Science-page 2

To explain all of this meandering, intricate systems were devised to explain their actions. To this day, horoscopes depend heavily on the apparent wandering of the planets. Then some bright boy said, "Wait! If the Earth and all the planets were to go around the Sun, that would explain the wandering!" And of course it did.

As the earth overtook or was passed by planets, their apparent motion in relation to ours would make them seem to wander back and forth. All the kinks were worked out of motions of the heavens.

Great...but what holds the planets where they belong? Little tracks? Gold chains? God? Ah, gravity. Of course, it was gravity (we're nearing my point. Bear with me). Physicists have experimentally (experimentally. That means they've watched something over and over until they see clear patterns) determined simple algebraic formulae to determine the attraction between any two objects with mass that are separated by any amount of space.

Einstein took it even further and explained gravity roughly like this: space and time are like a huge trampoline. Anything you put on the trampoline will cause it to sag and that sagging will pull in other objects, just like balls rolling down a hill.

Amazing. Through simple observation (and some brave leaps of intellect during particular time periods) we have the theory of gravity. OK. But why do two masses "dent" space/time? That can't be answered. There's nothing to observe. Science can run along fine until...oops, there's no more track. The frontiers now lie in accelerated particle physics, using gigantic cyclotrons. But they too will hit the wall.

Man will never "invent" anything. We will simply continue to observe the universe around us and find new combinations of things to make. Should we just reach a certain level of knowledge and simply say, like a frustrated parent, "just because?" That worked for the Europeans during the Middle Ages.

Until we can find something beyond science, humanity is destined simply to follow the dots and create ready made pictures; we'll never be able to make a simple stick drawing on a blank page. If we could understand the fundamentals of the universe? Well, then we'd be gods, wouldn't we? We could make our own rules.

Anyway, I'm going to go pull my lever...I'm hungry.

Chain Letter
As promised last week, here's a chain letter for you to copy and mail off to friends. If you'd like an e-mail version to distribute, just contact GDT, and we'll send you a copy.

Remember: chain letters are frowned upon by the US Postal service, so don't send this to anyone.

29 October, 1995

Before you immediately throw this letter out, please let me explain its purpose: this is a test to see just how efficient the postal systems of the world are.

Have I gotten you interested? Well, let me explain; This letter originality appeared in Volume 2, issue 8 of a satire publication, Gracies Dinnertime Theatre, printed on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester New York, USA. Anyway, the whole thing got started when the US Postal service lost an issue that had been mailed to us from our illustrator. Needless to say we had to publish without illustrations...and we're bitter.

This letter is much more than revenge, however. Our goal is to get it as far and into as many countries as possible (here's where you help). Just make a copy of this letter and mail it off to some friends. If you're mailing it to a country where English is not the most common language, please translate this letter before mailing it.

After you do that, get in touch with Gracies Dinnertime Theatre, either through a letter, postcard, or e-mail, and just tell us the name of your city, state or province, and country. It would also be nice if you could tell us where you received the letter from, originally.

Then we plot out on a map just how far this letter gets.

That's it. No money. No threats of bad luck.

Remember: chain letters are frowned upon by the US Postal service, so we urge you all not to follow the above instructions.

You can get in touch with Gracies Dinnertime Theatre via:

Gracies Dinnertime Theatre

care of
438 Clay Road. Apartment C.
Rochester, New York 14623
United States of America

If you have access to electronic mail, you can reach us at STH8884@ritvax.rit.edu

We won't be able to update everyone who responds to this letter as to how far it gets, but if you have access to the internet, you can check on progress by visiting http://www.csh.rit.edu/~diablo/gdt/gdt.html

Thanks for your time.

-Gracies Dinnertime Theatre

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