Talkin' About My Generation (or: I Hope I Die Before My Mass Increases)

A quick note before the actual post: Thanks to everybody for the truly phenomenal response to my caption contest. I you haven't submitted a caption yet, you have until Monday at midnight, Pacific time. (I know I originally said Tuesday, but I changed my mind. Sue me.) I'll consolidate my favorites into a poll Tuesday morning so you can vote for the best one. The results will be posted on Friday. And now for your regularly scheduled post....


I don't understand kids these days. I mean, take the levitation for example.

Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. We've all seen it. You'll be trudging through the video game aisle at Best Buy, making sure to keep one or both feet on the ground at all times because you're a responsible adult with obligations to this planet. Suddenly a twelve year old will glide past, his feet a fraction of an inch above the ground. Then, before what you've seen has fully registered, he's walking again, as if nothing had happened.

At first I thought these kids were merely disregarding the principle of friction, but having witnessed several of these events I am confident that the little punks are flouting gravity itself. This irritates me. When I was a kid I used to occasionally chew gum in class or dip pterodactyls in the inkwell, but I knew better than to break the basic laws of physics. Oh, sure, there was that time I tried to use non-Euclidean geometry to see down Ms. Kremer's blouse, but that's nothing compared to wearing your jeans six inches below your waist. It's like these kids are daring gravity to pants them.

My real concern is what happens after these kids realize they can get away with it. Kids need discipline. For every action, there has to be an equal and opposite reaction. If there isn't, then what? I'll tell you what: Say goodbye to the conservation of energy, first of all. Probably conservation of matter too. Objects in motion get lazy; objects at rest get restless. Some troublemaker will find a way around Einstein's constant, and the news will travel faster than the speed of light. And if one kids pulls off time travel, you know the other kids are going to hear about it yesterday.

I have to admit that the problem didn't start with today's youth. I did know one guy from my generation who tried to build a perpetual motion machine. This was shortly after I started work at my first "real" job. I was 25 and I think Mr. Newton (as I shall call him) was three or four years older -- which is to say about 18 years beyond the age when most people stop trying to build transmogrifiers, magical doorways to Narnia and perpetual motion machines. Not only that, but he was a computer technician -- not college educated, but he had enough technical expertise that he could fix most computer hardware problems. One would think such a background would immunize one from the delusion that one could build a perpetual motion machine. One would be wrong.

He didn't call it a perpetual motion machine, of course. I think he called it a "self-powered car." As I recall, the car worked like this:

1. A laser heats a container of water to boiling.
2. The pressure from the steam makes the car's wheels turn.
3. A generator hooked up to the car's wheels makes electricity.
4. The electricity powers the laser.

I think there were 3 or 4 more steps in there somewhere which would have dispersed any energy that actually made it from step one to step four, but you get the idea. Not only was the car impossible; it was impossible in an almost unbelievably stupid way. Did Newton think that the engineers at GM were just waiting for the moment when someone would whisper into their ears the magical words laser-powered steam turbine? "Eureka!" they would shout. "If only we had thought to combine 19th century technology with untempered ignorance!"

"That's called a perpetual motion machine," I told him. "It's impossible. You lose energy at every step of the system. Hell, you'd probably lose 95% of the energy you started out with on the steam conversion alone." Not to mention 100% of your credibility, I thought.

"It's not a perpetual motion machine," He said. "If you brake, the car will stop, and then you'd need more energy to get it started again. That's why there's a battery." Ah, another step. More energy loss. Good thinking.

"Ok," I said. "So you have a tank of water, right? And you heat the water. Now let's say you put your hand near the tank. Will it feel warm?"

"Of course."

"Right. That's heat. Heat is energy. You're losing energy from the system in the form of radiated heat."

"No, the heat boils the water. You're not losing it."

I think I argued with Newton for about two hours before I gave up. I also once had a debate with him about faith versus science. He fancied himself an atheist, and scoffed at me for believing things that couldn't be proved.

"What do you believe in?" I asked.

"Science."

"And what is science based on?"

"Experiments."

"And how do people observe experiments?"

"Uhhh..."

"With our senses, right. And how do you know that what your senses tell you is true?"

"Uhhh..."

"Experience, right. Because your senses have been reliable in the past. But how do you know that what you experience with your senses isn't all just one big illusion. How do you know that you're not just a brain in a vat?"

"Uhhh..."

"You don't, right. At some point you just have to make a leap of faith. I make a leap of faith by believing in God, and you make one by believing in science. It just takes a few more step to get to yours."

"So science is still better."

"Whaaa...?"

"It has more steps."

More steps. That was his answer. Make the system complicated enough that you can't see that it's all bullshit. Hey, it worked for the self-powered car, right?

Still, his car was pretty simple. Anyone with a 4th grade education could have understood (and probably designed) it. I suggested he needed more steps to further complicate it, thus shielding the car further from reality. Something like:

1. A garden grows on top of the car.
2. A dinosaur eats from the garden.
3. The dinosaur dies, turning into fertilizer for the garden and fossil fuels.
4. The members of the Coalworkers Local 327, who live in the glove compartment, come out and mine the coal when it's ready, loading it into a furnace.
5. The furnace burns the coal, heating a container of water, which turns into steam.
6. The steam turns a turbine which drives a generator, which powers a laser.
7. The laser heats another container of water almost to boiling.
8. The water is shot through finely ground coffee, in order to make espresso.
9. The driver sips the espresso while waiting patiently for a tow truck.

Hey, GM has done dumber stuff. If this idea takes off, maybe Daimler will buy them. Then there will be no stopping them! I mean, unless they hit the brakes.

Seriously, imagine what we could accomplish if we could eliminate the need for fossil fuels altogether, and rely entirely on our nation's vast untapped resources of stupidity! I just hope today's youth recognizes the gravity of the situation.



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