July 27, 2006

Procrastination: It Makes You Feel Good

I am procrastinating right now. I have 9.5 hours of proofreading/grantwriting to do for sure (and probably more because, let's be honest, it usually takes me 15 hours minimum per project) (for longer things, it takes upwards of 70 hours). Every dish I use regularly is dirty and on my counter. I desperately need to clean up my room, to vaccuum, to go to the library and pick up books/drop off books that I'm sure I owe a ton of late fees on, to return things I bought last weekend, to get groceries, to pack for the coming weekend. I need to do invites and pay bills and send out a loan application. At work, I need to proof documents and create new worksheets for people and make up directions for doing stuff on the computer.

I have an assload of stuff that needs to be done before the 15th of August. So what did I do yesterday instead?

I had some tequilla rose and watched a Nova program about String Theory. Mostly, I did this because I thought it would help me with my ideas about time travel for a story I'm working on. It didn't, really, do that. I guess it is not about time travel so much as it is about other dimensions and parallel universes, which is sort of about time travel, but not in the forwards and backwards through time sort of way so much as in the moving forwards more quickly sort of way. They tricked me with their commercials about how you could go back to the 20s. Bastards. But aside from the fact that they wasted several minutes of my life explaining how the universe is like sliced bread, it was pretty good. Just not as relevant as I was hoping it might be.

I guess I doubt the universe is like sliced bread. We Westerners have a tendancy to look at everything as though it should be divided into straight lines. We thought the world was flat (most of the known world probably did, too, but Westerners especially believed this). We think the best model for city street building is a grid. For centuries, we thought that desks should be square and set up in straight lines. And yet the shape of nature's choice appears to be round, people. So, and this is just a supposition because I'm not a scientist by any stretch, it would seem to me that it's likely that the universe isn't an expanding sqare or even a plane. It is probably a sphere, making parallel universes spherical as well. I would also guess that if there are parallel universes, there are probably infitinte numbers of them. My guess is that the things we can see (atoms, planets, galaxies) are models for the things we cannot see (dimensions, universes, time, the smallest particles that make up quarks). But it's just a guess. I don't actually know anything.

And now I'm procrastinating writing this entry by talking about my theories of the universe. To be fair, I did fold my laundry, something I've been putting off since Sunday. Now I just have to cram a full week's work into three days. No sweat, right?

What I really wish is that procrastination would actually make the thing I'm avoiding go away. It does not do that, though, alas, alack.

Posted by LoWriter at July 27, 2006 08:58 AM
Comments

so you're saying the best model for city street building is to have lots of circles and looping roads? tell me that wouldnt mess with everyone's carsick factor... ;o) serioulsy now... can you hear the GPS lady now? "bear right here. keep bearing right. bear right more. bear right in 3 blocks." i guess it would help those special people in the world who hate making left hand turns... addresses would have to be re-thought too. your plot of land would be all askew and pie-shaped... would we have to re-format large cities? fascinating... here i am procrastinating myself.... huh... go figure.

Posted by: dr gonzo at July 27, 2006 09:30 AM

In terms of run-off and vegetation and natural ecology, yes. Also, if you think about it, perfectly straight streets that line up from one end of the horizon to another are bad in a lot of ways. Wind, rain, snow, light (not always a good think when you're driving and trying to see at the same time) can all move through it unhindered. I don't know that loops are the answer, but as far as ecology is concerned, something other than an arbitrary grid is better in a lot of ways. In terms of convenience, probably not, though.

But you're assuming that the city is an ultimately good structure, which I don't neccessarily agree with. And with certain cities, the entire geography was (and is) razed to make way for the grid that was then laid down on top of it without much regard to what it would do to the ecosystems of the affected areas.

All I'm saying is that pretty much since we've been playing around with science and the natural world, we've had to re-think our standard notions of good, bad, ugly, right, wrong, and just generally what makes things tick.

I read once that right angles are rare in nature. I think that this is very telling. And I think it might mean that time is not a straight lines between two points but a sphere. Same with universes and dimmensions.

Posted by: Lo at July 27, 2006 10:57 AM

wow you are terribly philosophical today! i love it!

Posted by: dr gonzo at July 27, 2006 12:13 PM

Circular objects are great for mazimizing volume for less surface area provided the object inside can utilize the complete volume of the shape. Take a tree for example... The trunk is round with lots of wood on the inside but minimum bark on the outside. When the tree gets older, the bark doesn't have to expand much to hold the new growth. Having right angles for things allows us to maximize _useable_ surface area (and volume) by filling it with things that minimize wasted space. It is easy to use all of the space in a box because you can fill it with objects that match its angles. With a round object it is much harder because you have to fill it with objects that match the curve exactly. For example a pallet of bricks has a lot less air space wasted between the bricks than a barrel full of tennis balls.

Posted by: jeff at July 27, 2006 12:20 PM

Good points, Jeff.

But I still wonder are there many naturally occuring (non-man-made) box shapes? Maybe there are and I just can't think of them? But if not, then isn't it possible that the point is not to save space but to do something else entirely that we've missed? Is it possible that we are trapped by the idea that right angles save space because that's how it works in the man-made world and therefore everything must be at a right angle?

For example, say that you wanted the barrel to hold air and tennis balls (or water and round weights--to compensate for floating). Then there really wouldn't be any wasted space, either, because you'd be dealing with two different types of matter that worked in different ways but complimented each other. The problem is not that the space is wasted. The problem is that we don't imagine anyone wanting to store air with tennis balls (or any two different types of matter). Why not? Air is probably more valuable than tennis balls.

In the case of space, dark matter or energy or whatever they're calling it these days fills up some of the space between planets (in current theory). We're not packed into it as tightly as possible. There is "extra" space. It's not a perfect model, but again, I'm not really much of a scientist.

Just some thoughts I've been tossing around.

Posted by: Lo at July 27, 2006 03:17 PM

Anything with a crystaline structure has lots of right angles. Think sand, metals, salts, and water (ice/snowflakes). The roundedness of many things is due to friction wearing off parts of the structure to an unnatural roundness. If you break a rock, you'll usually get sharp edges. It will wear away and become "rounded" with enough wind or water though. Of course that rounding is only to a limit - you may not notice the edges, but if you look close enough (with a microscope) it's still sharp. Of course if you look at the sub-atomic level again you see roundness.

Posted by: Jeremy at July 27, 2006 09:49 PM
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