Beermat Astro-Physics 101

Oddly enough, this really happened... speaks volumes really...

    

I leaned gingerly on the table and set my pint of John Smiths Extra Cold, with measured accuracy, on the beermat. I gave Shelly a slow but deliberate nod; she sipped at her Gin & Tonic with a pinky raised and smiled vacantly in return.

 

     Vacantly...

 

     Now you see, that just plain bothered me. She's a good looking girl and I just knew that with her Barbie-doll features (circa March 1959), some idiot would decide that she was as vacuous as said doll and attempt to take advantage of her simple nature.  Don't get me wrong, she could hold a decent conversation and undertake spelling tests without holding her breath or swamping herself.  She wasn’t as thick as a whale omelette by any means, she was just a tad... naive.  Unfortunately, the rapid influx of alcohol to my brain had intensified my fears for her somewhat.

 

     Good God, she'd end up wearing a Burberry baseball cap and pregnant, pushing a pram around town within months! She'd end up calling the baby Nokia-Jade or something disastrous and her life would be over on the c**k-end of some Carlsberg swilling dullard. No way was that going to happen on my watch, sunshine!

 

     I have this rather peculiar penchant for defending the weak and the vacuous when I'm drunk; I'm a crusader for airheads, if you will 

 

     I wanted to give her something; a shield of intellect so shiny that it would effortlessly repel predatory suitors; like lemmings bouncing off a massive Wok.

 

     'Shelly, I want to teach you about black holes and the resulting curvature of space-time with a view to theorising about time travel'.

     'Oh dear, Howie I dont think I-' she began, but it was to no avail.  I held up a hand, for I was on-one mightily! 

     'For the process of this lecture, I will need... a beermat, a pen and two raspberry Sambucas,' I staggered off to the bar and returned forthwith juggling the Sambucas and with a cocktail stick wedged between my teeth.  There seemed to be a curious absence of pens in the pub but this would suffice.

     I pushed the drink across the table and threw my shot down my neck followed by a savage, Gaarggh! (This is the sound one makes when sinking a shot that tastes exactly like Benylin cough syrup).

     'Okay,' I said with a shudder, 'let's start off with the basics shall we?' I cleared my throat and took a long draught of my John Smiths.

     'Forgive my rhetoric but, what is a black hole?' I said.

     She blinked her eyes at me, 'Eh?'

     'Now imagine our sun.'

     'Why would we have a son?' She said staring at me incredulously and shouting over the music:  Green Day's Jesus of Suburbia - classic!

 

     'No, no! The sun; the big ball of gas and fire in the sky.'

     'Oh.'

     'What you’ve got is, basically, protons pushing outwards and neutrons pulling it in, thus keeping it stable.' I flapped my hands a bit to demonstrate.  'But eventually, the protons will run out and the sun will start to collapse in on itself.'  I looked at my watch. '...in abooooout 4 to 5 billion years, so we have time enough to finish our beers.'

     She shook her head and made to say something, I raised a finger to stop her and pushed the remaining Sambuca towards her.  'Uh uh uh...not when I'm a roll,' I admonished.

     'Now, to keep it simple (and contrary to popular belief), when the sun collapses it doesn't explode.'  I slopped bitter over myself to illustrate matters.  'It's not the f*****g Death Star.' - For some reason the Imperial March tune from Star Wars entered my head and I made a mental note to make it my mobile ringtone for when the girlfriend rings-

     Geek.

     'It will collapse and over millions of years become smaller and smaller and denser and denser, like screwing up a piece of paper... but heavier.  Now, the more dense it gets, the more gravity it produces, you know, like Nibbler's poo from Futurama.'

     'Like what?' She shouted over the music (What Goes Around by Justin Timberlake utter s**t...)

 

     'You ever see the episode where Nibbler s***s dark matter onto the street and Fry has to try and pick it up, but he can’t?'

     She shook her head.

     'Oh it's f*****g quality... anyway it's very small, very dense, very heavy and has a massive gravitational pull.  It could have the mass of several thousand suns and still fit in the palm of your hand.'  I paused for effect.

     God I'm so drunk.

