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Quarks are these subatomic particles that travel backwards through time. But let me start at the beginning
Part I: The Beginning
Sometimes at night when it's time to go to bed, I just lie awake and think. I just think and think and think some
more, and it's my favorite time of day. Tonight I was thinking about what if there was a tornado and it had lightning coming
out of it, and how that would totally suck. It would be even worse if it smelled like raw sewage, and made beer go sour, and
everywhere it went it made rutabagas grow. I was thinking about rutabagas because I hate rutabagas and turnips, and if I'm
going to invent my own natural disaster, I can't think of anything worse than having one that makes rutabagas grow everywhere.
Just the word rutabaga sounds funny, but to me saying "rutabaga" almost sounds too much like you're trying to
sound funny. Except that I really and truly do hate rutabagas and turnips. There was an episode of Green Acres where,
for some reason, the residents of Hooterville try to establish their town as this big Mecca for rutabagas the same way Florida
is for oranges. And so they sent Lisa up in a balloon and had her throw rutabagas out, yelling "Eat Hooterville rutabagas!"
in her Hungarian accent.
I think people were getting hit by rutabagas dropping from the sky, as if there weren't enough reasons already to hate
them. Anyway, I don't think it worked.
Part II: Math Problems
But those are just things that I think about. There are other people I know about who think about math problems and subatomic
particles, and think that they explain the mysteries of the universe. None of it makes much sense to me, and from what I can
tell all the math problems and theories only seem to explain other math problems and theories, and I don't understand how
they can say that all of these theories increase our understanding of the universe when, so far, none of them can even explain
gravity. And I don't understand how any of that makes me a better person.
Like, first you had Einstein and relativity, which I don't understand except that it had something to do with the speed
of light and didn't have anything to do with hair care products, apparently. Look at this dude's hair. You'd think with all
that accumulated knowledge, he'd have learned to use a comb.
Then came quantum theory, and I'm not sure who thought that one up but I do know that at least no one ever used it to
make a bomb and kill people with. And I know that the dude on Quantum Leap used it to make a time-machine and a really
awesomely kick-ass TV show.
Quantum Theory and Relativity were both super advanced and totally complex and no one except for a few totally geeky
science-grokking doofuses could even understand them. And they were mutually exclusive and even though folks believed that
they were both true, no one seemed to understand how they could both be true at the same time.
And then came string theory, which filled in the gaps.
In many ways, string theory is like Elvis. Before Elvis there was white music and black music, there was country and
R&B, and there was no crossing over and everyone kind of kept to their own side of town. Elvis brought everyone together,
black and white and rich and poor, and for a time the song Don't Be Cruel was number one on the Pop, Country, and
R&B charts all at the same time. I swear. Nothing was ever the same after Elvis.
String theory was kind of like that, bringing together the quantum theory fans and the relativists. It just answered
everything for everyone.
Part III: More Math Problems
None of this makes any sense to me, and I totally don't get how any of it applies to my life. I don't know, though, because
the science guys say it does. I'll believe it when we have cars that fly and cities on the moon and robot hands that
brush my teeth for me.
There's a show on TV now called Numb3rs, that's about a super-genius math dude who uses sophisticated algorithms to recognize
patterns of behavior to predict crimes. He does all this despite the fact that he doesn't seem to recognize that the number
3 is not a letter of the alphabet, even though it kind of looks like one.
I don't know that I buy that, either. It's all very left-brained and I think to balance things out they should have a
show where some other dude uses poetry and ballet to solve crimes, even though that's kind of gay. Especially if he wears
those tighty-tights that shows off his package while he's dancing the criminals to death.
On the other hand, no one really cares.
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