A year and a half ago, I intentionally started going to the gym. Part of my initial membership included three free sessions with a personal trainer. During the first session, the following conversation ensued...
I gave up sweets for Lent this year. In the midst of a sugar-deprived grouch-fest, I was reminded of a section in Donald Kraybill’s The Upside-Down Kingdom, titled “Expensive Decisions.” This is a required text for my class, and while most students don’t read it, those that do are struck by Kraybill’s understanding of discipleship...
I watched Interstellar this past weekend. I never took physics, thus Mike had to give both Jen and I a lesson mid- and post-movie, regarding Einstein’s theory of relativity, gravity, black holes, and wormholes.
Lesson takeaways:
- Gravity bends both time and space.
- Speed has an inverse relation to time (as you speed up, time slows down, and vice versa).
- Space-time bridges (aka, wormholes) theoretically allow for travel across dimensions.
- Gravity also bends brains, as mine is still flexing to grasp these concepts.
What I found most intriguing, however, was the movie’s take on a fifth dimension. Before proceeding, it might be best to review the first-fourth dimensions...
Growing up, my Oma (“grandmother” in German) had a Matryoshka doll, also known as a Russian nesting doll. Essentially, it’s a set of hand-painted wooden dolls of decreasing size, which nest within each other. They had no lights, noise, or the pomp of modern toys, yet my sister and I were fascinated by them...
Five months ago, my masseuse gave me freesia bulbs from her garden to plant. Knowing I’m not a green thumb, I reluctantly took them. They sat in a Ziploc bag on my counter for a month before I finally decided to plant them. I bought a cheap pot, some cheap soil, and planted the bulbs, expecting nothing to happen...