A thought experiment about traveling faster than the speed of light

Scientists like to say that the speed of light is as fast as it’s possible to go, but I don’t believe them. Just think about it, say you have two things travelling at light speed. Let’s say I’m one of those things, and that you’re the other thing. So we’re hurtling through space as fast as we can go, and I then I reach out my hand and push you forward. I’ll slow down, yeah, but you should wind up with a little boost, even if you’re just going a tiny bit faster, there it is, faster than the speed of light.

That wasn’t so hard, a pretty basic thought experiment, really. That’s how Einstein came up with the majority of his most brilliant ideas, just sitting around thinking about stuff. He’d be lost up there in his genius brain, maybe he hadn’t yet gotten out of his bathrobe, and people would be like, “Einstein? Einstein! Hello?” but he had an incredible talent for focus, able to concentrate solely on the experiments being carried out in his mind.

Because, come on, you think a regular person could just come up with E=mc²? No, you need to be a genius. I mean, I’ve always thought about coming up with my own genius equations, because they have to be out there, more laws that govern the universe, stuff we haven’t yet figured out. The way I see it is, all I have to do is come up with the right equation, it doesn’t necessarily have to be proved. But once it is proved, I’ll have called it.

Like, how about m=Ts3(D-4)? That seems like a good one. Any math majors out there want to take a look at my work? Remember, any published findings are going to have to include me as a source, and I’m not cheap. Well, if it’s only a minor breakthrough, then I guess we can work something out. I’m not totally unreasonable.

Does anybody remember that episode of Boy Meets World where Eric mistakenly refers to Albert Einstein as Calvin Einstein? I remember watching that as a little kid and almost passing out from laughing so hard. For years afterward, I’d try to replicate the joke, waiting for a moment where Einstein’s name should have been brought up organically, like as the answer to a trivia question, or during a discussion about science.

Or maybe if I was in the middle of a conversation about something intellectual or scientific, I’d throw in, “Look, I’m no Calvin Einstein …” and wait for laughter. But nobody ever laughed. And it always made me think, is the joke itself not funny? Or am I just butchering the delivery, screwing up the comedic timing? Because, like I already said, that episode was great, I couldn’t have been the only one to have laughed.

Anybody ever remember that movie where Einstein is trying to set up his niece on a date? When I was a little kid, it was always on TV, like one of those random movies that they’d play during the day while most of the world would be either at school or work. I could never make it through more than ten minutes, but I’d always think, who thought about this movie? What a lame idea.

I think I got off topic from my opening paragraph, the stuff about traveling faster than the speed of light. But what about the opposite, is there some sort of a universal slow limit? I guess zero motion would be the slowest, right? But what if we’re both standing still and I push you? Then you go backwards. Huh. Can light travel backwards?

All of these question, only Einstein would have been able to really come up with a decent thought experiment worthy of taking on such heavy topics. I guess we’ll all have to soldier on without him, instead relying on Stephen Hawking, he’s pretty smart, but I think even he would admit to not being as smart as Einstein.

Don’t we have Einstein’s brain preserved? I know that we haven’t really ironed out all of those sticky ethical issues in regard to cloning, but don’t you think that, as a species, it might do us some good to make an exception for Einstein? We could create a whole army of Einsteins, entire labs set up where everybody is Albert Einstein, even the janitors, they’d all be geniuses. Think of all of the scientific advancement, the progress we’d make. And if we raise them in America, we won’t have to worry about that funny German accent. Did he have a German accent in that movie? I can’t remember. But honestly, that movie was terrible.

You call this a circus?

Tightrope walking doesn’t seem that hard. It’s just like a field sobriety test, but on a wire. And, you know, except for that wacko that walked across the Twin Towers in the seventies, there are almost always a few nets underneath to catch you in case you mess up and fall. No, I think tightrope walkers get a lot of unnecessary credit. Theatrics? You call that a performance? Come on, you’re holding a giant balance beam. Again, it’s like nets, balance beams, what else do you want, some sort of gyroscopic stabilizer? You’d have to get up pretty early to sell me any tickets to a tightrope walking show. And then you’d have to duck out of work even earlier, because as soon as I realized what I’d bought, I’d be right back on line looking for a full refund.

And those guys that ride their motorcycles in those enclosed spheres? Please. That’s not a stunt. A stunt would be if the motorcycle was on fire, or if the motorcycles somehow didn’t have any wheels. But three guys on three motorcycles? One, that’s not exciting at all, and two, it’s so loud. Like, I’m watching probably one of the most boring shows on earth, and to top it all off, I’ve got to sit here with my hands covering my ears to show everybody else in attendance just how loud I think it is. Besides, isn’t space-time supposed to be curved anyway? So riding inside a ball should be pretty standard if you ask me.

