Science Watch: Gravity's Rainbow
Crazy universe! Mars life! Sun plasma! Tech toys! Electric powers! Chimp people! Danger gas! And dinosaurs that lived beneath the sea! It's your Wednesday Science Watch, where we watch science—cause it's our prerogative!
-Now I'm going to explain to you in layman's terms the "Rainbow" theory of the universe, in which gravity effects different wavelengths of light in different ways and the Big Bang doesn't exist: [A PICTURE OF A RAINBOW. WHAT ARE THOSE MARKS ON IT? WELL I HAD TO ERASE THE MY LITTLE PONIES WITH A PENCIL ERASER.]
-Are we entering the era during which we will at last discover life on Mars? First of all, I have a bone to pick with your word usage: we don't "enter" an era. We move into it collectively, as a group. The change is gradual.
-The sun's rotation is driven by huge plasma flows that transport heat from its innards to it surface. No duh. What else would it be driven by, an IHOP Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity Meal? Come on.
-The "tech crowd" has gotten so out of control these days that now you have a toy box that can only be opened with a child's fingerprint. Great work Einsteins, what do you think those children are going to put in their secret boxes? Whores is what. And you won't be able to get to em.
-Rethuglican anti-intellectuals often accuse This Column of being "hostile" to scientists. On the contrary, you bunch of neo-McCarthyites, we could not be more welcoming towards scientists—dozens of whom we welcome into our home each Thanksgiving for our annual Free Scientist Thanksgiving Meal (with pie). Can our brutish critics say the same? We find it telling, this thoroughly imaginary anti-scientific attitude, projected upon us by those who themselves may be guilty of same. It is always the loudest accusatory voices that conceal the darkest of souls. No, we're not "hostile" to scientists. Except for those motherfuckers increasing the power output density of tribolectric generators. Fuck them.
-A court has ruled that chimpanzees are not people. Wow!!!!!
-Fine, maybe there's a greenhouse gas 7000 times more powerful than your standard fossil fuels. There's probably also an ancient grasshopper who was 7000 times more powerful than modern grasshoppers, or a motorcycle that's 7000 times more powerful than the human foot. You see what I'm getting at?
-Scientists found a cliff under the ocean, so what conclusion did they draw? "Hey, I bet this cliff had something to do with why all the dinosaurs went extinct." I swear man, when I imagine these scientists at work, I imagine a scene out of the Three Stooges, with Larry and Curly looking through microscopes, and all of a sudden Moe comes in and says "So, what did you discover today?" And Larry says "I found an underwater cliff!" and Curly says "I found out why dinosaurs went extinct!" and Moe is like, "Really, guys? This is what I have to put up with on a daily basis?" But their research checks out.