Whenever you come here to read what TharpSter.Org is serving up on any given day, do you ever wonder just what exactly was going through my head at the time I set my fingers to the keyboard?
Probably not, but it crossed my mind that such a question might be a good way to start this particular post.
It all started a few months ago when I posted a picture to Facebook of a very sarcastic representation of the square root function. I’d like to think that those of your who are mathematically inclined will appreciate the little joke if you happen to possess a sense of humor.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the graphing of certain mathematical functions, I’ll spare you the pain and anguish. Such knowledge is not a prerequisite for you to continue reading.
You’re welcome.
When I posted the picture, a family member likened the joke to behavior characteristic on the show The Big Bang Theory.
I had never seen the show. In all honesty, I think the only thing I ever watch on CBS with any regularity is the AFC during football season. Beyond that, the network continues to remind me that intermittent attention deficit disorders aren’t always that bad. Even after delivering a wardrobe malfunction courtesy of a couple of pop stars a few years back, I just can’t watch anything on there.
For what it’s worth shows over there on NBC and ABC don’t really keep my attention either.
As a result of the Facebook comments thrown at what I consider to be a brilliant joke, Wifey started watching the show. She’s now got the DVR set to record any rerun on any day and at any time, as well as the new episodes which run on that network which I routinely ignore.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t stress to you enough how much I resisted being sucked in. About six weeks passed of the DVR being loaded up with reruns of that show. Wifey has been good about deleting the episodes after watching them too.
One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I got up and planted my rump on the Ethan Allen (the one facing north), fired up the DVR and started watching the recorded episodes. Just like that.
Well crud. Now there’s another show I have to try to keep up with.
So I told you about my foray into involuntary servitude to those bastards at CBS in order to discuss not The Big Bang Theory, but the big bang theory.
I’ll start by posting the lyrics from the first verse of the theme song for the show in question, as performed by Barenaked Ladies:
Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait…
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!
Overall, one could say it’s a catchy tune and endemic to the sound I typically assign to Barenaked Ladies. Good for them. On a side note, I found a few of the lines from that first verse to be pretty darn close to the Wikipedia entry for the big bang theory.
Coincidence?
Science can be wonderful thing, especially when it’s proven to be correct. The problem is that mankind’s ability to use science to answer why we’re here and how we got this way is like expecting a roomful of monkeys and typewriters to produce the entire works of Shakespeare. Certainly we know the typewriters could be used to do the job, but the end user lacks the mental capacity to hit the space bar twice after every period, let alone try to express to be or not to be.
Notice I said “twice” there when discussing spacing after periods. Kids these days are being taught to space only once after periods when they learn to type. It’s quite barbaric, and the editing here at TharpSter.Org will never subscribe to such crackpot practices.
Even still, we’re told by the scientific community that theories like the big bang have been by in large accepted as actual and factual.
Let’s talk about Sir Isaac Newton. Next to something wonderful he did with figs, I tend to look at his third law of motion to help explain things:
Lex III: Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse æquales et in partes contrarias dirigi.
”
“
To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions.
Life is one big conditional statement based on the premise of “If” and “Then”. If [this] happens, then [that] happens.
Easy as that.
Now I could go into a big ole diatribe explaining in great detail the whole concept of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, but I won’t. If you don’t understand the concept, consider the fact that you arrived at this blog was no co-inky-dink. You either searched out a term on an internet search engine, followed a link from somewhere else, or even typed my URL into your browser.
Congratulations for helping to prove that Newton was right.
Back to the big bang theory.
Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait…
The Earth began to cool,……..
Applying Newton here, I have a few questions:
1. How did the universe get there?
2. What made it hot?
3. What made it dense?
4. Why did it start to expand? (You’re first response is “Probably because it was hot”. Refer to question #2)
5. What caused the cooling?
The problem here is that the big bang theory fails to provide answers to those questions. Going even further, the theme song for the show of the same name fails to give props to the wiki entry which calls attention to the fact that the theory doesn’t get us to the beginning.
Newton’s law applies to more than just motion. The mere fact that I’m here discussing it serves as proof. If cause and effect reign supreme, then science is in the middle of a big ole fail when it comes to explaining how we got here.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezPzOrcf7QE]
