If God exists outside space and time, then how can he be omnipresent, present in all places at all times? If he exists within it, how could he have created it? How could a creation (or anything) take place outside time?
When Chinese herbalist Li Ching-Yun died in 1933, newspapers were hard pressed to write his obituary. Li had contended that he had been born in 1736, which would have made him 197 years old.
In 1930, Wu Chung-Chien of Minkuo University had reported finding records showing that Li had been even older, born in 1677 and congratulated by the imperial Chinese government on his 150th and 200th birthdays.
In 1928 a correspondent to the New York Times had reported that the oldest men in Li’s neighborhood insisted that their grandfathers had known Li when they were children and that he was then a grown man.
Tales told in his province held that Li had traveled widely during his first century, gathering herbs to sell, but then had switched to selling herbs gathered by others. He told one pupil that the secret of living to 250 was to “keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon, and sleep like a dog.” He was credited with either 14 or 23 wives; one 1928 account said that he had 180 living descendants.
He was certainly well preserved. The New York Times noted drily that, according to its 1928 report, “many who have seen him recently declare that his facial appearance is no different from that of persons two centuries his junior.”
(Thanks, Francisco.)
I must tell you a nice little story which is quite true and will amuse you. The King has taken lately to writing verse. Messieurs de Saint-Aignan and Dangeau are teaching him how to set about it. The other day he wrote a little madrigal, which he himself did not think much of. One morning he said to Maréchale de Gramont, ‘Monsieur le Maréchale, will you kindly read this little madrigal and see whether you have ever seen anything so pointless? Just because it is known that I have recently taken to liking verses, people bring me all kinds.’ Having read it the Marshal said, ‘Sire, your Majesty is an inspired judge of everything, and it is true that this is the silliest and most ridiculous madrigal I have ever read.’ The King burst out laughing and said, ‘Isn’t it true that whoever wrote this is a conceited puppy?’ ‘Sire, he cannot be called anything else.’ ‘That’s excellent,’ said the King. ‘I am delighted that you have spoken so candidly; I wrote it myself.’ ‘Oh, Sire, what treachery! Will your Majesty please give it back to me, I only glanced through it rapidly.’ ‘No, Monsieur le Maréchale, first impressions are always the most natural.’ The King laughed very much at this trick, but everyone thinks it is the most cruel thing one can do to an old courtier. Personally I always like reflecting about things, and I wish the King would think about this example and conclude how far he is from ever learning the truth.
— Madame de Sévigné to Simon Arnauld, Dec. 1, 1664
Two billion years ago, in what is now Gabon in West Africa, groundwater seeped through sandstone to inundate a layer of uranium ore, initiating a nuclear chain reaction. When the deposit heated up, the water boiled away, slowing the reaction; when it cooled, the water returned and the cycle began again.
The result was a natural, self-sustaining nuclear reactor that generated 100 kilowatts of power for several hundred thousand years.
French physicist Francis Perrin discovered the phenomenon at Oklo in 1972. “As far as we know, we only have evidence of natural reactors forming and operating at the one site in Gabon,” said Jay Cullen of the University of Victoria, “but that demonstrates that it’s possible, and our calculations suggest it was much more probable earlier in Earth’s history.”
Closing lines of a letter to Samuel Pepys from his brother-in-law, 1686:
I am Sir Stopped with a Torent of Sorofull Lamentation, for Oh god I have lost, oh I have lost such a loss, that noe man is or cann be Sensible but my Selfe: I have lost my wife, Sir, I have lost my wife; and such a wife, as your Honour knows has (may be) not lefte her felow, I cannot say any more at present being overwhelmed …
From the King James Bible, 2 Samuel 18:33, on David’s grief at the loss of his son:
And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept: and as he went, thus he said: O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
Poet Paul Monette wrote this elegy after his lover Roger Horwitz died of AIDS on Oct. 22, 1986:
for hours at the end I kissed your temple stroked
your hair and sniffed it it smelled so clean we’d
washed it Saturday night when the fever broke
as if there was always the perfect thing to do
to be alive for years I’d breathe your hair
when I came to bed late it was such pure you
why I nuzzle your brush every morning because
you’re in there just like the dog the night
we unpacked the hospital bag and he skipped
and whimpered when Dad put on the red
sweater Cover my bald spot will you
you’d say and tilt your head like a parrot
so I could fix you up always always
till this one night when I was reduced to
I love you little friend here I am my
sweetest pea over and over spending all our
endearments like stray coins at a border
but wouldn’t cry then no choked it because
they all said hearing was the last to go
the ear is like a wolf’s till the very end
straining to hear a whole forest and I
wanted you loping off whatever you could
still dream to the sound of me at 3 P.M.
you were stable still our favorite word
at 4 you took the turn WAIT WAIT I AM
THE SENTRY HERE nothing passes as long as
I’m where I am we go on death is
a lonely hole two can leap it or else
or else there is nothing this man is mine
he’s an ancient Greek like me I do
all the negotiating while he does battle
we are war and peace in a single bed
we wear the same size shirt it can’t it can’t
be yet not this just let me brush his hair
it’s only Tuesday there’s chicken in the fridge
from Sunday night he ate he slept oh why
don’t all these kisses rouse you I won’t won’t
say it all I will say is goodnight patting
a few last strands in place you’re covered now
my darling one last graze in the meadow
of you and please let your final dream be
a man not quite your size losing the whole
world but still here combing combing
singing your secret names till the night’s gone
Monette himself died of AIDS nine years later.
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(Thanks, Pablo.)
Many persons know the story of the swallow which had entangled its claw, by some means, in a piece of thread fastened to a spout on the wall of the Collége des Quatre Nations, at Paris. Its strength being exhausted, the bird hung at the end of the thread, which it kept raising in the endeavours to fly, uttering plaintive cries. All the swallows from between the Pont des Tuileries and Pont Neuf, and perhaps still further, gathered together, to the number of some hundreds, all uttering cries of pity and alarm. After some hesitation and a tumultuous conference, one of them seemed to have found a means of delivering their unfortunate companion, and no doubt communicated it to the others. They placed themselves in order, and each coming in turn, struck the thread with the beak, somewhat after the fashion of ’tilting at the ring.’ These thrusts, aimed at the same point, succeeded each other every moment, and greatly incommoded the poor captive; but in a short time the thread was severed, and the poor bird set at liberty! The flock remained till night, chattering all the time; but in a tone which had nothing of inquietude, and was expressive only of mutual congratulation.
— Ernest Menault, The Intelligence of Animals, 1869
cagamosis
n. marital unhappiness
Early automobiles tended to frighten horses, so in 1904 Henry Hayes proposed attaching a life-size fake horse to the front of each car, to give the illusion that they were ordinary carriages.
The horse’s head would be fitted with a lensed lamp, its mouth would hold a horn, and its hollow interior could store fuel, tools, and extra tires. The saddle could even bear a rider.
It’s not too late to implement this.
