Books & Culture
TED WILSON REVIEWS THE WORLD: GRAVITY WAVES
T
★★★☆☆
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of the world. Today I am reviewing gravity waves.
I was so happy to hear the recent announcement that scientists found gravity waves. Not because I care about gravity waves, but because I care about the scientists. They’ve been looking for gravity waves forever and up until recently had found absolutely nothing. Can you imagine devoting your entire life to something you might never find proof of?
That’s why science and religion are so similar. There’s a lot of crossing your fingers and hoping this thing you devoted your life to is real.
Every day those scientists would clock in hoping for gravity waves, and at the end of the day they’d clock out with nothing having changed. Only to do the exact same thing the next day. Again and again. I felt such relief for them when the announcement was made, knowing they could finally go back home to their families or televisions and not feel like failures.
Now that they found the waves, I guess their jobs are over. Or do they now get paid a fee for each wave they find? I have no idea how scientists make money.
One person already found a way to make money off the waves. His name is Bruce. He’ll tell you he has some gravity waves in the trunk of his Prius, but he doesn’t. It’s just a jar of water with some glitter in it. And when your credit card bill arrives, Bruce will have charged you way more than what you agreed to.
If you want to see some gravity waves yourself, don’t bother. They’re so small that even a pretty good microscope can’t see them. I looked in my backyard, the fridge, my skin — basically everywhere. Nothing.
It would be nice of the scientists to at least take a picture of some waves so everyone else could see. Honestly it seems kind of selfish of them now that I think about it. I guess spending your life obsessed with something can drive you crazy once you finally get it. Just like any treasure hunter.
BEST FEATURE: I have no idea because I’ve never seen them!
WORST FEATURE: How hard they are to see!
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing Wade Boggs.
