Every once in a while I get a little nervous about the fact that there’s just a few kilometers of air between me and the icy blackness of space.
And the atmosphere is just held in place by gravity. That’s it.
We spend our whole lives running around in this tenuous onion-skin of an ecosystem, with a whole gigantic empty inhospitable Universe out there, and ultimately all that’s standing between us and falling endlessly though an airless void is g=9.8 m/s[sup]2[/sup]. Gives me the shivers.
Well, thanks. Thanks a whole hell of a lot.
And now, just to make your fun complete:
Don’t think about your tongue and where it is.
…
I’ve been interested in astronomy since I was young. I love star gazing and looking through telescopes. And I have an aptitude for math, and science.
But I have made a conscious decision to avoid studying the science of astronomy because the concept of infinity, both as distance and as time, makes me want to curl up in a little ball and have someone tell me it will all be okay. :eek:
Gravity is probably a lot more dependable than the nut coming toward you at a closing speed of 140 mph on a two lane highway.
Well, in the long run everything won’t be OK, depending upon how you define OK. However infinity isn’t the problem and if you spend any time worrying about it that’s time you don’t have to spend on the real problems, like the current US chief executive.
People who are just interested in astronomy probably spend more time thinking about the concept of infinity than actual astronomers do. We’re too busy with mundane stuff like writing grant proposals and getting our computer codes to work.
The only thing in my study of astronomy that made me curl up in a little ball was the Physics GRE. I curled up in a ball and hid under a table. Come to think of it, that was fairly good preparation for grad school- I moved to California, and I understand that you’re supposed to do much the same thing in the event of a major earthquake.
Yeah, but I’d still feel better if there was a Tupperware seal up there somewhere.
No fear for me. Instead, it inspires a sense of awe and eternity, which to me aren’t bad things at all. Of course I also liked Ozymandias. Which had no ice weasels at all.
Nope. Typically if I find myself very far from light pollution and am alone and the evening is very quiet, and the stark landscape is barely lit by a quarter-moon casting it’s meagre light over the snow I stop in my bitter cold tracks and lean back and stare straight up at the billions of stars staring down at me and scream
What the fuck are you looking at???
Then I walk off smiling to myself and make a nice cup of hot sassafrass root tea.
Would you feed it Tupperware sardines?
Ahhh…
Silly me. I should have realized. Real problems are the only things that are allowed to bother people. Irrational fears shouldn’t even be talked about, certainly not in a thread about other, related irrational fears. Thank you so much for making that clear.
Yanno, if you want to bash Shrub, there are plenty of threads in The Pit, GD, and IMHO for that.
Some of them, it would even be on topic.
Anne Neville, I’m sure you’re right. On the other hand, you had to get through whole courses where you had to think rationally and coherently about time frames that push my mind in ways I prefer to take at my own pace, instead in a timely manner. (Which seems a bit improper, since we’re talking about billions and billions of stars over billions and billions of years. )
I thought I recognized Keats. I had that memorized once upon a time but my memory she’s not so good anymore.
You are right. I shouldn’t have wasted my time and yours on irrational fears for which I have little time anyway.