A person's mind wanders now and then. Sitting here doing much of nothing, it occurred to me that a cubic foot of air is anything but empty. This is, of course, something a boy in a green field of grass thinks about as clouds tumble and roll overhead. Grown men are not supposed to have such vacant thoughts. But, alas, I do.
A cube of air contains, first of all, oxygen, hydrogen and water. If I were to put a radio in the cube, it would receive tens of thousands of radio signals from around the world. If I put my television set in the same cube it receive a like number of tv signals. And what about smog? A cube of air would also have trace elements of everything we lump together and call smog.
Oh damn. Smog brings up another thought. We live in air. Air surrounds the earth. As we travel away from the earth's surface, air gets thinner until there is none. Does this mean that our atmosphere (air) never leaves the vicinity of the earth? If that is so are we, you and I, breathing air that has been here forever? Is it the same air that the dinosaurs breathed a long time ago? If not, where does air go? How is it replaced? Does it return to water? Is it regenerated by it's entry into plant root systems, passing through the stem or trunk and exhaled by the leaves?
Ah, but let's get back to our theoretical foot square cube of air. When someone yells across the room sound passes through our cube. In fact, the cube contains part of all the sounds around a person. Listen. The phone rings. A foot scuffs on the carpet. Someone asks a question. There is a vague roar coming from the freeway several blocks distant. A car horn honks. A fire truck leaves the station with siren going. Someone shuts a door. All of these sounds are in the cube of air at least for an instant.
Okay. Micro-instant.
Doesn't it boggle the mind to accept that there are, at any given moment, billions or even trillions of e-mail messages in every cubic foot of air?
A cube of air contains, first of all, oxygen, hydrogen and water. If I were to put a radio in the cube, it would receive tens of thousands of radio signals from around the world. If I put my television set in the same cube it receive a like number of tv signals. And what about smog? A cube of air would also have trace elements of everything we lump together and call smog.
Oh damn. Smog brings up another thought. We live in air. Air surrounds the earth. As we travel away from the earth's surface, air gets thinner until there is none. Does this mean that our atmosphere (air) never leaves the vicinity of the earth? If that is so are we, you and I, breathing air that has been here forever? Is it the same air that the dinosaurs breathed a long time ago? If not, where does air go? How is it replaced? Does it return to water? Is it regenerated by it's entry into plant root systems, passing through the stem or trunk and exhaled by the leaves?
Ah, but let's get back to our theoretical foot square cube of air. When someone yells across the room sound passes through our cube. In fact, the cube contains part of all the sounds around a person. Listen. The phone rings. A foot scuffs on the carpet. Someone asks a question. There is a vague roar coming from the freeway several blocks distant. A car horn honks. A fire truck leaves the station with siren going. Someone shuts a door. All of these sounds are in the cube of air at least for an instant.
Okay. Micro-instant.
Doesn't it boggle the mind to accept that there are, at any given moment, billions or even trillions of e-mail messages in every cubic foot of air?
