Frye, Einstein and the Viking Lander

     

    While studying astronomy (Core class) I was thinking about Frye's table on page 179 of Words with power. According to Frye, time and space change as we travel to different cosmic levels. I think maybe Einstein would have approved; this seems similar to his theory of relativity. Here's how it works according to Dr Willoughby's presentation, "Matter tells space-time how to curve and space-time tells matter how to move". I know-I didn't really understand at first either, but then she presented evidence for this. It turns out that when the Viking Lander was sent to Mars, it flew past the Sun. When it sent signals back, the scientists noticed that because space is stretched time was also stretched. Depending on where you are in space, time changes. If you are near a black hole, even though matter is being pulled in by the enormous amount of gravity, time slows so much that no matter how long you wait to see it get sucked in, you will never see it.
  
    I think that Einstein could have worked some of the interesting parts of the universe into Frye's table. Frye's demonic level where time is "pure duration and power of annihilation" and space is "alienation" sounds a bit like a black hole. The fallen world could be the far away places where time slows. The unfallen world seems a bit like a nebula; all that energy making new stars. Heaven would have to be closer to our time on Earth, and I am not sure anyone is ready to buy that. The big issue Einstein would have is that Frye left mass out of his table. Maybe together they could have made the ultimate table to of cosmic truth.

   My best friend has warned me not to mix the sciences with the humanities. She says that some abomination such as Sociology will be created. She could be correct considering this blog post. However, I think it's interesting to mix Math, Science, and Literature. Let's just hope I do not end up fractally wrong and end up dividing by zero.