post-foo The Thoughts and Sayings Of Baba Doodlius: Drawing You In

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Drawing You In

Howdy all you Steeplechasers of Inquisitiveness running around the Track of Knowledge, leaping the Hurdles and Water Hazards of Obfuscation, to win the Gold Medal of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with a Revelation of another Mystery of the Universe!

  • Seriously, humans, what's up with that "steeplechase" thing? It sure seems like a strange athletic event, running around jumping over walls and pools of water. Throw in some crocodiles, vine swinging, and gold bars and you could call it "Pitfall".


Left: Steeplechase now. Right: Steeplechase made more interesting by adding vines and crocodiles.

As you may have noticed, I have athletics on my mind lately, ever since a friend told me that I should watch these "Olympic Games" that you humans love so much. I started watching, and I had not been able to tear my eyes away until the closing ceremonies were over. The things you humans do are just fascinating! And it's not just the performances - even coming up with some of the events took some serious human ingenuity. I mean really, only humans could have come up with "Rhythmic Gymnastics" - what the heck are they doing, jumping around with a big ball or a ribbon on a stick? I never would have even thought to do anything like that, and humans make a world-wide contest out of it! And I'm not even going to get into the global geopolitical ramifications of "Synchronized Diving".


Left: She's doing something called "Rythmic Gymnastics". Right: I'm not really certain what these guys are trying to do.

Everyone has their favorite events, and I don't mean to belittle anyone's preferences, but like most humans I have mostly been paying attention to the "marquee events", like swimming, track & field, gymnastics, and basketball. For those of you who have not been paying attention, I shall hereby summarize each of these event categories:
  • Swimming. From the press coverage, I'm pretty sure there was only one serious competitor in the pool at this Olympics, and his name is Michael Phlippers. He won every event, including the Women's 4x8000 Meter Blorkstroke.

  • Track & Field. Jamaicans run faster than any other humans. In fact, one of them called Usain "Lightning" Bolt (I swear I did not make that name up) actually runs faster than most horses and a more than a few gazelles.

  • Gymnastics. The citizenry of China is stronger and more agile than everybody else on the planet, making the other countries' gymnastics contestants look like a bunch of seasick porcupines.

  • Basketball. The United States men's team is made up of freaks of nature who can jump over adult male African elephants and won all of their games by a combined score of 3,176 to 25.

So these Olympics are not so much about human versus human contests - its more like a series of utterly dominating performances. So the Olympic Spirit is not really about beating your fellow humans, it's more about competing against the very Laws of Nature. Frequently the worst law for competing against would be the Law of Gravity, which tends to make the primary Olympic activities like running, jumping, and throwing hugely difficult. And with Gravity we have a Serious Mystery of the Universe!

Right now you might be thinking "There's no Mystery about Gravity. Sir Isaac Newton figured most of it out over 300 years ago and Einstein pinned it down about 100 years ago, so there's no room left for any Mystery at all!" Well lah-tee-dah, just who's the Mystery expert around here anyway? It just so happens that Gravity is one of the most enduring Mysteries in all of science! It's such a tough Mystery that most physicists won't even ask the big question


Just What the Heck Is Gravity, Anyway?


Think about it: two objects are mysteriously drawn towards each other, even if they are separated by billions of kilometers! Under extreme circumstances, like near a Black Hole, even light cannot escape the inexorable pull of this spooky force. Sure, thanks to Newton we can describe how Gravity works, and Einstein said Gravity is caused by massive objects denting space-time like a big dude on a trampoline, but nobody in the world really knows WHY it works like it does. What kind of force is so incredible that it could bend the very fabric of the Universe?


An illustration of Gravity: Imagine the big guy in the middle is the sun, and space is the trampoline. Not hard to see that things are gonna get sucked right down into the middle, eh?

One of the big projects in science right now is to detect "gravity waves", which, if Einstein was right, would be produced by such common things as two black holes orbiting each other. Currently there is a herd of science-type folks out there hard at work looking for these waves - and by "hard at work" I mean "they're spending a veritable assload of money designing instruments sensitive enough to detect them". Finding gravity waves would yield great insight into the true nature of gravity, but so far scientists have had no luck in this cosmic endeavor.

Being of such curious nature, I decided to take my super-duper Bird Cam out, take some close-up pictures of orbiting black holes, and see if I could use my unique analysis skillz to get to the bottom of this whole gravity wave Mystery.

So here's a pic I took of some orbiting black holes, about 7 billion light years from Earth. (I have one hell of a zoom lens!)


Two orbiting black holes, magnified about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times.

Not much to look at, really. There are no obvious signs whatsoever of any gravity waves. But the Universe is no match for my photo enhancement ability! If there's a gravity wave in there, I'll find it!

Let's see... change the brightness a little... tweak the saturation... add some color for contrast and visual effect... aaaaaand voila!