The clown car? Really? That’s just not safe. How do you train all of those guys to fit in such a tiny vehicle? What if something goes wrong, like what if that car catches on fire before they’re all done with the act? Are you really going to feel good about yourself having watched them all struggle to get out of there, some of them horribly burned, most of them having perished, but not before clawing and elbowing all of their friends in a futile last-minute attempt to escape?

True, the elephants look pretty convincing. But you think about what kind of an elephant lets itself get captured for a circus, I’m thinking it’s got to be the shrimpiest elephants in the herd. No, when I go see a show, I want to see the best. I’m not spending money on easy pickings. It’s like when I buy steak, I don’t want some domesticated cow, no, I want the one the killed the matador with his dying breath.

You call this stuff snacks? I’ve had better popcorn at the movie theater. Way too much salt, not enough butter, you’d think a circus would figure out how to do popcorn, but no, it’s terrible, I want the cotton candy to be fresh, not something out of a plastic bag, and if the vendor guy can’t figure out a way to bring the cotton candy machine along with him, then he might as well switch to candy apples. And come on, is that Pepsi? I hate Pepsi. Who doesn’t sell Coke?

I’m just saying, if you’re going to swallow a whole sword, it kind of defeats the purpose to just pull it back out. Anybody could push a sword down a throat. I mean, I could totally do it. I’m not going to, no, but if I did, I’d make sure to finish it up and wait for it to come out naturally. Yeah, you show me someone who can do that, I’ll call the papers, that’d be a circus. But this clown, and the flame eater guy, one time I was camping and I toasted this marshmallow that caught fire, and I ate it, it was fine, the inside of my mouth was wet and nothing got burnt.

So, no thanks, I don’t want to go to the circus, that sounds really boring. Ask your mother, maybe she’ll take you, but she’s probably tired from watching you run around playing soccer all day. Oh big deal, you scored a goal. You really think it’s that difficult to get a ball past another ten year old? That kid was practically asleep. Who’s coaching you guys? Did any of you even break a sweat?

I’ll eat whatever for dinner, just order anything

I get so indecisive sometimes, I can’t make up my mind about anything, even the simplest of decisions, like last night, my wife and I are trying to figure out dinner, she’s like, “What do you want?” and I’m like, “I don’t know, anything’s good I guess, whatever you want,” and she says, “Sushi?” and I’m like, “Sushi? Didn’t we just have sushi last week?” and I’m like, “Yeah, I guess, but it feels like we just had it,” and she says, “Yeah, well you had pizza for lunch and dinner yesterday, why can’t we have sushi separated by a whole week?”

And I can already tell that I’ve f’ed up, me being the one telling her we could order “whatever, anything she wanted,” but she doesn’t bring it up right away, I know she will, eventually, if I can’t decide on something, but she suggests, “Indian?” and I don’t know, I kind of just stare off into space, like thinking it over in my head, but it’s not even that I don’t want Indian, it’s that I don’t have any feelings for it whatsoever, like her saying the word Indian registered in my head, I heard her say it, but it didn’t spark anything inside me, neither good nor bad, and so I couldn’t respond with anything, I could only continue to stare, to zone out, maybe if I just completely ignored it she’d suggest something else.

“Rob? Indian?” and I need to respond, the best I can get out is, “Eh. I don’t know,” and now I know it’s coming, she’s going to get fed up, I’d be fed up, if I asked her what she wanted for dinner, and she pushed all onus of responsibility my way, of course I’d get a little annoyed if she started vetoing all of my decisions.

But I can’t commit. Do I want Indian? I don’t think so. Even sushi wouldn’t have been terrible, but I had already issued a complaint, she interrupts my thought process, “OK, so no sushi, no Indian,” and here would have been a good time to let her in on what was going through my head, “Well,” I could have been like, “It’s not like I couldn’t eat sushi,” but I thought better of it, we were already too far into this that if I had backtracked on the sushi, that would have been it, sushi for dinner.

“Mexican?” and I love Mexican, but the Mexican place by us is so heavy, so at least I have something to say here, I tell her, “That Mexican place is so heavy …” and she rolls her eyes, I don’t want to put off her suggestion entirely, so I add, “But I like it. It’s a great Mexican place. Just really heavy. Do you really feel like eating something so heavy?” and again, I think I got too busy defending my initial reaction, because sure Mexican is heavy, but now that I thought about it, I wouldn’t mind eating something heavy.

