Sunday, March 14, 2010

The Day the Earth Moved

When I turn on my computer each morning it tells me the time - the time in the Eastern US, that is.  David’s is set to tell Greenwich Mean Time, or the actual time shown  on the clocks here in Scotland.  Typically that serves us well and those of you who receive telephone calls from us, however infrequent, must certainly appreciate that it discourages us from calling you before the sun is awake in NC, FL, NY AZ or CA.  But this morning is different. Does anybody really know what time it is?

Sometime during the night I can only assume that the United States drifted 600 miles to the east, making it 1 hour closer to us than when I went to bed a 11PM GMT (6PM EST) last night. 

When I awoke, the 5 hour time difference had somehow magically been reduced to 4 as if by divine legislation or something.  EXCEPT, I find that AZ was left behind during the shift remaining 7 hours earlier than here.  California however was dragged along and now there is only a 7 hour difference where once there was 8.  All very strange.

I wonder if expensive waterfront property suddenly appeared overnight in AZ?



Having also realized that this is Pi Day I  must wonder if there is some irrational numerical explanation for this phenomenon. Perhaps we should all spend the day writing poetry in Pilish as a way to appease the time gods.  Such poems are constructed so that the number of letters in each successive word is equal to the digits of pi.  One of the most famous of Pilish poems was written by an English (cough,  cough) physicist. Sir James Jeans (oh, perhaps we should all wear jeans while writing poems )

How I need a drink
Alcoholic in nature
After the heavy lectures
Involving Quantum mechanics

Oh how I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after hurting my brain, thinking about all of this (don’t bother to count the letters, it is not Pilish.  I can only do that AFTER the drink!)

Or perhaps we should all bake pies  (while wearing jeans, of course) after which we can calculate their imprecise circumference as a ratio of their diameter.  You can never determine the precise circumference, your know - unless, of course, you just get out a tape and measure the damn thing!  And even then it is confusing as hell because as we all remember the answer to the quiz question is that “pies are square” when we all know they are round and perhaps that is part of the problem we are wrestling with here today.

Square pies must cause the earth to shift. This information might be a great help to the new Chilean president who should get his people out looking for the square pie baker -- pronto.  Perhaps he could send some help to Haiti for that purpose as well.

2 comments:

  1. OMG. My head is spinning right now. And silly me - I baked cookies this morning.

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  2. another great post. Maybe your next pie will crack into the face of Jesus and you can sell it on eBay. I have always felt that when life is not going so well ...make pie. For me- peach or cherry in case you are taking notes.

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