Because I was unable to get a Normaphoto of Deep Space (that is Outer Space beyond our solar system), I settled for two pictures of me walking up the lane from our front gate. The first accompanied a poem posted three years ago. The second was taken a couple days ago.
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Next is an excerpt from an e-mail exchange between life-long friend Willie and me in 2010:
You may recall some years back when Israeli physicist, Moti Milgrom , successfully explained why old probes in deep space were slowing down where there should be no resistance. He dismissed gravitational effects of dark matter by using a 4-d constant: roughly the speed of light divided by the age of the universe --elastic space.
If space is elastic, so is time. It's yanking subatomic particles to participate in reactions elsewhere, elsewhen. It's reacting to tickled toes. It's irritable. When you collect the other 4 requirements which I forget from high school biology, you can only conclude it's alive. --Geo.
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I now remember the requirements for life-forms were irritability, movement, metabolism, adaptation and reproduction, but there are doubtless more qualities added in the past 50+ years --like saying "I'll think of something" and actually doing it. Which brings us to our second Normaphoto:
It is three years later. I am not laughing, nor am I carrying a bucket. I have thought of something:
If Moti was right, and his calculation truly cosmological in its simplicity --accurate where math involving dark matter was only approximate-- then time itself is elastic, time within time. This would make the relativistic constant, the speed of light, into a variable. That's huge. It leaves only one true fixed feature in the entire universe --I Still Hate These Sandals!
Very nice text! And maybe hating those sandals will make you remember them for the rest of your life - through time's elasticity.
ReplyDeleteThank you Ana. I don't know why I don't get new sandals --maybe because I had to involve the whole universe in the decision. Men are like that, yes they are.
DeleteIt could be worse. The sandals could have reproduced.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Emma. The reproductive results of sandals mystify me. We used to call zoris "thongs" --which evolved into something else-- and now must call them flip-flops. Accelerated mutation?
Delete"It leaves only one true fixed feature in the entire universe --I Still Hate These Sandals!"
ReplyDeleteThis gives you only two options. Keep the old sandals, and keep the universe intact. Buy new sandals, and imperil us all. Well, Geo? Which will it be??
:D
O_Jenny, I suspect the universe is still big enough to tolerate new sandals --if they don't carry too great a charge or unnecessarily exploit quantum coherence.
DeleteI keep forgetting I'm old and get up to do something I always used to be able to do only to be remnded once again that even though I feel the same, everything has changed. The same, but different. My time has stretched out like your elastic band and it's getting a little thin in the middle. But hey....I'm irritable so I'm alive. I've adapted to the fact that I can't move like I used to so....I'm alive. I'm goona go irritate the hubs now so he can feel alive too. Go get yourself some new sandals...the universe has spoken.
ReplyDeleteDear Delores, I delight in your comment! And the idea of an elastic waistband --essentially one type of fabric contracting inside another-- is a great simile for Milgrom's theory.
DeleteBut I note in three years your shirt tails have found a home. BTW I have yet to meet a pair of sandals that I like.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, it IS the same shirt. Really, it depends on whether I put on my trousers or shirt first --retired attire-laxness, I guess. Sandals are Birkenstocks, which never wear out, darn it!
DeleteThe problem with elastic is that after expanding it too much, it snaps back and that can be painful. Time has a way of doing that.
ReplyDeleteMany of us have Birkenstocks - in the back of the closet. I keep telling myself that I will wear them again, but it probably won't happen.
Thanks, Arleen! As time marches on, it will doubtless get more sensible hiking clothes.
DeleteTime is a great healer, but it's also a lousy beautician. --Ibid
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ibid. I have noticed but refuse to concede.
DeleteIf the sandals traveled near the speed of light and then returned you after you'd spent, say, twenty years without them, then you'd have aged considerably while the sandals would have stayed exactly the same.
ReplyDeleteIf they did remain unchanged it would support the notion that my awful sandals are a universal constant. Thank you, Harry Hamid, for following my blog. I visited your intriguing site but found no follower-widget. Have added you to blogroll in right margin of this page.
DeleteAh! went back and there it was. Following on GFC.
DeleteMaybe that's why Einstein wore loafers.
ReplyDeleteA viable theory, dear Squid, and one that might reward future research. My next pair of shoes will be loafers!
DeleteTime to get new sandals, but then elsewhere, elsewhen you are probably wearing ones you like. I don't know about time being irritable, but it irritates me a lot, so maybe it is alive and having lots of fun keeping me dancing on its strings to its tunes! Have a good one!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely time for new sandals, Louise. And you keep dancing!
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