Old Acquaintance is Not Forgotten

 

Met up with a friend the other day,

we fished and talked and reminisced;

The passage of years spun me away,

left in a state of remembrance bliss.

The span of time over years made me dizzy,

as we recounted people we knew and loved,

or escaped or discarded or left in a tizzy.

All the old feelings that were shoved

aside bubbled back into the sunlight.

No longer anything except friends,

we can share and laugh and remember

all of the experiences covering decades.

We spent some pleasant moments together

before returning to our own living situations.

Finding out some things about each other

we never knew, then or now, that reveal

more facets of each others personalities;

Shortcomings and strong points alike.

A friend rediscovered is a friend anew!

Wacky engineering thought

 

Sometimes coming up with a new tech idea means changing the way we think about physics, and physical laws. Oftentimes they do this with huge mathematical models, etc. But sometimes a different viewpoint can help matters too, or adding another element to the techno-pysical collection or soup.

Rockets lift using the physical concept of action-reaction. A huge hot mass is ejected out the back of a rocket, and it lifts off and ‘rockets’ away. Perhaps the physical concept of action-reaction could be modified. Could there be a way to “trick” a mass into thinking that it is ejecting mass? Somehow at a subatomic level or something. Maybe by just creating a super-hot center and compressing it (without ejecting it), and on some subatomic level the mass comprising the rocket “thinks” it is giving up mass and/or being pushed upward, and therefore the rocket mass reacts by lifting off. Just an idea to play with, something to nudge thinking in this direction.

Maybe there is some way we could manipulate subatomic particles under a rocket and trigger a reaction of lifting off. I’m sure Werner VB and Robert Goddard probably thought about this too. But then again, they didn’t have the tools we do at the present time. Anyway, happy tinkering out there. I hope (or wish) that someone could come up with some novel way of escaping the Earth’s gravity well.

Profundities and Absurdities

 

Sometimes a profound statement or idea will occur to me.

Like ‘time is an accidental by-product of existence’

or ‘when the Big Powers learn to manipulate gravity,

then the real wars will begin.’

Profound concepts of time and space all shifting around.

Time is the 4^th dimension, controlling the shape, look, appearance,

texture of space. Space is always changing in time,

so what space looks like always depends on the timing.

In our minds, all space from birth to present exists simultaneously in memory.

The longer we are alive, the more time is stuffed into us.

Maybe our lifespan depends on how much time our brains can hold.

Pondering that a pot-smoker might have -

or a bored oldster,

typing away another Saturday night.

But the daily absurdities keep playing out in the news,

and overwhelm any rare profound moments.

Polls keep showing a certain candidate beating of his rivals;

He is merely a reflection of the worst in humanity,

a darker image of us that we just can’t escape.

The US forming alliances with other world powers,

and repeatedly getting betrayed by said same powers.

Hemorrhaging billions on warfare with Russia and China,

even if the alternative is worse.

Nature is full of the eaters and eaten.

The bears eat seals or whales, or anything

else they can find that is tasty to them.

Many animals spend all their time

seeking food, fending off attackers,

or mating and rearing their young.

Only humans need to seek out entertainment.

Only we have enough food to eat that we can

seek out other pleasures at our leisure.

Enough random profundity for one evening.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!