Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.
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Let's get something out in the open: not all science fiction is scientifically possible. Some of it is possible, but the laws of nature are pretty strict, and they prevent us from doing a number of things that -- in principle -- would be incredible to do. Examples on both sides, please?
You got it…
I don't fly as much as I used to but I still fly too often for my likes and when the cart comes around for the free beverages it's either orange juice "with no ice" or a bloody mary mix "with no ice." I rarely drink water, but if I did, I would never drink the water out of a pitcher, as offered to…
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"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." -Voltaire
It's been another great week over on the main Starts With A Bang blog, where we got to touch on a number of remarkable topics, including:
Why are we made of matter? (For Ask Ethan #31)
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There's more fun to be found at the Link link.
What I couldn't see was a byline. Someone has a deep background to be able to come up with so much good stuff. I suppose it might just be a very white knuckle frequent flyer with an inquiring mind and a morbid sense of humour.
JohnnieCanuck wrote: "What I couldn't see was a byline."
The Economist eschews bylines. There's a good chance that whoever wrote the article flipped through a copy of James Morrow's novella City of Truth. The main character, Jack Sperry, lives in a city named Veritas and finds himself on the horns of a dilemma when his son falls ill during a stay at Camp Ditch-the-Kids. I was just flipping through the book myself, which was published in 1990, and discovered a similarity to current events. The host of the TV morning show Enduring Another Day, while interviewing the Assistant Secretary of Imperialism, comments that, "So far, over four thousand Veritasian combat troops have died [in the Hegelian Civil War]." The Assistant Secretary responds by saying, "A senseless loss. Our policy is impossible to justify on rational grounds, which is why we started invoking national security and other shibboleths." A review of the book can be found here.
Personally, if a jetliner I am on is headed for an emergency landing, my anti-gravity belt is the last thing I'm going to leave behind.