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THE OTHER PRESS

 

Wednesday, February 1, 1984.:

The Stupidity —

: ee

 

sour] 1 ydEID

 
     
  
   

Light travels at roughly
299,792 km/second. That
means that the light from a
star that is 67 light-years
away, or (299792x60x60x24x

365x67) 633,434,144,304,000

kilometres, takes 67 years to
reach us. Or, what we see in

_ the sky left the star 67 years

ago. The sun’s light alone

_ takes over 8 minutes to

reach us. To get an approxi-
mation of how far that is, or
how fast light travels, it can
go ‘from Vancouver to
Hawaii and back approx. 27
times in one second. Or
from here to Australia and
back 11 times in a second. © .
So you can imagine just how
far those stars are away
from us. Actually, most
stars you see in the sky are
hundreds or thousands of
light-years away.

But what makes me con-
fused is that Einstein proved
through his laws of special
relativity, that nothing can
go faster than the speed of
light. Sure, that’s easy e-
nough to comprehend.

It’s known that the faster

_an object travels, the more-

mass (or weight) the object
obtains. And, the lighter an
object is, the faster it can
travel. Photons, which make
up light, are one of the
lightest objects in the uni-
verse. They have no weight
or mass. Since they are

_ travelling so incredibly fast,

they do manage to have
some mass, but when at

rest,(not moving) have no

_ mass at all. So, photons are

one of the lightest objects in

'
--

this universe, and conse-
quently, one of the fastest.
Since there is nothing light-
er, nothing can go faster.

Well, that’s as may be,
but what it does show is that
nothing can go faster than
the speed of light. Not
Battlestar Galactica, not the
Enterprise, not even a Tie-
fighter. In fact, there aren’t
any time or space-warp
ships out there.

Sorry, kids.

Now, all this doesn’t pro-
hibit a ship from going a
percentage of the speed of
light. But don’t forget that
the faster you go, the heavi-
er you get, and the more
energy or force it’s going to
take. So anything short of
nuclear propulsion just isn’t
going to make it. What's all
this got to do with anything?
Not much, actually. But as
far as us humans ever build-
ing any ship for inter-stellar

_ travel, and using nuclear

energy goes, good luck! The
mighty powers that be have
passed one of their brilliant
laws that states that no
nuclear devices shall be trig-
gered in outer space. That’s
real nice as far as limiting
the other powers that be
from blasting us from and to

the great beyond, but it |
stops any real attempts of
getting away any great dis-
tance from Earth. Te silly
thing about them laws is that
outer space is chock full of
radioactivity, and nuclear

explosions happen millions.

of times every second in the
centre of the stars. There are

Right Angles
by Doug Parsons

 

billions and billions of stars

in our galaxy, the Milky
Way, and there are billions
and billions of galaxies in
the universe. Kinda makes
ya feel insignificant, don’t

SHR

Back to Albert E. The
laws of special relativity
take all those facts and
figures into account, and he
says that light’s the limit.
Well | got news for you, kid.
You almost had the answer, _
but you missed it by mere
light-years.

Ya see, something can go
faster than light. Nothing
can! It’s plain and simple.
Nothing is the one thing that
can break the barrier, and it
breaks it all the time. Isn’t it
nothing that’s always the
answer when you divide a
number by zero? Don’t all
those religious zealots out
there say that there’s no-
thing out in space? So, you
say, why don’t we imple-
ment this miracle of logic
into everything- we do? Be-
cause it’s the one thing we
don’t do. Don’t you always
say that there’s nothing out
there we can’t do?

It’s staring us in the face,
and we can’t even.see it. As
far as

travelling faster than light.

There’s another law out «

there are no edges

universe is finite but un-
bounded. That is, it has z
certain mass, a certain a-
mount of stuff in it, but
or
boundaries that contain it. |

| won't go into why thats so,
but suffice it to say, that’s
the way it is. Just think of
the universe as a basketball
and we’re somewhere inside
it. .“/e can’t reach the edge.
because the closer we get,
the more we start bending
away, so that we end up
travelling parallel to the
edge. And-if we go far
enough, we’ll end up where
we started. So if ya want to
see the other end of ’ the
universe, just turn around.
It’s hitting you in the back
of your head!

But I’ve got a theory that
screws it all up. Ya see, my
theory says that all you have
to do is to take some mass __

-.out of the universe. That

would cause -a partial vac-
uum, or in other words, the
ball would deflate. a bit. This
would make the universe
kinda angry, and it would
want it back. Well, just
sorta circle around outside,
and pop back in somewheres
else. The laws about light
would never enter into it.
Out one moment, in the

next, somewhere totally dif-

_ ferent. Voila! Simple!

Now, | know what you’re
saying. You're saying,
‘What does he mean, pop
out of the universe? Ya just
can’t do that!’ Well, poppy-
cock! | say you can. And it’s
easy. - ;

| don’t know if you’ve
ever heard of Flatland, but
I'll give you a condensed
verion of it. Flatland is
actually only two dimen-
sions, like a photograph.

Picture, if you will, a table.
On it are pieces of paper.
Some squares, some circles,
etc. They have no height at
all. They are perfectly flat.
They go about their busi-

I’m concerned, it i
answers all the problems of {

there that Big Al’s also .~

credited with. That’s the
one about *...energy cannot

be created or destroyed, just >

converted.’ Great. Thrilling.
But it’s too easy to say that.
The way | see it, the

   

“Too bad—he was a brilliant theorist.” .

ness in Flatland, going to
the flat market, and back to
their flat homes where their
flat families and friends live.
All they see is one side of
their friends at a time, or a
line. They know that if they
travel around their friends,
they will eventually come
back to where they started.

Now one day, an apple is
quietly flying overhead,
watching our flat friends,
and, in a gesture of inter-
dimensional friendship,. says
hello to our flat friend. This
causes some consternation
to him, as he can’t tell
where the voice is coming
from. So the apple goes
down and bumps our friend, .
sending him careening and
tumbling into the area above
Flatland. Now he can see
down on his city and house,
and even inside his friends.
slowly he returns back down -
to Flatland, where he start-
les his friends by suddenly
appearing out of nothing, in
a totally different place than
he left. And he did this by
entering the third dimen-
sion, up.

Getting back on the track,
all we have to do is push off
into the fourth dimension,
move around a bit, and pop
back in somewhere else,
thousands or millions of
light-years away.!

See! Perfectly simple.
Thanks, you can put the
Peace Prize in my locker.
Well, that’s it for this week.
Watch out next time for my
smashing bestseller,

. ‘Psychosomatic Deaths:

Their Causes and Cures’.
-Be Cosmic!

Useless Quote for the Week
“There is no age limit to
ignorance’ -Lynie Klieberg

 

Punch/London