A Gravity Wave is clearly visible! What's more, the shape of that wave reveals the True Nature of Gravity, a force capable of altering the curvature of the Universe itself!



Gravity Waves are heart-shaped, leading one to the inescapable conclusion that

Gravity = Love!

That's right, the reason that every object in the Universe tries to get closer to every other object is because they all love each other! The entire Universe is nothing but one big-honkin' group hug of epic proportions!

Those who say that "Love makes the world go 'round" are exactly, scientifically correct. So c'mon all you humans - let's stop with the hate and war and violence against each other and just let Gravity take its course!

And in the spirit of the day, I hereby refuse to fight Gravity/Love by not going to the gym to lift weights tonight. The Way of Love is a whole lot less tiring, but also much less likely to lead to me getting any Olympic medals. Guess I'll just leave that to Mr. Phlippers.

16 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

The steeple chase was invented by Tarzan in his early "pre-swinging" period. Gravity is love, but too much love can kill you, like when you jump off a tall building. And Goldfinger died when he got sucked out of his private jet.

AZZITIZZ said...

Ah-ha!
So when I get on the bathroom scales I shouldn't get upset and scream as the needle shoots round to some utterly stupid figure, I should just smile knowing I'm full of love, lots and lots of love.
Hmmmm, like that idea.
Now where's that chocolate!!!

Azzy
X

Gypsy Butterfly said...

Hello baba doodlius,
Thank you for filling me in on the olympics. I have to admit I've not been following it at all.
I also love the photo of the burning heart in space. Your quote is very right on the need for less hate in the world.
Wishing you a wonderful day,
Lydia

Baba Doodlius said...

Gorilla: I had no idea Tarzan had a "pre-swinging" period. I thought he was always into swinging.

Azzy: Very nice observation on your part. I've noticed that as I get older I have also become much more full of love.

Lydia: You just can't argue with the Laws of Nature! You have a lovely day as well!

Alex the Blogging Kat said...

Hi, Misser Baba Doodlius birdie! Tank u fir da tingz u sayz on my bloggie thingie. OK?

I wantz u to knowz dat I dunt chasez birdies! OK? I chases squirliez an mousies but I dunt chasez no birdies. OK? I teazez da woofie doggie in da yard next door but I dunt chasez no birdies. OK?

U comez back an seez me again? OK?

Marja said...

Dear Baba I love this post and can feel the gravity. loved the olympics as well and there was also (if you gravetated to it) a Dutch gold medal swimmer.
So now the beatles can sing "All we need is gravity, tatadadada"
Baba enjoy your day Have a good flight, we can't do that (gravity)

linda said...

So, um, gee, some parts of my body really just love my feet if that is what gravity is......

The Topiary Cow said...

Baba already has gold medals as far as Cow is concerned, for his abso-tively wondermous exposes of Unspoken Truths.

Cow now deciding to give an epic group hug to baba (hey, watch the feathers, Topiary!) Moo! (wing flutter)Moo!

Unknown said...

Pitfall!!! what a great memory. The only thing I can think of that might disprove the gravity=love theorem is how gravity=disaster for the 4 x 100 american relay teams. Is there an explanation for this corollary of the rule.

Baba Doodlius said...

Alex: Hope you're feeling better, and thanks for stopping by and not chasing birds. We appreciate it.

Marja: Congrats to Inge Dekker, Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Femke Heemskerk and Marleen Veldhuis, who set an Olympic record in the Women's 4x100m Freestyle Realy! Also congrats to Maarten van der Weijden who took gold in the Men's 10k (wow!) Marathon Swim!

Linda: Well, I'm sure your feet are significantly lovable.

Cow: Thank you very much for the comlpetely undeserved gold medal. Moo back atcha!

Ninja: I don't suppose you've ever been in love then, eh? It's not always all milk and honey, dude. You have to make sure you find the right person/bird/whatever to love, like I did with Mrs. Doodlius.

Anonymous said...

You make the Olympics sound so exciting!

Moooooog35 said...

This explains why my Uncle always insisted that we "let gravity take over."

My therapist will be thrilled. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

i like it, gravity = love. well, sort of true.

Baba Doodlius said...

Odd Facts: Oh, yes, the Olympics were very exciting. Except for 90% of the events like "Team Cronkhosing", which didn't get much TV air time, for good reason.

Mooooog: Uh, you're welcome. I think.

Savvymode: Well, of course it's true! If you read it at the home of the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, you have my personal guarantee that it's 100% true!

Kat Mortensen said...

I'm coming to this discussion after the fact, so I'll ask a more contemporary question: what's up with Lance Armstrong going back in the Tour de France? (You know I did predict this a couple of years back after he won his last TdeF). I guess post-Crow, he has something yet to prove. Any thoughts, Oh Great and Powerful One?)

Kat

Adele said...

The heart shaped gravity waves are beautiful!