Lunch With George!

October 25, 2001 - Charlie's Steakery

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Agenda

• Special Relativity (reading assignment: Six Not-So-Easy Pieces, Chapter Four: Relativistic Energy & Momentum.
• Other topics discussed during the meal...
  • Monogram Mountain Project
  • Mojave Phone Booth
  • Enterprise Destroyed!
  • iPod
  • Bloom County

Miscellaneous Topics During the Meal

Tony was telling me about a friend of his ("DOC") who has an different kind of web site: DeuceOfClubs.com (see box story). One part of the site documents the work of the Monogram Mountain Project. "Deuce" has set out to locate and photograph all of the mountains in the USA which have big letters on them (they're very popular near colleges and universities in the Southwest). Here's a picture of "A" mountain near Arizona State in Tempe:

This site is very cool! He's still looking for "O", "X", and "Z". Check out the Monogram Mountain Project.
 

Deuce of Clubs? The town of Show Low, Arizona was alleged to have been won in a card game where the players drew from the deck and whoever showed the lowest card, won (thus the name of the town). The winner drew the deuce of clubs, and the main street in Show Low is named Deuce of Clubs. Deuce was born in Show Low, and that's where he got the name for his website.

 

Mojave Phone Booth -- (760) 733-9969
Deuce also contributes to the Phonebooth Project-- an attempt to locate every phone booth remaining in America and to record their phone numbers.

Photo courtesy of Deuce of Clubs

While working on this project, someone brought the Mojave Phone booth to his attention.

The Mojave Phone Booth is a Bell telephone booth standing miles from nowhere in the middle of the Mojave desert. Of course I should say it was standing miles from nowhere... after it had achieved nationwide cult status and drew hundreds of people each year to its remote location, the National Park Service and Pacific Bell quietly removed it. Only a concrete slab and a few memorial displays remain. Visit the Mojave Phone Booth Homepage. It's a LARGE site! Getting around it all can take a while. Deuce also purchased his own phone booth, which actually met the Mojave Phone Booth once.

Now that the booth is gone (thaks to the NPS), the primary users of the phone booth are fighting their own struggle. The owners of the Cima Cinder Mine are in a struggle with the NPS (and other agencies) to get their mine re-opened (the NPS shut it down in late 1999). they are funding their fight by selling Mojave Phone Booth t-shirts at their web site: http://www.mojave-phone-booth.com/.

Enterprise Destroyed!
Years ago (I'll say 1984), I was working at a job with Tony (we were writing software for the State's Division of Disease Control). Tony and I had the same attitude about new movies whose release we were anticipating: the less we knew, the better! We would both jump to change channels when a preview appeared on the TV, avoid reviews in the newspaper, and would "shush" anyone who tried to talk about it around us.

During the weeks leading up to the release of Star Trek III: the Search for Spock (even available on VCD), we'd danced around quite a bit to avoid seeing any details about the film. Upon visiting the local Taco Bell for a quick lunch, we were greeted by the large cardboard displays annnouncing their special Star Trek III promotion: a collection of four glass tumblers with characters/scenes from the movie. At the same instant, we both saw the glass entitled "ENTERPRISE DESTROYED", which displayed, of course, a picture of the USS Enterprise exploding.

We knew immediately that we were the victims of a HUGE spoiler, and anyone who has watched the film knows that once we saw it in the theatre, we knew it to be true. AAAAaaaarrrrg!

When I met Tony for lunch this week, I handed him a package to open, telling him that he may be the single person on the planet who could fully appreciate what it contained. Once the newspaper padding was removed, Tony found himself holding an original ENTERPRISE DESTROYED glass (I bought it recently on ebay). Tony laughed out loud for some time! He said that even his now almost-grown son David knows the story well.

iPod
Apple Computer has announced another cool product-- the iPod. It's an MP3 player that is small enough to fit in your shirt pocket (a little bigger than 2" by 4"), and can hold over 1000 songs on its 5 GB drive.

It is tightly integrated with iTunes, Apple's free MP3 music ripper/manager/player/burner. Just place the iPod in its cradle, and it synchronizes with your iTunes database. Apple claims it provides a very intuitive display and controls which allow the user to easily navigate through hundreds of songs. The $399.00 price tag means only true MP3 fanatics will have one, of course. I know I won't be getting one, but it sure is cool!

Bloom County
Back when George and I worked together in the avionics industry, we enjoyed reading Bloom County, by Berke Breathed. I faithfully posted the daily and Sunday strips outside my cubicle.

A Great Collection

George mentioned on Thursday that he'd been wondering what ever happened to Mr. Breathed (he retired the strip in the mid-1990's). After a very brief search, George discovered that he has a brand new web site at www.berkeleybreathed.com!

One of the features on the site is a page where readers can vote for their favorite Bloom County (or Outland) strip. Right by the "vote" button is a cartoon of Opus (the penguin) agonizing over his vote. George noted that the image was originally from a 1988 Sunday strip where Opus could not decide between Bush and Dukakis (he kept repeating "Wimp or Shrimp... Wimp or Shrimp...". As it turned out it didn't matter which way he voted-- when he pulled the lever, a mechanical arm hit him in the face with a pie (I believe this may have been the year that Berke won the Pulitzer Prize for Political Cartooning).

After sharing a good laugh over these fond memories, I recalled that Opus also had a similar rhyming quandary about the vice presidential candidates, but I couldn't dredge it up. I even resorted to several web searches, but came up empty. So... I started to analyze the potential VPs, thinking about Dan Quayle first. Hmm... served in the National Guard to avoid the draft... then it hit me! Opus had been chanting

"Codger or Dodger... Codger or Dodger..."

Relativistic Energy & Momentum

George is here to set me straight on my relativity interpretation (See my Twin Paradox example from last week's lunch).

Here is my scenario described from the viewpoint of Twin A... twice! In the fist case, Twin A thinks that B is moving. In the second case, Twin A thinks that he himself is moving. The surprise answer for me, is that either way, Twin B has aged more slowly! See if you get it.

Twin A, scenario 1:

1. Wakes up, sees twin B rapidly receding, figures B is moving very fast away and concludes B is aging more slowly than himself.
2. Sees B slow down and stop, concludes they're both aging at same rate now, although he expects B is still younger from B's time slowdown at point 1.
3. Accelerates toward B, and sees B accelerate toward self. Figures they're still both aging at the same rate, although a bit more slowly than they were at point 2. Expects B is still younger.
4. Meets B, not surprised to find B is younger than himself.

Twin A, scenario 2:

1. Wakes up, sees twin B rapidly receding, figures B is stationary and A is moving rapidly away from him. Figures he is aging more slowly than B.
2. Sees B accelerate toward A, so they're both now zipping along very fast in the same direction. Figures they're both aging at the same rate now, although he expects B is still older due to his own time slowdown at point 1.
3. Slows his ship down, and sees B speed up. Expects that B is now aging more slowly than himself, since B is now moving faster.
4. Meets B, does some math, and is not surprised to find B is now younger than himself, since the time changes in step 3 have more than countered the time change from step 1.