A friend recently wrote me the following question (I did ask my buddy about copyright infringements prior to posting his comments):
"Chris, what do you think would hurt more: to be microwaved, or to take your helmet off in space? I've been contemplating this all day.
Do you ever think about space? I don't get it. Like one cubic foot of space (the black part), has nothing in it right? How can you have one cubic foot of nothing? That makes my brain hurt to think about. And if there's nothing in it, why is it black? Shouldn't it be clear? I should be able to look at the night sky and see the other side. The inside wall of the end of space must be black in color, that's all I can think of.
If I ever had a band, I would name it One Cubic Foot of Nothing. And we would wear all black and play songs that made people's heads hurt. Let me know if you are in, I need someone who can play the kazoo."
So I replied with:
"I'll join only if I can be the lead singer or drummer. I'll have Jana's brother put a sound proof room in my basement so that we can jam and no one will hear us until we go live and then their heads will hurt. But I would rather call us 'Chris and the One Cubic Foots of Nothing'. Stew it over.
You have a good point (or lack of point, more like you have a good wonderment) about the darkness. I was thinking when I initially read it that it was because the sun wasn't shining on it but that isn't necessarily the case. Like, it is dark here on earth when the sun is in Mexico and Australia, so maybe that is the same in space. But then the inverse would need to be true and there would be times in space when it is really sunny and you would need sunglasses and a beach chair. When you are in space, looking at earth, what does the sun look like? This question might seem odd and/or obvious but I don't really know. I would think it might look like it does from earth or maybe like it does from the telescope pictures on LiveScience.com. I do agree that the wall at the end of space might be a black one, also I think that it might be because there is actually nothing there, and because there is nothing there for such a long viewpoint this nothingness folded on top of itself over zillions of miles can only look black. It isn't like if you stuck a little yellow thing millions of miles away that you would see it just because the other million miles of space between you and the yellow thing is nothingness. Make sense?
My real only pondering about space throughout my life so far has been about stuff like 1) how far does it really go and 2) is there really someone out there and 3) will we ever get to know any of the answers before we die or will we just wonder and not know because THAT specific technology doesn't grow very fast. You go from 1900 to now and we have advanced like 1,000,000 fold compared to what happened from the dinosaur time until 1900. But for space technology it just isn't that easy. Anyway I think about stuff like what I said before and also stuff like was the landing on the moon staged? I think it was. Blue screen, hello.
Helmet off in space because that would be an immediate implosion plus you have the experience of being in space to begin with, which people like Nick Carter pay good money to almost do - also no one would see the mess after you took off your helmet and there wouldn't be a crowd. If you were microwaved it would likely be done on earth and someone like Dafoe or Shattner would find you (reference to American Psycho and American Psycho II), all exploded and burnt and in a giant microwave and such. That would suck for your family to have to see. Rather for them to know you are up in the air somewhere living the American dream, of course maybe your arm might fall down onto Arizona, but otherwise you died a space traveling hero, now that is the way to go. Thanks."
Then I decided to add:
"Can there ever be (or do you think there is) nothing as in completely nothing. Like in space, maybe some of the black space floating up there is void of all gases or pockets of gas etc. or material of any kind, atoms, molecules etc. Heck, for that matter are atom and molecules only for OUR planet? Do they exist in space or other? I forget if the rock crap they brought back from the moon (or so they say - Blue Screen, hello) is full of our same type of rock material as our lovely Earth. I think it is, but I wonder don't you. My buddy thinks there is nothing up there and if you were floating up there you would be actually "in amongst nothing" at times. Obviously he thinks there is pockets of gas etc. that are around but not necessarily everywhere. He is fathomed by the lack of light and the ultimate darkness. I am more fathomed by the fact that I don't know where it ends. He thinks it should be light up there unless the end of space has a black wall. I think that there are so many miles of infinite space out there beyond the space we think we know about that it may never stop, why should it? Luckily for us we will come and go, live and die, and never even see anyone get to the damn next planet over. Maybe a rover here and there but c'mon, that sucks. Moon???!!!??? - if they went there that is pretty pussy (sorry to the youth bloggers for using the word pussy). I think they used blue screens (I know, I have said that like 6x now)."
4 comments:
Now that was worth reading!
Just so you know, I play a mean kazoo.
i don't think you would implode if you took your helmet off in space. I was under the impression that if there is no atmosphere, there would not be a huge buildup of pressure. I mean, the spaceships don't explode when they get out there. i think the space-pressure suits are to PROVIDE pressure, not protect you from it. i think if you took your helmeet off you just wouldn't be able to breathe and, maybe, you would melt, but not implode. why do you think you would implode?
i think being microwaved would be much, much worse. terrible. did you ever see that movie Manhattan Project (i think ) with Matthew Broderick and the chimpanzees? And the chimps are in some sort of project to learn how to fly airplanes to drop nukes on enemies? And they are also being subjected to huge doses of radiation to see how long it would take them to die, and if they could get the plane back okay, or something? And there is almost a meltdown for some reason (i think because Matthew Broderick and his girlfried try to help the chimps escape, and there are bad guys of some sort - maybe Russians, since the movie was from the 80's) And that one chimp - Hercules? - Goliath? - pulls the fire extinguisher out from beneath the wand that makes nuclear energy (?) thus saving the world from a meltdown, but in the process he gets nuked. He doesn't explode but he looks really, really sad, and turns grey, and will die.
I guess if you got microwaved, though, unless someone first poked a hole in you, you would explode. But if someone DID poke a hole in you, you would cook, similar to being in a fire, but from within.
Anyway - i saw Wrong Turn and was very relieved that the **hot** girl didn't get eaten. I knew she wouldn't, though, because she was the hottest one in the movie.
Isn't space pretty much a vacuum? And I think that the reason that it is black is due to a lack of things for light to reflect off of. And there really isn't an end, as space is always expanding (for a much better and longer explanation read a Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking). So, picture this... taking your helmet off somewhere where there is no oxygen and the temperature would freeze you instantly, or being in a microwave that uses electromagnetic waves that have a frequency of approximately 2.45GHz to excite the water molecules in your body and boil you from the inside out (side note: The reason that you can see inside a microwave is because EM radiation in the microwave band has a lower frequency, and conversely a longer wavelength than visible light. Therefore, light waves are small enough to fit between the little holes in the metal/glass in the front of the machine, but microwaves are blocked from escaping) Anyway, I think that I would prefer to be in a band, playing the kazoo, singing songs about space, trying to find the brown note, while someone microwaves me a burrito. Strike that, replace kazoo with tuba (gotta think of my image with the ladies) and keep the rest.
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