Friday, January 02, 2004

A RENT IN THE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM

I thought there was some sort of bizarro-world link between these seemingly unrelated links.

---

It seems that the Universe may be expanding at an ever-expanding rate. Here's an interview with Astronomer Royal, Sir Nigel Rees, from this morning's Radio 4 Today Programme - guest edited by Stephen Hawking.

---

Proof that Santa doesn't exist

"...Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound."



"The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per Second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force."

Ho-ho-ho-ing all the way to a hernia.

---

Meanwhile, boffins are winding up their watches.

"When Big Ben strikes midnight tonight, spare a thought for scientists who take a keen interest in the passing seconds, hours and days: among these elite timekeepers, a dispute simmers over what the time should be...

""Leap seconds", in the form of an extra pip, are sometimes added in December to delay Big Ben and keep atomic time in tune with the cycle of day and night determined by the Earth's rotation. This practice should stop, argue some scientists.

"The row has emerged because, although we still don't understand what time "is" (some say it does not exist at all)..."

So, that's it. Life is just an illusion expanding at close to the speed of light.

:: Posted by pete @ 22:11