     'Eventually, the sun draws down to a singularity which is the basis for a black hole, it's... whoa....'  I gripped the table as a rather frightful Sambuca-wobble threatened to upend me.

     'The ship cannea tek anymoor, Capn!' I screamed in a faux-Scottish accent much to Shellys alarm.  She backed away slightly as I reached for her Sambuca and downed that too.  'It's okay,' I said raising a placating hand.  'I'm just rerouting systems.'

     I tried to focus my eyes and failed.

     'So in short, a black hole is a collapsed star whose gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.  Allow me to demonstrate...'  I reached over and dunked two fingers into her glass and removed her ice cubes.

     'In order to escape our planets gravitational pull we need to achieve what is known as a minimum escape velocity, that way we can keep going up and up and off into space. See?'  I lobbed the ice cubes over my shoulder and tried to ignore the scream of my eyes, my eyes, oh my God, my beautiful eyes!

     'The ice fell back to earth because we didn't achieve the required speed to break free of gravity or,' I made the quotation marks with my fingers, 'as we call it escape velocity. The escape velocity of the Earth is about 11.2km per second.  Now a black hole is so powerful that even if something is travelling at the speed of light, it still can't escape. (The speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, by the way).'

     'What that does is curve both space and time... like this.'  I took up the beermat and pressed my finger right in the centre.  'Let's say the pressure exerted by my finger is the gravitational pull of a black hole, see how the beermat bends and the surrounding edge starts to curve upwards?  That's what space does!  As space-time is constant, space bends and therefore so does time NOW!'

     She jumped a bit.  'Erm can I...?'

     'Bear with me old girl, bear with me,' I said allowing the beermat to ping back into shape.

     She sighed.

     'Let's just say that I want to travel from this point in the universe to this point in the universe.'  I poked a hole on either side of the beermat with my toothpick (managing to draw blood on the second attempt, s**t).  'Let's say that the distance across this beermat is one hundred billion miles, even travelling at the speed of light it would take me a little time to get from point A to point B.'

 

     By this point my brain was almost too exhausted/sambuca soaked to work out the Speed/Distance = Time. Answers on a postcard, please.

    

     So theoretically, if we can utilise the curvature of space-time at the site of a black hole, I pressed again on the centre of the beermat, harder this time. You can see that point A and point B are getting closer together... until...'  I folded the beermat in half, lining both toothpick-pricks up.  'Points A and B now practically coexist in the same place and time thus allowing me to pass through both points simultaneously...'  I pushed my toothpick spaceship through the holes I had made and brought it out the other side. 'When space again unfolds...'  I unfolded the beermat, disappointed to see that I had, in fact, snapped it completely in two.  'I have travelled this distance (one hundred billion miles) in matter of moments.  Hence, theoretical time travel!'  I grinned and knocked my pint clean off the table.

     'Yeah, look I don’t really think-' She began.

     'Of course it will help,' I interrupted.  'Look, you're a top bird and all Shel but the last thing I want is to see you pregnant.'

     'What?!'

     'Up the duff, a belly full of arms and legs... preggers! Shelly, seriously bird, you deserve more than that.'

     'Who the hell is Shelly?' She said with measured tones.

 

     I shook my head and blinked.  'Eh?'

 

     'Who... is... Shelly?' She stared at me, leaning forward and coming suddenly into sharp focus.

     I leaned on the table and stared back at her, who the f**k are you?

     I staggered back slightly.

     Where the f**k am I?

     Am I even in the right pub?

     I stared about, grabbing the edge of the table in a death-grip.  I caught a flash of blonde and a general flapping of flowery Zara top in the periphery of my vision.  Mortifyingly, and in mid-chicken dance, Shelly gave me a frantic wave from the dance floor.  She made weird hand signs that signified, so where are these Sambucas?

    

     The girl tapped me on the arm, looking mildly unimpressed.  'So brainiac, are you going to buy me a drink?'

     I rocked back slightly on my heels and looked at her.

     Now there are times when subtlety, class, wit and intellect allow you to rise above the rest of mankind.

 

     'Sod off, you fat cow.'

 

     And sometimes... there aren’t.

 

Reviews

[M. Keala Milles, Jr.]

