Neil Degrasse Tyson is very excited about sub-atomic particles
In case you were wondering, protons are actually made of “quarks,”a lovely word that came because the astrophysicist invented it was reading Finnegans Wake, inspired by the lines “Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn’t got much of a bark
/And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.” (though, there are actually 6 types of quarks, not 3, ruining a bit of the name).
I have actually never read Finnegans Wake, because even though I was an English major, I am not a masochist. At some point, you got to draw the line at made up words (although this year, I have learned that there are some really bizarre, late-medieval French words that are not in fact made up and are real thing you need to know to pass law school). But I quite enjoy the story about quarks, because it combines literature and random facts.
Because its finals, I have sworn off watching the Netflix shows that are actually binge-worthy, like Stranger Things or The Crown but still need something I can watch while I turn my brain off and play my Koi game, And because my man Professor Richard Pogge from Ohio State University never updated his podcast, which got me through many a long car ride, I had to find something on Netflix. Enter Neil Degrasse Tyson! He has a breezy 3-hour lecture series called “The Inexplicable Universe” on Netflix, a jazzy refresher on basic atomic structure, with relativity, black holes, Big Bang, and Heat-Death-of-The-Universe thrown in for good measure. Plus he has some slick astronomical-themed ties and vests coordinated to the subject matter he’s lecturing about.
Loyal readers may recall, I may have mentioned this before, but people, 84.5% of the ENTIRE MASS OF THE UNIVERSE IS UNEXPLAINED. This is called Dark Matter. 84.5% is a lot. It’s definitely sufficient to get you from “substantial factor” to passing the “but-for test” (sorry, I recently took a Torts exam). And Dark Matter should not be confused with anti-matter. Anti-matter I can sort of get–it’s opposite matter! And when two opposite things meet, they annihilate each other, because that’s how physics works, I guess. Dark Matter is called Dark Matter because WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS. No clue. People just came up with it because the math wasn’t working properly without it. So, smart physicists could have either changed the math or come up with some new type of matter, and, for reasons I don’t quite get (because this was a 3-hour Netflix documentary I was half-paying attention to during reading week), it made more sense to theorize the existence of a whole new type of matter than have to redo all of physics. So, ok, physicists, I trust you when you say we need Dark Matter to make the math work. But why haven’t you figured this out yet?? Dark matter is not a new idea–it’s been an accepted theory for almost 50 years. I’m sure some very smart people are working diligently away at this. But it does bother me that we just have to count on our faith in math to account for 84.5% of the universe.
Perhaps I missed my calling–maybe I should have been an astrophysicist. But then you hear about people doing PhDs and it sounds like the worst thing ever–like law school, except three times as long, competitive, and political. Plus, I want to be on TV and explain the origin of the universe like Neil Degrasse Tyson, not like sit in a dark cave in front of a computer and do complex math.
People ask why I want to be a lawyer. And there is something to be said for a career where you work inhumane hours, but at least they pay you decent money, you get to work through interesting problems, and have a chance to fight for people’s rights and stuff.
But another thing about law is that there’s it’s only mysterious power to it. Just like the act of measuring a particle can force them to behave in strange ways, putting a name to a thing makes it true. Knowing the correct late-medieval French-derived term for something actually has its own type of magic–if you misname something, you can actually get into a world of trouble (Property summed up in one sentence: get that shit in writing, and make sure it’s the right type of writing).
I should go back to memorizing some more cool words. But also, we’re all mortal beings and the sun will expand in 4 billion years and wipe out the earth, so is it really that big of a deal whether you’ve got a fee simple subject to condition subsequent or a fee simple determinable? (Fee estates are technically forever, but I’m pretty sure they end when the earth is subsumed as our sun’s volume expands 5000 times and becomes a red giant). You got to hand it to Mr. Degrasee Tyson. Contemplating the future of the universe does indeed put things into perspective.
In Case You Were Wondering. . . 
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