more misc, at 4 am Los Angeles time, June 30th.

Wide-eyed.
Thinking of just how unsecured eeeevverrything is. You never really own a home. Miss a couple property tax deadlines and say goodbye to your house, even tho you have it paid in full. You work all your life, and your body falls apart from aging, and ultimately your works will disappear. Like Kurt Vonegut mentioned in an interview...ultimately the Sun comes to a point of explosion, and eats up the solar system. [If anyone is at a newsstand that carries a July 07 issue of The Scientific American, turn to the colorfully illustrated section/article of what would happen if all human beings vanished from the earth. Great!]

My point is that nothing makes any sense unless there is more to it. You cannot make sense out of a life lived and just ending in death. You can rationalize and plot a biological and scientific reasoning behind it all. But I'm talking about the philosophical or religious meaning. Unfortunately, those words put everything in a pre-conceived, experienced context. Perhaps this is what gives Bradbury exclusive right in many aspects of our attention: he doesn't give us time to consider our pre-conceived notion of 'things'. He runs so fast that we are where he wants to take us before we even bothered to look for our running shoes.

Bottom line:
There is no sense that everything runs down and dies, other than it be made new. But to do so, it cannot end. People do not end. If they do, then you have a Hugh Hefner mind-set, which is to say, THIS is all there is. To me that would be like building a Boeing 747 and then walking away from it since that's all there is. It was built for something else other than the process of being built and existing.

I like the statement I heard recently:
God makes no mistakes...and he makes you forever.

Anyone besides me find this interesting?

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/08/25/more_r...mily_uncovered/6901/

Да! Много спасибо!

Hey! Even our beloved Bradbury is listed here more than once. Interesting link:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science_List_Detail.asp?BT=Display

HA!

You were supposed to say Ray Bradbury,Romney!
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/romney_gaffes/ar...1230_1621183,00.html

Just read a reference about Ray Bradbury in this week's issue of Time Magazine as well. About the need to leave this planet.

...late night musings...

Outside a while ago, looking across the city lights in the darkened distance, and beyond, the greater city of Los Angeles. But here, city lights of south Orange County. And near the ocean, a nice dark sky of crisp and multitude stars...

...and started thinking about velocity...

...like the speed of this planet, both the speed it revolves and runs thru space; the speed of a floating astronaut beside the space shuttle... and it all looks like they are nearly stopped dead in their tracks in space. Except when you compare them to the Earth. Remove the Earth, and then how fast are things really moving?

Then I thought a little further: exactly how fast are we reeeaally moving?

And if velocity is somehow connected with time, then...what say if we are really all going "much" faster than light. But because we 'carry' light with us, it begins its velocity from the launching pad of the universe. Light is, really, not going faster than itself. But everything else is! And if we were to actually slow down to below the speed of light, time may be different. In fact, there may not be any at all!

And this 'thinking'?... from that tall glass of soda pop and that dish of Italian meatballs and yummy tomato sauce, with the french bread?? Alas, probably!

I'm going indoors. I think its time to grab that big cup of just-brewed coffee ...!!

Steven Wright says,
"If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?"

Okay, Braling II. I'm waiting for Steven Wright's answer. My guess is...yes, the lights go on as normal... Or something close to it.

I doubt if Steven Wright gave an answer, but it is a thought experiment that Einstein did, and it led him to the theory of Special Relativity.

(Two things to note, Nard, if you're interested: First, light ALWAYS appears to move at "the speed of light", no matter who you are, where you are or how you're moving. The reason is that the speed of light is not so much a property of light as a property of space itself. Second, people and objects cannot travel at the speed of light or beyond. This is because only mass-less particles can travel at light speed. If you tried to accelerate yourself to the speed of light, you would actually get heavier and heavier, until you were infinitely heavy!)

(Here ends Relativity 101.)

I should have added:

All of the above it true, unless you are Ray Bradbury, in which case you can violate any laws of physics you like in the interests of spinning a good yarn!

...or if you are in your spaceship traveling at the speed of light and you drop your pen while writing a short story about your experience, would you hear it when it hits the floor?

(This, an easy one!)

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
Here ends Relativity 101.

Your education was worth every pence!

PHIL:
From your neighborhood yet!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/781199.stm

My idea out there on the patio last night was not about traveling faster than light per se (I figured we are already traveling faster than light and don't know it)...but what happens when you slow down below the speed of light, and how that would change time as we know it!