When I was a freshman in high school I began making a lot of observations and conjectures about what was actually going on here.  While most boys my age had girls on the mind – I became obsessed with the nature of reality. I had become a devout atheist in middle school, but being unsatisfied with silently disagreeing with those around me – I decided my time was better spent trying to figure out what was actually occurring – why I was here and why thing were the way they appeared.

A particular observation that haunted me occurred one evening at the little league field in my home town.  While I was a right-fielder in every sense of the sport when suited up – and thus have always disliked the game immensely – going to the little league field in Cornwall NY was just about the only fun thing in town – and many summer nights were spent at the complex walking between the various fields.  From certain spots you could witness multiple fields, and multiple games over the complex.  On one particular evening I began taking notice of the separation of time between seeing a batter make contact with the ball and the sound of the crack of the bat.  This was not a new phenomenon, and I knew that light traveled faster than sound. The only problem was that I had no idea what that meant – it was just an expression.  As I sat there, I realized that the time between the sight and the sound was different depending on which field I was looking at.  The further the baseball diamond, the greater the separation in sound.

Suddenly I imagined myself on an endless field.  I put the action of the batter a certain distance away and in my mind recreated the scenario I was witnessing at the complex – filling in the rough data I had regarding distance and the perceived difference in time.  I then began pushing the batter further and further away – to extreme distances not possible in the park – and began to discover larger gaps in time between action and sound.

I had just explored what is often referred to as a “thought experiment”. A famous example being Sir Issaac Newton’s thought experiment in which he imagined a cannon placed on the highest mountain on Earth.  If it shot a cannon ball at a certain speed it would go such a distance and then fall.  Faster speed, further distance.  At what speed would it have to reach to never fall?  Our modern day satellites fly at that speed – Newton was a bit ahead of his time.

In my mind I stood there on the endless plain – with the player still moving further and further away – the time between visual and auditory contact growing further and further apart. Suddenly I began racing away in the opposite direction.  I was now speeding away from the batter just as he was departing from me.  At first both the visual and sound could reach me – but the duration between seeing the swing and hearing it just grew longer and longer.  But as I reached greater speeds I eventually surpassed the speed the sound was traveling at, yet not quite the speed of the visual.  Now here my mind had to consider a few options.  Would all sound cease… as certainly the crack of the bat hitting the ball would now never reach me.  Was it possible I would begin to hear the previous swing?

As I continued to speed up I began to wonder how much faster were the visuals than the sound?  Could I accelerate to the speed of the visual – and if so what would happen?  And if I went beyond? That was about all my mind could ponder at that point – but it kept in the back of my mind for years.

In college I would discover that I hadn’t been pondering these thoughts alone – that others had come before me – and some of the questions I had been asking were answered. It turns out sound travels at a rather leisurely 1,125 feet/second.  What I could only think of as the visuals was actually light – and light travels at an outrageous speed of approximately 983,000,000 feet/second.  So it turns out the light was going about 874,000 times faster than the sound.  No wonder I could notice the change in such a short passage of time at the park.

I learned in college that Albert Einstein had discovered in 1905 that the visuals – light – and the speed at which they approach us as the observer, is the only true constant.  That time was relative.  That one’s experience is relative – and that the duration of the time between two events can be different for two separate observers. Your experience is different from mine.

While this of course took a few weeks to fully settle in – what was even more astounding than Einstein’s theory of special relativity and all the consequences it lay forth – was that this amazing realization was less than 100 year old.  That for all of human history man had lived on this Earth, unaware of such an amazing truth.  That most people still walk around unaware of this amazing fact.

What we label as science, is in fact, the truth.  What is so terrifying about that statement is that we know so little.  The big secret is that we have no idea why we are here, or what is going on.  For most of human history we have made measurements and observations of the world around us – only to discover as time went on that those observations were biased because we are not the focal point – we are not the scientist looking through the telescope – we are not outside the Petri dish.  We are part of the experiment – no matter how much we’d rather play observer. And for all the thousands of years humans have walked on this planet – the millions of minds that have had the capacity to think – we’ve hardly scratched the surface. We have had to fill the void of knowledge with an endless array of stories and myths and faiths, because a believable lie provides more comfort than the fear of the unknown.

But the unknown is a curious thing.  There is room to ponder…  And while deep reflection on complex thoughts might hurt the brain at first, that’s just the warming up of brain cells yet untouched.  There are wonderous things to contemplate.

How small or large can things be? I say infinitely.  At one point it was Atoms – then we found Proton and Neutrons.  Then “whoops” there are some quarks inside of there.  Now scientists postulate a concept called “String Theory” that takes us even smaller.  Wouldn’t it make more sense that you could go infinitely small and infinitely large – or perhaps even better, it loops at some point. Think about it.

Everything Repeats. I would argue that one’s capacity to notice variety is directly related to one’s scale in relation to the object. So things on my scale – people, dogs, buildings, trees – I can tell the difference between them.  Looking at the tree from afar I might think all the leaves are the same.  Upon closer observation I would find they are all unique – but obviously the plant cells are the same.  Under the microscope… no.  If this is the case – and the plant cells replicate with variation, and humans replicate with variation – and clearly planets replicate with variation – at what point would this replication with variation stop?  Why would it suddenly stop?  Would it not make as much sense to have multiple universes with variation?  Or multiple microscopic elements smaller than a quark with variation? Attempts to find a solid state – a final solution provide no real answers.  So you bring me to the big bang…. big deal – I’ll just ask you what was going on shortly before it.

The fact is, we’ll never know everything – but we live in a time where we know far more than ever before – and the more minds focused on answering bigger questions – the better. Never forget this is actually occurring – and that we don’t know why. Religion is a simple way out, but what fun is that? Science isn’t the job of scientists – it’s the truth about the nature of reality – and every intelligent person should have an interest in that. Last year for my birthday I purchased a gyroscope after watching a lecture regarding some of their unique properties.  The questions that bizarre device has provided me have been endless – but so has the fun in discovery. While friends that stopped by probably thought I was crazy – some things are too interesting to just let the “scientists” play with them.

Don’t just memorize the facts – contemplate the unknowns. Wonder why things are they way they appear – find out if your observations are even correct in the first place. When was the last time you did some science? Life is more fun when you realize it’s happening.

Be curious.

Filed under: Health, Homelife, Life, Science by gspies
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