Tuesday, February 23, 2016

it's now or never

It's now or never.
Could be what you hear from a mattress salesman offering his best deal ever.
OR
Elvis singing to you.


it's now or whatever

Those two now options just are not strange enough for me. If you are interested in this strange subject called physics, you might have thought about time. Time is a strange thing. Einstein really shook up the scientific community when he based a theory on his idea called spacetime. Time and space are connected. Many on this planet combine time and money.

Marcelo Gleiser’s book, “The Island of Knowledge”, has a chapter titled “There Is No Now”. (a better blog post title - Now is never?)

Gleiser gives a real technical explanation. Since the speed of light is finite even the light from something a foot away (the screen you are using to read this) takes about a nanosecond to reach your eyes. (nanosecond is one billionth of second) Then there is the time for the nerve impulse signal to get from the back of your eyes to your brain (microseconds). When you total up the various times, we can’t resolve changes happening quicker than 20 or so microseconds.

I should search for details regarding the aging effect on our sensory times. It can take almost a minute for me to figure out what my wife might have just said to me. Typically, by the time I realize she was talking to me, she has already left the room.

Along with getting paid by the hour, knowing about time is good for planning. For example, I’ve been planning to visit my brother’s in-the-middle-of-nowhere place in August 2017. I did a post about this plan way back in 2010.





It's now or never. How about, it's now or maybe in 5 minutes? Just doesn't have the same impact.

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