Over our pancakes at breakfast, Jeff starts telling Gwen about the astronomy program he recently watched. This discussion should never have gotten started. She's only 10 years old.
Gwen: I don't want to watch it.
Jeff: Why not?
Gwen: It shows the world ending.
Me: But, that's on an astronomical scale. That's billions of years from now. Besides, the universe had a beginning, right?
Gwen: Is it going to end?
Me: Well, that depends on the mass of the universe. We can estimate the mass of things we can observe, like stars, but not things like dust or rocky planets. That's called dark matter.
Gwen: Where does the universe end?
Jeff: Well, we think it doesn't have a beginning or end, like the surface of a ball.
Gwen: What's outside the ball?
Jeff: We think there are parallel universes.
Gwen: You mean other universes outside our universe?
Jeff: Yes.
Gwen: Well how do you get there?
Jeff: You can't really leave our universe.
Gwen: You mean we're STUCK? Like in North Korea?
Jeff & Me: Well, yes.
I'd like to apologize right now to anyone who has Gwen in a philosophy class. I think we've already messed that up for you.
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1 comment:
Only YOUR daughter, Jennifer!
Can't wait to see you all in April. I don't imagine the repercussions of the earthquake or nuclear plant will be an issue at that time. :-)
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