No Man’s Land, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

I remember my shock and scoffing
When I first heard that color
Is not in objects, oh did I object

That cannot be correct, but it was
The world suddenly was topsy turvy
I was beginning to worry

Oh my friend photon
How you stand still
While making the fast and furious
Delirious

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Said if you want to have some fun
Here is what might be done

If you are on the run
And the cops have a radar gun
And you want to beat a ticket

Tire physics is where you could stick it
Where the rubber meets the road
It is not often told, that the contact surface

Is not moving at all
And if that is not weird enough
The top of your tire, is moving twice as fast

As the car itself.

You needed a pause after that didn’t you?
You think I need a padded cell don’t you?
You think I am out of my gourd?

I made this up because I am bored?
Rest assured, my faculties are good
It is just that physics is often misunderstood

We are in no man’s land, not small enough
Not big enough to comprehend
And math in both cases is our only friend

That can help us understand.
That myopic clock on the wall
A thumbnail picture that’s all

Deceptive order in seconds and minutes
And hours, Dalinian paintings devour
Our laypersons point of view.
(end)

1. Color is in light, not objects. Get over it, I had to. I did. And now I love that fact.

2. If you could go as fast as a photon at the speed of light, from that perspective, you would perceive yourself as not moving.

3. Neil deGrasse Tyson gave me a lesson on the physics of your vehicle tires in a short of “Star Talk” I watched online. It is absolutely true that the contact area of the bottom of the tire IS AT 0mph. And the top of the tire is up to 2x the speed of the vehicle itself. Neil said basically if you could construct a device that could fool a radar gun you select the part of the tire that is going slower than the posted speed limit, you could beat the ticket. (not really possible at this point in time).

4. Salvador Dali has that famous melting clock painting and the word for similar styles is called “Dalinian”. It is my metaphor how our perceptions can be so different as far as point of view. In science terms he word is “relativity”.

5. Most people know the formula E=MC2. Deceptively simple but the reality is there is tons of math that go into that formula.

We don’t perceive these things because we are not macro bigger than the universe, nor are we smaller than an electron. We are in the middle, stuck with that boring clock on the wall that gives us the illusion of order. It is perspective ultimately.

I love shit like this, it beats the old goat herding mythology of antiquity.