Am I the only one who remembers absolutely nothing from high school physics? Because I don't. And the worst thing about forgetting physics is I feel like it would have been really useful knowledge. Chemistry, worthless. History, a joke. No one has ever asked me how many atoms of boron are in a mol, or needed to know the thirteen social factors leading to the Franco-Prussian war. But almost every day I think about physics.
Tonight on the way home, it felt for a second as though our metro car was going the wrong direction. And I thought, if our metro car is traveling at a speed of 60 miles per hour in the wrong direction, and the other one is shooting toward us also at a speed of 60 miles per hour in the right direction, and the cars are made of steel, and I am in the third car, will I live to solve this physics problem?
Our physics teacher would give us constants to use in these equations - the velocity needed to melt steel or the minimum weight that would crush a human skull. I would write these golden numbers in the back of my physics notebook, knowing they were sure to come in handy. But what did I do with that notebook? Threw it away with my chemistry and history ones. And that's why I'm sitting on the metro car, possibly minutes away from death, with nothing to do but stare at my reflection in the window.
God, I hated those questions.
ReplyDeletePS. We share a favorite book: Me talk pretty one day. I have read it countless times. I laugh always. Je ris tourjours.