Frenchified American slang . . . wooo!

- What would happen if you were to "turn off" one of the four fundamental interactions? If you turned off gravity, everything would just drift apart, I bet. If you turned off electromagnetic force, the earth and everything on it would compress into a tiny ball of compact matter and become a mega-black-hole. If you turned off strong nuclear force, all protons would burst out of their nuclei at breakneck speed followed by their electrons, effectively causing the disintegration of all matter. If you turned off weak nuclear force, um . . . what? Beta radiation would stop, I guess but that doesn't affect my life that much. Hmmm . . .

- What about redefining physical constants? e.g. the gas constant R. If you suddenly made it 100 times as large, gas pressure 100 times greater for a given quantity and volume of gas at a given temperature, and various types of gas containers across the world would suddenly explode. Changing G, the gravitation constant, would be followed by proportional changes in our gravitational attraction to the Earth.

Seeeaaauuu . . . I spent most of Saturday studying physics. : ) Mock exams are about halfway done, I've still got History, Physics, and a couple of English papers. Wish me luck.

I just found out yesterday that my great-grandfather was an employee of the Telluride Power Corporation - that venerable institution (now known as Utah Power & Light) started by the one, the only L. L. Nunn. Fort ri-hale. I guess this means TASP was in my blood? Pretty cool, anyway.

Not much else to report from this side of the pond.

1. John the Revelator - Dirty Dozen Brass Band
2. Live Wire - the Meters
3. Primavera - Antonio Vivaldi (from The Four Seasons)
4. Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
5. Cissy Strut - Dirty Dozen Brass Band version

Groetjes,

Sam

P.S. Does anybody know when Cornell House decisions come out? I seem to remember reading something about early February.