Single Entity

Things that I think about late at night:

1) So, plate tectonics. They're totally awesome. (I really wanted to use the word "rad." What era slang is that?) But! That means that continents move (up to 10 cm/yr, which means the Atlantic Ocean could grow a meter every five years. A meter!). But latitude and longitude are based on the orientation of the pole around which the earth rotates, which doesn't move. (Well, the whole damn planet wobbles, but the axis stays the same). So...over time, are those coordinates no longer accurate? Because the land mass has moved? And so, should I bury my life's savings at some location, and leave the coordinates with my heirs to be opened in 1000 years, would they be able to find it? Probably -- that's only 100 meters off. But still, the concept of the thing! That the continents move underneath the arbitrary grid we laid on them! And how does it affect longitude, if Greenwich, England moves? 'Cause that one's completely arbitrary. It's crazy shit.

2) Universe expansion. So, everything is contained, right? The earth is in the solar system, the solar system is in the galaxy, the galaxy is in the universe, the universe....the universe isn't in anything! But! But it's expanding. Only, if it's expanding, doesn't it have to be expanding into something? Explain that one to me. But then! It's expanding faster in one direction than the others! So, either something out there is having some kind of gravitational pull, or something on the other side is pushing back and slowing one side down. Except conservation of mass, people! Scientists already had to create antimatter to explain what they were observing, so what about this? It's craziness! What could just be out there hauling on the universe? Is it some kind of giant black hole thing? Do we really need to care? Is that heaven? It's just wacked.

3) ...shit, there was something else. I'm working on it.... Yes! Earthquakes. Specifically, there are these really cool places on the San Andreas Fault that don't have earthquakes. Or, they have a really predicable, really minor earthquake. We're talking about the region that has city-destroying, overpass-crushing, major earthquakes due to plates sliding past each other, but on the same fault are places that just slip on past. There's clear evidence that the land is moving, it's just sliding right on by -- no trouble. Apparently, the ground there is really full of talc, that uber-slippery stone-powder-stuff. Isn't that cool?!? The theory is that the talc just lets the plates slide past each other!

yeah, those are my awesome topics of the day. woohoo!