Odds n' Ends

Does Anybody Really Know what Time It Is? 

Yesterday morning (Thursday) at 7 am I watched a live presentation from the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo. I am 12 hours + 1 day ahead of EST in Ontario. Therefore it was 7 pm on Wednesday evening there. 

Theoretical physicist Dr Carl Rovelli, born in Italy but now a Canadian citizen living in London Ontario, spoke on his quantum loop theory of gravity. His AV aids consisted of two things - a basketball and a funnel. In a nutshell his unproven premise is this. During the hot Big Bang, many small black holes, termed primordial black holes were created. Einstein's equations indicate they should be real, although none have yet been identified. Now the the closer one gets to a black hole, the more time slows down - so much so that a distant observer watching my spaceship, never sees me actually enter the hole at the event horizon; time is frozen, and even though I am gone  my spaceship's image is pasted there for many many years.

The current accepted general scientific theory is that time and space trade places inside a BH, and my time is like a funnel, with the long end getting skinnier and skinnier. I am spaghettified, ripped to atoms. However, what's left of me hits the singularity and is bounced like a basketball through a phase transition and my atoms exit through a white hole back into the universe. And all the teeny bits that were once matter, gas, dust, cannibalized stars and me, are now dark matter, which has stumped astrophysisicists for decades. It's there, but has never been detected. The real time from me entering the black hole and exiting the white one is about an hour. But on earth 10 billion years have passed. 

That's my Terry O'Reilly way of introducing some strangeness here. 

My phone Google maps is off by about a long block. I'll be at a programmed intersection and google tells me to turn in 250 metres. I have navigated to 4 sites at which the address was correct but the person there has never heard of the business I'm looking for. I'll try Waze to see if it's more accurate. My allergies are much less virulent here, so much so that some mornings I forget to dose my eyes, use the nasal spray and pop a Reactin pill. 

I have had great difficulty reading for the last year, not much seems to keep my interest. I'm on my fourth novel plus the slow-go non-fiction since arriving and am very engaged. The new glasses might have a bearing too, but my prescription didn't change much. Maybe it's the eyes in Ontario that are the problem. 

Mark upstairs last name is Ravenscroft. I was reading about Gerry Rafferty who fronted Stealers Wheel (🎶 Clown's to the left of me, jokers to the right,  here I am stuck in the middle with you) and later went solo. The famous sax rift on Baker Street was done by a man of the same last name as Mark. He doesn't think it's a relative. The fact that he is here from S Africa via Australia and I from Canada and I happened to read that info because the line popped into my head when I wrote in my blog that I was between shrimp farm ponds!!!???!

There is one Starbucks in Hoi An. I am not a fan and haven't been to one for a long while. 

An interesting combo .....

Whenever you order a coffee item they ask Hot or Cold? I ordered a hot tall cap and an American chocolate chip cookie. The total with tax was $8.80. For the first time I had food that was I think about equivalent in price back home. 

Despite the weirdness here  I think Ted you would feel in your element and at home here.

They ride side saddle here too!👍

So my time is your future. And since dark matter has never been actually detected, maybe I could sneak unseen to Washington and... 

I very well may be aging way slower than you, my faithful readers. And with luck I'll have been slightly spaghettified and carry less atoms around. But I'm glad the time dilation will only be two months because I miss you all. 💖