“Actually, Mexican sounds pretty good,” but she’s already been swayed by my comment, “No, you’re right, I don’t really feel like eating anything that heavy,” which is my own fault, I set myself up for that one. But now I couldn’t get the taste of those tacos out of my head, “But what about those chorizo nachos?” I try to tempt her, and she pauses, but I can tell it’s going to be dismissed, “No, maybe next time. What about falafel?”

And now we’re swinging the other way, all because of my heavy comment. Note to self: unless I’m really set on not eating something for dinner, don’t describe it as heavy. I like falafel, but, “Honey, that’s not really a dinner,” which, I don’t even know what that means, but it’s the best I could have come up with without giving her a minute to collect her thoughts, a desperate move on my part to try and avoid what I knew was coming next, an exasperated, “OK, so you tell me that you’ll eat anything, that it’s whatever I choose, right?”

There it is. “Right,” I tell her, “So let’s just get Mexican, you said it, obviously because you want it, right? You want it, I want it, let’s get Mexican,” and there’s a pause, I think that she’s considering it, but I’m mistaken, that face isn’t one of consideration, it’s one of apprehension, “But,” and I know it’s not going to happen, “It’s just so … heavy.”

And then I think, well, sushi wouldn’t be terrible, I could eat sushi. So I go, “You know what? Let’s just have sushi. You wanted sushi, so let’s get it,” and she’s like, “Are you sure?” and I should just be a grown up here and be happy with the fact that after all of my indecisiveness we’ve actually come to an agreement, but I can’t help myself, there are selfess points to be earned here, I could use this in the future, I say, “Well, I mean, I’ll get it … if that’s what you want. I can eat sushi,” and she looks at me and smiles and says, “Thanks hun,” and I’m like, “No problem. I’m a nice guy.”

Don’t be a sore winner

It’s important not to be a sore winner, which I’m not always perfect about, but I try, I’m constantly trying to be a good sport, the kind of guy that comes up to you after a game and, regardless of how aggressive I was playing under the net, even though I was kind of taking advantage of the fact that the ref really wasn’t calling too much in the way of hacks, he definitely didn’t see any of those elbows, I’ll still march over to your bench immediately after the buzzer looking for a handshake. And just because we won, just because we crushed you guys, I won’t be like smiling or anything, nothing cocky, I mean, sure I might be happy, and that happiness might naturally want to express itself with a smile, but I’ll make it as subdued as possible, like if anything, I’ll just make a face, maybe a pained expression, something that, combined with my uncontrollable urge to smile, to laugh even, you’ll feel OK, you won’t feel as if I’m rubbing it in.

Even though we probably could have let up a little toward the end of the second half. I mean, it’s still a competitive league, right? Even if it’s just a men’s league, we’re still here to compete. And I guess we were being a little aggressive, but I need to get that run in. If anything, you guys should have hustled all the way to the last second. By that point, it’s not about score, it’s something personal.

Still, don’t think I was trying to rub it in. I never take threes. I was only taking them because we were up by so much. I figured, when else is a good time for me to practice my long shot? You know, in a real game setting. I was just as surprised as everybody else when they kept falling in, just sinking three after three. That’s why I was celebrating after each shot, jumping up and down, that was sick. I’ve never hit that many threes in a row, not even during practice.

And look, you’re the one acting like I was being a sore winner, but if I was playing you, and you were the one who just scored twenty-one solid points in a row, and then you came up to me looking for a double high-five, I’d give it to you, because why not? That’s some good shooting, great fucking shooting man. I’d cock back my shoulders and give you a chest bump. And yeah, I guess it was coming out as a little aggressive, but I was just excited. You could have been excited for me, with me, I would’ve let you in on that celebration.

But no, keep complaining about those elbows. You think the ref’s going to change his mind? And yeah, I agree, the ref was calling everything you dished out, to which I’d argue that you’ve got to change your game. You want to dish it out, get a little physical under the boards? It’s not my fault if you’re telegraphing everything to the ref. And of course I’m going to shout out, “Ah! Foul!” because, what the hell man? You want to play rough?

But I am sorry about ripping your shirt. You did have my arm hooked when I was going up. Right, rough, I get it, it’s just, you back me into a corner like that, I don’t know, I guess I’m just good at making it look like an accident, like when the ref blew the whistle and I was like, “Oh, I’m sorry man, I’m so sorry, that was an accident, heat of the moment,” and the ref pulls me over and whispers to me in my ear, “Hey, number twenty-five, good sportsmanship,” you can’t fault me, that’s all part of the game.

