Quark, Strangeness and Charm - Part 9

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The ramblings of the last sane me

I look at my watch. It is a very nice Tag Heuer F1, and I see the second hand ticking away towards the next minute, the next hour and the next day. Always at the same, carefully regulated pace and yet under certain circumstances it seems to race past in an uncontrollable rush and in others it crawls along stretching seconds into hours. But that
hand always moves at the same even pace, ticking inexorably towards the next minute.

They say that time waits for no man. This is a slight distortion of reality while at the same time it is accurate. The distortion occurs because of the theories of another great scientist - Albert Einstein.

In a very simplistic form his theory goes along the lines of the faster you travel the slower time moves. Therefore if you can travel fast enough time will come to a virtual standstill.

It is obvious to me that he never had to wait for a bus in the pouring rain on a cold winters day in Birmingham. Because time slows down to a point where it seems to stand still while you are, in fact, standing still. Travelling at the speed of light becomes a pointless dream when you can stop time by simply waiting for a bus.

At the opposite end of the scale time seems to fly past when you are enjoying yourself. This enjoyment can take on virtually any form, from reading a good book to going out with friends. You must have experienced it yourself. You arrange to go out for a beer with a friend, or friends, and it feels as if that no sooner than you have arrived in the pub/bar/
restaurant than it is last orders and the night has vanished. You stretch out the final moments of the night saying farewell until there are no words left for saying good-bye and yet we still look for something else to say to prevent the inevitable parting of the ways.

Another phrase that deals with time goes:

'If you stand in the same place and stare at the same thing long enough the world will eventually come around again.'

But then again all this goes to prove is that time is not only relative but subjective. When viewed objectively time does appear to move in a rigidly linear manner and yet, when we are living through these moments, they become totally subjective and minutes can last hours, hours can pass in seconds.

Enjoy every second, dull or exciting, and life will not appear to pass you by but you will experience more than you ever realised was possible.

Some time, possibly years, ago I made a promise to myself to learn one new thing every day. When you pay attention to what people say during the course of an average day it is incredible how much we could learn if only we listened to what people say. Sadly we spend so much of our daily conversations working out what we are going to say next that we don't always hear the answers that are given to us and so as a
consequence sometimes walk away more confused than when we started. This inability to listen can lead to unnecessary arguments and petty bickering which causes more trouble than it is worth and yet it would only take a very small amount of effort, to listen, to avoid and would probably achieve far more satisfying results.

But as a species humans do like to argue, don't they?

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