Einstein across the States
This past week I spent over forty hours in my car traveling across the States. My goal was to move from Utah to Rhode Island. Because my dad was traveling with me I decided to buy a book on CD (he doesn’t like to listen to music, let alone my kind of music).
The book was Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson read by Edward Herrmann. Although the book was only twenty two hours long, it took the entire trip because some parts were a little too heavy. The author went into surprising detail about the Special and General Relativity. This can take a few hours to ponder before moving on, but the real problems came when Isaacson described the properties of light.
My dad and I continued to be dumbfounded by the bizarre explanations of bizarrer ideas as we crossed the country.
Once in Providence, my mind was set to another insurmountable task, finding a place to live. Although General Relativity is essential for anyone who wants to comprehend the universe, it’s useless for deciding where to lay your head.
I found a place that I can only hope will prove suitable (it’s a construction site/classroom for a handful of my landlord’s repair men). My dad helped me find a bed and dresser (I was corrected every time I asked for a dresser, “you mean chest” or “bureau”). I started looking for a job but nowadays every application is online with a half and hour attitude test attached.
I’ve had a flat tire, pulled over for running a red light, had the cops come to my house (not by mistake) driven by a hundred Dunkin Donuts (literally, they are on every street corner and people continue to give directions like “it’s buy the Dunkin Donuts, you know where the Dunkin Donuts is?”), and listened to my roommate shout “why am I taking a cold shower” for fifteen minutes. Needless to write, I feel like I’ve entered a completely different world.
Despite the “new world feeling,” some things never change. When I wake up in the mornings it doesn’t feel like I’m 2400 miles away from Utah. When I go to the grocery store the cashier still asks for a discount card. When I look around my room I see the same junk that I was two weeks ago.
Einstein proposed (and others have proved it) that time and space are connected in some stretchable/compressible fabric that governs the universe. I propose that time and space are connected also in a kind of continual being (i.e. because I remember a timeline of experiences the distance between “here” and “there” is somehow shorter or no longer there –just like a commute to work can disappear after a year of familiarity).
The book was Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson read by Edward Herrmann. Although the book was only twenty two hours long, it took the entire trip because some parts were a little too heavy. The author went into surprising detail about the Special and General Relativity. This can take a few hours to ponder before moving on, but the real problems came when Isaacson described the properties of light.
My dad and I continued to be dumbfounded by the bizarre explanations of bizarrer ideas as we crossed the country.
Once in Providence, my mind was set to another insurmountable task, finding a place to live. Although General Relativity is essential for anyone who wants to comprehend the universe, it’s useless for deciding where to lay your head.
I found a place that I can only hope will prove suitable (it’s a construction site/classroom for a handful of my landlord’s repair men). My dad helped me find a bed and dresser (I was corrected every time I asked for a dresser, “you mean chest” or “bureau”). I started looking for a job but nowadays every application is online with a half and hour attitude test attached.
I’ve had a flat tire, pulled over for running a red light, had the cops come to my house (not by mistake) driven by a hundred Dunkin Donuts (literally, they are on every street corner and people continue to give directions like “it’s buy the Dunkin Donuts, you know where the Dunkin Donuts is?”), and listened to my roommate shout “why am I taking a cold shower” for fifteen minutes. Needless to write, I feel like I’ve entered a completely different world.
Despite the “new world feeling,” some things never change. When I wake up in the mornings it doesn’t feel like I’m 2400 miles away from Utah. When I go to the grocery store the cashier still asks for a discount card. When I look around my room I see the same junk that I was two weeks ago.
Einstein proposed (and others have proved it) that time and space are connected in some stretchable/compressible fabric that governs the universe. I propose that time and space are connected also in a kind of continual being (i.e. because I remember a timeline of experiences the distance between “here” and “there” is somehow shorter or no longer there –just like a commute to work can disappear after a year of familiarity).
posted by spitzer at 1:09 PM
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