there seems to be a bunch of people here who like physics. so i wanted to say that i got stephen hawking's new book, "the universe in a nutshell" and that its really interesting and easier to follow than his other stuff. i got it for 50% off at borders which i awesome seeing as how the book is like 35 bucks regularly priced :P
the girl behind the counter said that she had seen tons of people buying it, and aksed me if it was good. i told her yes, its good... then she goes "is it... fiction, or uh.. nonficition?"
if you wanna be romantic about it, you could call him the greatest genius since einstein. the guy is really a marvel... he sits in chair that has a computer than can talk for him (i think pink floyd sampled his computer voice for one of their songs) and he has a top-notch sense of humor which i think is really amazing considering that he is chair-bound.
in one point early on in "the universe in a nutshell" he is talking about how if you spend a long time in a plane that is travelling east (therefore adding its speed to that of the earth's) you will in fact add a fraction of a second to your lifespan. then he says "but the time you gain in life will by far be cancelled by eating so much airline food."
i laughed really loud at that while i was looking at the book in borders. some people looked at me. they were probably thinking "is that guy dangerous? should i be worried? ... maybe i should just back away slowly..."
miri, you seem to know physics very well... could you clarify the whole thing about how time has a shape? thats the part im on in this book and its kinda vague. he hasnt really explained how they decided that time has a shape besides something like "since you cannot alter space without altering time, time must have a shape."
::::can't stand using pencils that other people have chewed on.
the nutshell version is -> anything is anything, depending on how you look at it :)
hawkings perception of time as an object is no more or less valid then my perception of it as memories right now. it's simply more useful for some purposes.
given a 2dimensional world, you can pretend time is a third dimension, so that as t increases, you get a volume, and particle movement creates these neat little line shapes
assuming particles are undergoing brownian motion, you get these vibrating string shapes (ring any bells anyone?)
now, our reality is for all sakes and purposes 3 dimensional. so when you stack them together on a 4th d axis, you get a, well, stack of volumes. dont bother trying to visualize it.
aaanyways, i need to go get food. keep taking math in college.
:: hi, i'm miriku and i'm at fault for whatever just went wrong ::
