Zero Gravity

My mother used to tell me to “stand up straight.”

It was one of her favorite things to say: “Stand up straight!”

Many other people, I have discovered, also grew up hearing that phrase. It’s nearly universal. As if mothers were programmed to say it. In fact, I believe mothers have been telling their children to “stand up straight” longer than we realize. Perhaps even to pre-human days.

What if that were the driving force behind the evolutionary trend to walk erect?

Mothers nagging their children up the evolutionary ladder:

“Stand up straight!
“Don’t drag your knuckles when you walk!
“What’re ya born in a tree?
“You want the other families to think we’re not evolving?”

“No, mom…”

Then: “How many times do I have to tell you?”

And, therein lies the origin of mathematics:

“How many times?…well, if I put the three here and carry the one….”

I noticed a long time ago, whenever my mother would lose weight, my father would gain weight. And when my father lost weight, my mother gained weight.

It was like the Conservation of Mass, within our family.

Being the young scientist that I was, I developed a theory to explain the facts: You see, you never actually lose weight….you just give it to somebody else.

Fat can be neither created nor destroyed. It’s one of the basic laws of the universe. You need to know the laws if you’re gonna live here.

Once, when I was maybe ten years old, I asked my dad, “Why is the sky blue?”

A pretty reasonable question for a little ten-year-old scientist. But he wasn’t in the mood.

He said, “Go ask your mother.”

And I thought: Great, she knows.

I turned from my dad, and headed toward the kitchen, knowing I was one step closer to having my answer.

And as I rounded the corner, I was experiencing the thrill of the Scientific Method. I was following in the footsteps of Galileo and Isaac Newton.

And, to a certain degree, I was correct. I was, indeed, one step closer to my answer. Not the answer, but an answer.

There she stood. I took a deep breath, and asked her, “Mom, why is the sky blue?”

And I’ll never forget her response:

“Because I said so.”

At first, I was in awe of my mother. Later, I learned not to trust her in matters of science.

(The real reason the sky is blue has to do with light scattering by oxygen and nitrogen molecules. The Usenet Physics FAQ of UC Riverside has a good explanation - including the role Albert Einstein played in proving it was the air molecules themselves that were responsible and not particles of dust or droplets of water vapor suspended in the air)

I’m a Jew from Texas - a relatively rare breed, we can’t even propagate in the wild.

So, before my migration to Northern California - which is counter to the eastward migratory pattern characteristic of my kind - a migration which, over time, deposits us in the Sunshine State like calcium carbonate on a stalagmite - I had the opportunity to make sociological and psychological observations of an uncommon species.

I hope to someday publish my findings and share with the world these curious and fantastic tales.

The working title of my book is The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Yarmulke.

My sister told me recently that she won’t eat Chinese food anymore because it has too much sodium.

But isn’t that ridiculous? To single out one element from the Periodic Table? You’d have to have a pretty sensitive palette:

“Oh, I don’t eat Mexican food… too much magnesium!“

or

“Waiter, I’m sorry, I asked for the beryllium on the side…”

or

“Nothing ruins a ham and cheese sandwich like a tad too much molybdenum.”

How many times have you said that?

Personally, I love Chinese food. I don’t care if there’s plutonium in it… it might be a little hot, but I’m eating it.

Both my parents smoked cigarettes while I was growing up, and I grew to dislike them (the cigarettes, not my parents).

I’m a non-smoker, but not a militant one. In fact, I think some of the smoking restrictions here in California are a little extreme. Maybe even comical.

My favorite example is the San Francisco airport. The only place you are allowed to smoke is in a special glassed-in room. It’s like a terrarium, in which you can view the smokers in a recreation of their natural habitat.

If you haven’t seen it, get to the airport; it’s worth the price of admission. They have a lounging area, and a pacing area (because the smokers need their exercise).

If you come at the right time, you might see a couple out basking on rocks, or fighting amongst themselves. Grooming each other. You see the parents bringing their kids up to read the little plaque: Homo emphysemas.

The only thing they don’t have is one of those coin-operated machines so you can buy cigarettes to toss out to the smokers. That would complete your zoo experience:

“Hey, check it out! He’s smoking the one I threw! Isn’t that cute? Oh my god, that male smoker is trying to mount that female smoker! They’re trying to make little smokers!”

For all that astronomers and physicists, philosophers and poets have learned about the universe since women and men first peered out of those tiny holes in our skulls, we are still no closer to answering perhaps the most fundamental cosmological question of all:

Why is there something instead of nothing?

But I have my own theory:

It was a tax write-off.

It was more beneficial to have a universe than not to have one. And it was designed to fail - which it has, if local conditions can be taken as any indication.