Man...I think I need to find some of my old bar napkins. This is the bees knees! I wish I had a criticism, but I don't. I realize this is is frivolity and somewhat impromptu in style--like a monologue from a Pinter or something--so I didn't really get a feel for anything grammatical or otherwise in need of correcting. I would merely suggest, however that you take a read through and double check the asides and such to make sure the flow is consistent.

Thanks for the musical cues, they often help me to write and it was refreshing to have an inner soundtrack as I followed along this brilliant narrative.

The ending is worth the trip.

[.]

Impressive
I like the way you mixed science and humor
Nice write

[Cynthia Yildirim]

I love anything that can combine science and humor. I really enjoyed your play on words. Love it! :)

[Fantasyfairy]

Ths was priceless. "Who is Shelly?" I love it, though peronally I would old you to sod off ges ago, sitingthre listening to you in your drunken stuor, or en agan, I may have just humoured you and issed myself laughin afterwards. funny. XX

[Silvia - Scribo, Ergo S..]

hahahahaha .... had to literally stuff a hanky in my mouth, gagging loud laughter, because I was reading this at the venerable Frankfurt Stock Exchange when I was already miked up for my next LIVE hit !!!! .... so funny. xxx

[Holly Marsh]

This story was awesome.

And then I read the part where the black hole lesson was being taught to the wrong girl.

And it bumped your story from awesome to f*****g fantastic.

Loved the bit about using the Imperial March as the ring tone for your girlfriend--my husband actually had it anytime I called on his phone for a while.

[Zephyr]

you do seem to have a talent for writing absurdly funny pieces, Howie.

lol:
�The ship cannea tek anymoor, Cap�n!� I screamed in a faux-Scottish accent much to Shelly�s alarm. She backed away slightly as I reached for her Sambuca and downed that too, �it�s okay,� I said raising a placating hand, �I�m just rerouting systems��

I lobbed the ice cubes over my shoulder and tried to ignore the scream of �my eyes, my eyes, oh my God, my beautiful eyes!�

�Up the duff, a belly full of arms and legs� f*****g preggers! Shelly, seriously bird, you deserve more than that��
�Who the hell is Shelly?� She said with measured tones.
I shook my head and blinked, �eh?�
�Who is Shelly?� She stared at me, leaning forward and coming suddenly into sharp focus.
I leaned on the table and stared back at her, �who the f**k are you?� I staggered back slightly. Where the f**k am I? Am I even in the right pub? I stared about, grabbing the edge of the table in a death-grip. I caught a flash of blonde and the general flapping of a flowery Zara top in the periphery of my vision�
Mortifyingly and in mid-chicken dance, Shelly gave me a frantic wave from the dance floor. She made weird hand signs that signified, so where are these Sambucas?

lol very impressive...you've had some really bizarre expierences, haven't you? =)

[Bob Carney, "Soon ..]

Someday Howie, I'm going to cross the pond and have a beer with you. This story is f*****g priceless. The best part being the "Futurama" reference in a Physics conversation and of course, explaining Hocking's Black Hole Theories to the wrong girl.
Top notch!

[{Angel Redd}[Formerly A..]

�You ever see the episode where Nibbler s***s dark matter onto the street and Fry has to try and pick it up, but he can�t?�


Yes, I have. I think that was the only thing in the whole story I understood, ha.

Mortifyingly and in mid-chicken dance, Shelly gave me a frantic wave from the dance floor. She made weird hand signs that signified, so where are these Sambucas?
The girl tapped me on the arm, �so brainiac, are you going to buy me a new drink?�
I rocked back slightly on my heels and looked at her. There are times when subtlety, class, wit and intellect allow you to rise above the rest of mankind.
�Sod off, you fat cow.�
And sometimes there aren�t...



Once again, you slay the readers with your talent for creating the perfect story with a perfect ending.

[Troy Baham Jr.]

ahhh Futurama...how we love you...this is funny s**t. and the chick was super calm about it the whole time. pretty funny

[Sunny]

Hilarious. I laughed out loud.

I attended many a bar (translation - Pub) with my father when I was a child (don't ask) and there was always a bar know-it-all. They were the loudest and the drunkest guys of all. Thank you for bringing back fond childhood memories (right). Cheers.