Sunday, September 12, 2010

Relativity & Definity: Like Oil to Water?

Doesn't it seem like the world is against you when you rush to the train terminal and the doors JUST closed? The time board shows a slow countdown of seconds, one by one, to the deadline of the train's departure...but couldn't the train just wait for just one more second? And the world seems to have the timing just right when you are in the mood to eat popcorn at your next movie screening, but for some odd reason the machine is "broken" today...How about all of those times when you were on the brink of an A- with an 89.5 but the teacher wouldn't round up? When you arrived late to work by just ONE minute...but it was the third time this week?

Relativity or not? When I eat out with  a friend but I don't have enough change and she covers for me, even though I will pay her back later..and when I do, I'm a couple of cents short. My personal philosophy on this matter is simply that it all smooths out at the end.

For all of those moments in which definity is called upon, relativity scoops-in a place for itself. I wonder how it is possible to measure time, money, and all other definite things--when, on so many occassions, it is hard to formulaically carve out the right portions. Are there really 100 calories in every 100-calorie pack oreo snack? And, every time there is breaking news, doesn't the network have to re-assign the stories it had planned to air? How much of uncertainty can we predict? And how does it feel to expect uncertainty, to measure it, and realize that it occurred without you knowing? Albert Einstein once said, "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."

Relativity in art occurs just as equally as relativity in science, despite the fact that scientific endeavors require precision. Are there not intervals in which polls decide PLUS or MINUS the standard deviation? Are there not endless solutions to calculus equations involving ∞?  Therefore, could it not be argued that a certain "pinch" of relativity is required in the formula of definity?

It is my impression that we are in a constant struggle to acheive every grain of measurement SO precisely so that the hourglass of definity is the same, after every twist up-side down and down-side up, each passing of sand reflects the same hour as the last. But what happens when our attachment to definity becomes dependency? If we are relying on the definite hourglass to say as it should, are we not permitting the allowance of relativity? Why has it become so unacceptable to have an extra grain of sand? Will we not need that extra grain..in case one of the others gets stuck within the crease of the wood?