When I learned about the Solar System decades ago in an Iowa classroom, I didn't focus on learning the names and order of the planets - rather the most interesting thing to my child mind was the misunderstanding of the original belief. That everything rotated around the earth. The earth was the center of the universe. There was all kind of mathematics and constants to prove this to be true. What a shock it was to think otherwise!
I was reminded by this last night when the boyf and I were talking about energy and electricity (voltage and potential energy). He reminded me that energy and matter equal each other. I was flabbergasted! How the fuck?! Then I remembered the constant for the speed of light. E=MC2. Why bother with the constant?! Energy doesn't really equal matter without the constant. The constant goes in there like lube to make the math/concept/belief work.
Maybe I don't get this because I'm not a mathematician. I'm always in awe when I come across strange mathematical numbers/constants that are used to balance out equations. First, how are these found? And second, how do we know they're right (correct/true?). I don't know the math behind proving the earth is the center of the universe - but at that time - they thought it was correct.
I realized/decided right then and there - single digit Heather - that there were probably many things we believed as true about our world - that would later be proved to be incorrect; and I dedicated myself to finding those things.
I stopped believing everything. Authority lost meaning. I started looking at everything from multiple viewpoints. I worked to understand my own biases, if I couldn't actually rid myself of them. I watched to understand other people's biases - and where and how they originated.
As I read these books on electricity and energy and transistors and physics - the concepts really blow my mind. Science is not the least bit solid. There are so many questions. The answers are out there with crazy conspiricy theories (oh, I know that comment is going to piss off some people). But from an external perspective - from someone not indoctrinated into the academic scientific community - science is completely wak! And this is a very pleasant surprise to me.
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