No Way!

This week, dear readers, we are going to mess with your heads. I have been thinking about all the things that we are told and which we absolutely believe because we hardly ever look into them or think about them ourselves. These are a few of the ‘facts’ I’ve been musing upon lately.

Number 1: the map of the world.

The most widely used map of the world is the Mercator map, shown below. It is also probably the least accurate in terms of showing the reality of land masses.

The Gall-Peters map below is much more accurate with regards to the relative sizes of the continents, although even that map has distortions at the poles and equator. Quite a difference, non?

Number 2: The Earth

The beautiful blue marble. Seen in every school and university on this planet in the shape of a globe mounted on a pedestal. See that empty space next to the picture above? That’s a representation of actual single pictures showing what the Earth looks like. There is not one single entire picture of this planet taken from space. Every image produced by NASA that you’ve ever seen is a compiled image. There appears to be some difficulty in taking a single shot of the Earth from space – preferably one showing the current stars in the background. I’m sure they’re working on developing a camera that will produce this epic photo, even as I write.

Number 3: Gravity

As I write, there is no empirical proof that gravity exists, outside of inductive reasoning. We can see that objects which are heavier than air will drop to the Earth due to their density. What I have never personally observed is the attraction pull that an object of large mass exerts on a much lighter object, viz, I have never seen a skyscraper attract so much as a potato crisp or a feather. My physicist friends tell me that the mass differential is too small, and that I am a bear of very little brain. Doubtless, they are right. However, they are unable to explain to me how gravity can exert such a pull that the immense mass of oceanic waters are grounded to the Earth even in the Antipodes, and yet a gnat or a fly can escape that force by utilising the ‘lift’ achieved by its extremely unsubstantial wings. Yes, I’ve heard all the explanations, and no, it still makes no sense to me. There may very well be a gravitational force out there, but the theories we have explaining what it is, and how it functions, including Einstein’s general relativity theory, do not account for some serious anomalies.

I could go on. To quote Billy Boy, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. You weren’t expecting all this science and uncertainty, were you? But if we don’t even know about where and how we live, relying on misconceptions and what we are told, how do we know who we are? Truth is absolute; it is the only concept that does not allow for prevarication. Love, Honour, Fidelity, etc etc, they can all have shades of grey. Truth is therefore the most precious concept we have; something cannot be partially true, in the same way that a woman cannot be partially pregnant. You either is, or you ain’t 🙂

I would be interested in hearing about the stuff that blows your minds. I’m skiving off work this week so I have plenty of loafing time………assuming that time itself exists and is not an artificial construct as I have sometimes maintained (usually after a few ciders) from time to time. Aaargh! There’s no escaping the wretched word 🙂 Have a terrific 168 hours.