Besides did you guys pick this division? No, we got placed here also. But only like half of the guys showed up to the qualifier, and I think, well, don’t tell anybody, but in the interest of being a good sport, I guess I’ll admit, I brought in this fat guy from the office to make it look like we’d be playing at a disadvantage, they must have bumped us down a few levels.

Still, it’s all about having fun, right? Hey, come on, don’t be like that, take my hand. I used to think there was nothing worse than a sore winner, but clearly sore losers are much worse. Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to be a sore loser? My parents? My parents are dead. No, it’s OK. Seriously, it’s OK. No need to apologize. Seriously, I’m fine. Honestly, my parents aren’t dead. No, I just wanted you off my back for a second, OK? Enough, we won, no they’re not dead, yes, they told me not to be a sore winner, which is why I’m trying to apologize. And yeah, I guess I’m coming up a little short, but I tried. That’s the most important thing, to try your hardest, right? That’s what my parents always taught me.

Movie Review: Gravity

The trailer for Gravity had me hooked. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are doing a spacewalk on the ISS when some sort of debris storm destroys everything. We see both of them floating away, spinning, totally adrift in space. Gravity: the words crash down on the screen, plain white text on a black background.

My palms were sweaty after only twenty seconds. I mean, I don’t have much astronaut experience, no zero-g training or anything like that, but here’s something I’ve given considerable thought to. This whole concept taps into something universal, whether lost at sea or buried alive, what would it feel like knowing that certain death is all but imminent, but you still have to be awake and struggling for a while until whatever it is that’s keeping you alive stops working?

And that feeling, not being able to unclench my fists, squirming in my seat, the movie doesn’t waste any time taking you from a routine Hubble telescope repair job to, “Astronauts: This is Houston. Get out of there now!”

Unfortunately, the movie never unclenches to allow even a little bit of blood back in once in a while. After only a quarter of the way through, I was in physical discomfort, my body and soul overwhelmed by pins and needles. I guess there wouldn’t be a lot of time for pause or reflection if you really were running out of oxygen and spinning untethered away from your only means of escape, but man, it was really hard to sit still through all of that.

And it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. In each moment, there’s really only one action to be taken care of at a time. Because everything’s taking place in the unforgiving void of outer space, each action is a zero-sum game, live or die. So it’s like ten excruciating minutes of getting a hold of a rope. Do it or die. Then it’s ten painful minutes of tying a knot. You better tie that knot, or you’ll die.

There’s a very clear goal, somehow not dying and finding your way back to Earth, but there’s no direct path to success. And so there’s really no pace, it’s just calm for about two seconds, and then everything gets ratcheted up to eleven, and that’s where it stays, the needle constantly threatening to bust through the red.

It was a little too much. Like, I’m sure the story would have been enough to evoke those grand ideas of life, the fear of death, what it means to be without hope, or eventually to be able to let go. But everything is spelled out. Let’s zoom in on this miniature statue of the Buddha to convey an image of serenity amongst chaos. Or the little dialogue that peppers the film will be random statements about life being a wild ride. George Clooney throughout the entire movie is half The Fonz (“Now that we’ve got some distance between us, you think I’m attractive, right?”) and half wise philosopher (“You need to let go!”)

Parts of it were cool. The concept is definitely scary, especially considering how this is all within the realm of like actual science. You know, I’m saying that from a non-scientist’s point of view. Maybe a real scientist would watch Gravity and be able to spot several gaping plot holes. But I was looking for them, and I couldn’t see anything. Russian lettering on the escape pod, check. Tears are cried outward and away from the face in the absence of gravity, check. Yep, everything made sense.

Except, and this was a pretty glaring error, at least I thought it was, but there are several scenes in which the astronauts either have to screw something in, or screw something out. Each time, I noticed that the screws and levers and knobs, everybody turned them left to tighten and right to loosen them up. Doesn’t this go against the whole “lefty loosey, righty tighty” rule? Or does this for some reason not apply in outer space? Was everything designed backward to prevent regular people from someday hijacking the equipment?

I don’t know. But other than that, it was a cool movie. A little two-dimensional, but cool. And short. I’m a lot more forgiving with movies that don’t knock my socks off if they’re under an hour and a half long. Whatever, I can allow myself to not be one hundred percent entertained for under an hour and a half. But that’s it. Any longer than that and I’m pissed, like, “Oh my God, this was so boring, and so long.” But not Gravity. It was short and sweet. Or short and just a tad sweet. Let’s go with short and OK.