Beau Elliot
As we delve, or dive, or disappear deeper into these days (or daze) of peculiar velocity, one thing becomes certain (or nearly certain, or kind of certain, or perhaps) — the more things change, the less we believe.
(Sorry, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr; I’ll buy you an Armagnac the next time I see you.)
What’s that you say? Peculiar velocity? No, it’s not what you think, a measure of Trumpahontas’ meandering presidential campaign. It’s an astrophysicists’ thing. So much is, it turns out.
But then, they study the Universe.
Perhaps they could study the arc of British conservative Boris Johnson’s career, which rather resembles a meteor suddenly becoming a meteorite. Johnson, one of the main champions of Brexit, was all set to become Britain’s next prime minister. But no. Friend and colleague Michael Gove (pronounced “guv,” of course) cut in on the dance, and now he’s running for head of the Conservative Party. Johnson is left out in the interstellar depths, where, I take it, there is peculiar velocity. Perhaps Boris was looking for Gove in all the wrong places.
But there’s maybe a bright spot for Johnson; he was, it turns out, born in New York City. So maybe he’ll run for U.S. president (well, if he has’t given up his American citizenship). He’s got all the prerequisites: Trump-like hairdo, Trump-like bluster, and Trump-like immigrant-phobia. He’d be perfect for those Republicans who want the Trump without all the Trumpahontas.
And then there’s this, speaking of peculiar: In a recent Public Policy Polling survey (as noted by the “Rachel Maddow Show”), 43 percent preferred Clinton, 38 preferred Trump, and 13 percent preferred that a giant meteor hit the Earth.
Um, yeah.
That giant-meteor thing, we should note, would probably kill most of the life on Earth. I mean, you can dislike Clinton and Trump all you want, but that seems a tad harsh. Just ask the dinosaurs. Next time you see one.
Also, it would make finding a decent restaurant open on a Thursday night a bit difficult. (Hmm, they all seem to have burned down. And I was so looking forward to some Thai curry with calamari. Sure beats more barbecued grubs.)
And, oh yeah, 7 percent of the people surveyed weren’t sure. (You just gotta love those unsure people; let’s see: A] President Clinton, B] President Trump, C] Unimaginable Conflagration. You know, usually on multiple choice, I pick C], but now, perhaps I’m not sure.)
Yes, we know, those numbers don’t add up to 100 percent. There’s this thing called rounding, which often seems to work as well with percentages as buffering videos do on my computer. And besides, once the giant meteor hits, math will probably go the way of most of life.
I understand that most people do not consider math to be a way of life. But you know what? After the meteor hits, even mathematicians won’t be much interested in elliptic curves and complex multiplication, harmonic analysis and non-smooth domains, metaplectic forms, and nonlinear wave equations. They’ll be too interested in finding some barbecued grubs.
Peculiar, huh? Or perhaps you’re still unsure. Perhaps you’d say, as Samuel Beckett once said, maybe unintentionally, as so many things are these days: I’m still waiting.