this is the part of the show where Tobias freaks out
I’m trying to learn CATIA V5 (a modern Computer Aided Design program), which basically is just “oh, that’s what the _____ command looks like”—it’s nearly identical to system I used down in Texas, Solidworks.
I also spent an hour and a half this afternoon, instead of being in class, I was back in my usual building, filling out forms because I am going to be in New Program. (can you remember your addresses and companies of the last 5 years? I’m doing good if I know where I currently live!). They are scrambling to get me sent off to the east coast for the coming week. I first heard rumours of that this morning.
Then I went back to class, (it was over) and verified with the teacher what I needed to catch up on, and then did so for the next hour.
The most difficult thing about this class—really the only thing I am “learning” is to use three fingers on a three-button mouse (my index moving to the scroll wheel feels more natural). It’s one of those motor-skill, hand abstraction things. It’s like me learning a video game: my hands don’t know what to do, so my mind has to manually tell them.
The other new thing is that when you create a dimension in Solidworks, when you anchor it in place, a dialog pops up so you can type in the value, and press enter. So, in Catia, I constantly: click, slap some numbers on the numpad,…and about then I remember (or hit enter and get an error). The dialog doesn’t come up until you double-click on the dimension. Over and over,,,it’s hard to get your brain to do something new. And I imagine why it is so difficult for non-computer-savvy people to pick up on stuff that is second nature to me.
So, to reorient my mind, I went out and swung on the swing in the playground at my apartment. I probably use the swing more than all the kids in my apartment complex. I can spend 10 minutes swinging with my eyes shut, and if I do things to change up the rhythm, like un-pump on the downstroke to keep from going too high, it can really mess with my idea of what is up and what is down. The earth starts to sway with my movement, or disappears altogether. I wish the swing was taller, so I could go higher, and stay weightless longer, without the chains going slack and then jerking tight as I am hurled toward the ground, only to be yanked away at the last second. For years I have imagined that if I were to jump off while weightless, it might “stick” and I would be floating free of earth’s gravity. Someone finally put this idea into a line drawing. When I was younger, the swing I had was about three times as tall as the one I’m swinging on today, so if I had tried fooling gravity, and failed, it would have hurt more. But either way, I’d be in trouble.
The earth has gravity, which is what keeps us on it, crawling around like ants. However, it also spins—rather rapidly. You are traveling east, and slightly downward, at about 1000 miles an hour. You don’t notice because everything is moving the same way—well, most everything, the sun and moon and stars aren’t. But, if gravity stopped pulling on you, (like if you could trick it by jumping off a swing at the right time), you would drift upward. Actually, the earth would be curving away from under you, but it would seem like a force was pulling you straight up. A slight force. A can of soup would keep you down. But, say you are just 5 feet above the ground, the world is slowly pulling away, how do you get down, get down enough to grab the grass, some leaves, dig your fingernails into the pavement? You could try exhaling upward, and inhaling facing down. But could you hold up a can of soup that way? No, you are toast.
Maybe someone sees you as you flail upward into the black sky, gaining speed. What can they do? Can they throw you a string? 15 seconds: you are 50 feet up. Can you maybe catch a bird? 60 seconds: you are 800 feet up, and traveling at 9 miles an hour….Two minutes: “Well that was weird!” say the other kids, climbing down off the junglegym, as you pass three thousand feet, the wind whistling through your hair like a downhill ride on a bike.
Still want to jump off a swing?
