Welcome to a discussion about the upcoming 5th Revolution in the US, which I’ve titled the “Revenge Revolution.” For more about the Revenge Revolution and the author, Entry #1.  Periodically I write a “sense check” to assess whether a revolution in the US is possible or whether the entire exercise is based on a statistical aberration — i.e., a roughly 50-year cycle between major upheavals in the US Entry #476 was the most recent “sense check.”

BEGIN ENTRY #495: The story in this entry may be a repeat of an earlier one. However, I think the story is worth telling again.  Besides, the content has nothing to do with politics, international events, or US Revolution V. 

Scene (Decades ago): Misty early November Monday morning, New Canaan, CT. The fall has been very pretty and now the leaves are falling.

I need to get to the office in Manhattan early because a committee of the board of directors meets at 8:00am.  To get there in time, I have to take the first train.  New Canaan is on a branch line and many of the trains are just two cars, aka locally as the Toonerville Trolley.

At the station I grab a coffee and paper and head to the front car.  Train leaves on time.  After you’ve ridden the train for a while, you get a sense of when the next stop should be. About the time for the next stop, I look out the window.  However, rather than stopping we keep on going.  On the platform are commuters frantically waving for the train to stop, but to no avail.  Shortly after rolling through the station, the conductor in the front car orders everybody to move to the back car, stating that we lost our brakes.

Soon after I got in the back car, flip the seat around so I’m facing backwards, I see the other conductor trying to turn a large wheel, which apparently is the hand brake. He is unsuccessful in turning the wheel.  He then gets on the two-way phone with the following message, “Stamford Tower, this is train 1351, Mayday, Mayday!”

Stanford Tower: “Mayday? What are you talking about?”

Conductor: “ Mayday! We’ve lost our brakes!”

Great, what a way to start the week. The two-car train rolling down a slight grade with no brakes. And, without someone switching us to the main line, the Toonerville Trolley will crash into the abutment at the Stamford station.

After getting off the phone with the Stamford Tower, the conductor tries to turn the brake wheel again. This time the adrenaline must be flowing because he slowly turns the wheel and we slowly come to a stop before the next station.  The two conductors chat a bit, then we resume the trip without further incident.

What was the problem?  When the train tried to stop at the first station, there were wet leaves covering the tracks. Since the train was the first one on the branch line, 7-8 hours had elapsed since the last train. During that 7-8 hours more leaves had fallen and because the leaves were wet from the light rain during the night, some wet leaves stuck to the tracks. 

When the conductor applied the brakes for the Talmadge Hill station, the steel wheels slipped on the wet leaves, and we hydroplaned through the station.  The conductors did not realize we were hydroplaning and  thought we’d lost our brakes.

The incident quickly migrated from a seeming crisis to humorous once the cause was determined. Over the years the incident has become more humorous.  Think about it, how many Monday mornings do you start out hearing “Mayday, Mayday, we’ve lost our brakes!“ And yes, I made it to the office on time. END ENTRY #495

Other Topics. Interested in more info about climate change, what’s required to electrify a fleet of cars/trucks, what it was like to work day-to-day with Lee Iacocca and an array of other topics? Visit another page of this website, https://usrevolution5.com/jrd-thought-comments/

Welcome to a discussion about the upcoming 5th Revolution in the US, which I’ve titled the “Revenge Revolution.” For more about the Revenge Revolution and the author, Entry #1.  Periodically I write a “sense check” to assess whether a revolution in the US is possible or whether the entire exercise is based on a statistical aberration — i.e., a roughly 50-year cycle between major upheavals in the US Entry #476 was the most recent “sense check.”

BEGIN ENTRY 494: The question raised in this entry is not new. Certainly, many people over time have asked the same question.  However, so far, no one seems to have been able to answer, and it’s doubtful that mankind will ever answer.

While I think about the question periodically, a recent stimulus has been a series of articles and images from the Webb telescope. The images are from far outer space, and for me, a bit mind bending. The distances and other measurements are even more mind bending.

A recent article discussed an image from an object a mere 100,000,000 light-years away. Actually, I think it was closer to 1,000,000,000,000 light years but you get the idea. 

Just think about how far away the object is. The sun is about 93,000,000 miles from earth. Light from the sun arrives on earth in a little over 8 minutes.  If we take the number of minutes in a day, divide by eight, then multiplied by 93,000,000, that’s how far light travels in a day – 16,095,000,000 miles. Not the distance for a year, but a day. Now think about how far light travels in a year and then think 100,000,000 years.  And you thought the flight from New York to LA was a long one.

Another mind bending statistic is density of some of these objects. Lead is a very dense material. Try and pick up a 12”x12”x12” block of lead.  In a recent article, a tablespoon of a neutron star, which I’m not quite sure what a neutron star is, would weigh about 1,000,000,000 metric tons. Huh?

When referring to an image of an object from Webb telescope, there is the occasional reference to the object being part of the Big Bang. So, here’s the question which first occurred to me during the summer of my sophomore year in undergrad. I was working overtime in a Pepsi bottling plant. My job that shift  was to check bottles coming out of a giant washer for being the right size and/or being dirty. Optical sensors were not as good then as today and I was the back up to the scanners.

The job was boring, which allowed me to let my mind wander a bit. For some reason, possibly because I had taken an astronomy class that semester, I started thinking about the universe. And then whammo, the question hit me. “If there was a Big Bang, where did the stuff for the Big Bang come from?” Stuff doesn’t just appear out of nowhere, especially all those elements connected with a Big Bang. There are lots of “idium”-type elements connected with the Big Bang.  (See the Periodic Table.)

For many people, the easy answer for where the stuff came from is to assume there is a greater power that created the universe. Most religions include a version a version of a “greater power.”

The idea of a greater power is one that frankly avoids the mind warping necessity of trying to figure out what really created the Big Bang. But if a “greater power” created the Big Bang, then still unanswered is where all the stuff came from to create the basketball that eventually went boom and became the Big Bang.

Like I said, there does not appear to be a rational, or even plausible answer.  For all we know, the universe is part of a much larger environment, much like humans are part of a much larger environment for microbes.  That’s another idea to contemplate.  Size is relative. 

If you have an idea on where the stuff for the Big Bang basketball came from, I’m all ears. Such a conversation is much more interesting than the usual conversation these days about incompetent politicians. BTW, if you’re wondering what this entry has to do with US Revolution V, the answer is “nothing.” END ENTRY 494

Other Topics. Interested in more info about climate change, what’s required to electrify a fleet of cars/trucks, what it was like to work day-to-day with Lee Iacocca and an array of other topics? Visit another page of this website, https://usrevolution5.com/jrd-thought-comments/