserving? TBD...

Farmgal said...

coz me no seak 'geekarian' I will just say hey.
been a while...

|d®| said...

Wsup girl. Hope you're doing good. Thanks for checking in!

Anonymous said...

Do geeks combine the two? "ka-Bud Light na Vodo," if they do and watch all those crazy and mind twisting sci-fi 'stuff', then i guess brother you are not alone. thanks for the reminder that we are not alone.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
|d®| said...

v^6: Wsup man. My bad for the silence. Keep the lines open - I'll holla after-hours.

Shaggy said...

Just another thing you've learnt about yourself. Reading is a good thing. Besides enriching your vocubulary and your mind, it's peaceful and calming too.

Hope you are doing just fine.

Anonymous said...

All I can say for now is WTF!!!! Please take 2 beers and take a shower. I'll be back, this is too deep for my Pinky like brain. Maybe your next post should be titled The >d® Code. BTW, did you read The Code yet? It has some mind boggling stuff in there about religion.

PS:The Brain is very appropriate for this post!! LOL! What are we going to do today Brain?

|d®| said...

>BJ: Wsup man, hope everything's kosher.

>CK: "Same thing we do every night Pinky - try and take over the world!!"
Not to worry CK. Them 2 beers did the trick. Or was it 3 beers? Maybe 4?
I'm actually reading The Code and I must admit it's a serious page-turner. I always liked Dan Brown anyway, now that I think about it.