The Lives of Stephen Hawking, and of Subatomic Particles

            Hi, y'all!  Yes, I said y'all—I blame my time is West Virginia for that.

            Anyways, I'm back, still ducking my head from that flame war I was quite privy to whenever people are trying to criticize scientifically-and-humorously-minded and CONFIRMED SKEPTIC Adam Savage of MythBusters, mostly due to how I was still being tagged in all those tweets.  It's not that I regret doing it; I'd totally do it again, but with two separate differences: First, I'd NOT tag Adam Savage and Zak Bagans directly in the tweet again; Second, if I did tag them and Adam responded in the same way, I'd text my family and friends that I can't text right now, if you need to talk, CALL ME OR WAIT, while plugging my silenced cell phone into the charger due to an oncoming FLAME WAR.  *facepalms*  At least I learned something from this experience, and, as a bonus, figured out a contingency plan so I don't have to suffer ever again.  At least  I was able to feature the HILARIOUS tweets!  Note to hardcore paranormal-til-death Ghost Adventures fans: Adam Savage is a CONFIRMED SKEPTIC and prone to making assumptions, so don't get your panties in a twist any time a CONFIMED SKEPTIC says something negative about one of our favorite series, and also, if you're going to flame someone, at least make it funny, so I don't have to feel shitty inside, like the guilt just left its muddy fingerprints all along the lining of my intestines, stomach and soul—I HATE THAT FEELING!

            Aside from that issue, I figured that I should continue on with my blog, by featuring "The Edge" by Nigel John Stanford as this post's optional theme song:

Hawking: The Discovery Dramatization Show Where I'm Sure of the Existence of a Friendship Between Stephen Hawking and Benedict Cumberbatch—Translation: SQUEE!

            You guessed it: being a fan of science, I'm going to talk about Discovery's recent broadcast/airing of the 110-minute dramatized documentary of Stephen Hawking's earlier life (in this case, life in college), and his discovery of the Big Bang, as well as his battle with another noted-at-the-time scientist over the universe being in a perpetual static state vs. the ever-changing state that we now know it is.  I also tweeted about the "battle" between religion and science:

"Religion is the enemy of science....." -slams head on desk over and over again- NOT TRUE, DAMMIT! #Hawking #neilwithit
— Lady Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) January 11, 2015

            But I loved it!  I loved how Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch (*said with a bit of British class*) was able to portray him, how he was able to carry across the struggles that Dr. Hawking had at the time, how he was able to be profound and smart and classy and brilliant and fighting a battle that he was not expected to win in a role that was only mirrored by Eddie Redmayne in the movie The Theory of Everything.  It was beautiful!  In fact, because of all this, I decided to look up tweets that tagged this feature film and include them here:

            Extra-special double-unicorn magical thanks to Jenny The Bloggess Lawson for introducing me to Storify in her blogs.

          So, yes: I really was sure that there is a friendship between (*British class*) Benedict Cumberbatch and Dr. Stephen Hawking (*clears throat, resuming to normal*), because I had recently watched Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking on DVD (meaning, I did it last year) and noticed that Benedict Cumberbatch did voiceover for him on that DVD!  It could also be that Mr. Cumberbatch did an excellent job as Adam Turing in The Imitation Game, leading to his casting, but it's too much of a coincidence for that to be true!  *CONSPIRATORIAL FACIAL EXPRESSION*

            Overall rating: 6,000 beautiful nebulae out of 10 stars!  Or if you want it in Dalek terms, it'd be 60 plungers out of ten!  (The 6,000 is a reference to Creationism being stupid by denying the evidence of the trillions of years that the universe actually IS, with its birth being the Big Bang.)

            From Astrophysics to quantum physics-and-mechanics, I just had a really interesting and weird thought about protons and electrons and the Force of Star Wars!

What the F*ck Are They Thinking?  The Inter-Subatomic Particle Dialogue of the Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons

            So, yes, I tend to be a bit a crazy, quite weird, in a lovable and fun way that I'm very sure isn't annoying (*pointed glare at hometown*), but I did have a recent thought that pretty much was Shinto or Animist in principle, but it was on the scale of atoms: what the hell are protons and electrons thinking?!

            I'm sure that it goes like this:

~Protons (+, the Jedi): We're the good guys!  We balance out the bad guys, we want the universe to be good, because we're positively charged!  Yays, positivity!  Come here, electrons, so we can f*ck with you in multiple ways!

~Electrons (-, the Sith): We're the real good guys!  We provide the real balance in the universe because whenever , and even though we are smaller than our positive counterparts that like to stick together in the nucleus, where it's "nice and safe" with the Strong Force keeping them all together, we're free to orbit around them, messing with their Up particles and Down particles, and we're behind the formation of molecules with other elements!

~Protons (+): No, WE'RE behind those formations!

~Electrons (-): NUH-UH!

~Neutrons (o): *munches on popcorn* This is interesting, so we're just gonna sit around and watch.  We ain't taking sides, so….you're on your own, here, boys and girls.  We also have good cheese here, and manufacture awesome watches.

~Electrons (-): But…but….they're so….stuck together and stuff!

~Protons (+): Yeah, but you like to move only in straight lines!  It's no wonder the cool dudes at CERN picked us to be in their Large Hadron Collider!

~Neutrons (o): *Chris Hardwick voice* Points to the Protons!  Also to the Electrons because we don't take sides, we're just here, partying in different isotopes.

            You get the idea.

            And then I had that tiny bit of an "Ah-ha!" moment: the electromagnetic force is the Force in Star Wars!  I mean, come on!  Emperor Palpatine was able to shoot lightning from his fingers to wrongfully kill the badass Mace Windu (who wants his motherfucking Sith off of his motherfucking ship!!!), but that's what electrons do!  I mean, come on!  If anything, Disney shouldn't ever kill off all the Sith, because it will throw the Star Wars universe out of balance!  I mean it!  Get to tweeting at or emailing to JJ Abrams, because he HAS to keep this in mind!  It's not too late to save Star Wars!

            Huh?  Am I doing this JJ Abrams thing?  No, I'm just watching you guys do it.  *munches on the Neutrons' popcorn*  Because this is interesting….  What do you mean, which side am I on?  I've already picked between the Light Side and the Dark Side!  I'm a Grey Jedi and I'm proud of it!

            So, if any astrophysicists or particle physicists, or quantum physicists want to start complaining, go ahead.  I just want you to say, "What if protons, neutrons and electrons could talk?  What would they say?"  I'd love to see Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Phil Plait aka Bad Astronomer, the ghost of Carl Sagan, Dr. Stephen Hawking, Leighann Lord, Chuck Nice, Eugene Mirman, Chris Hardwick, Matt Mira, and Seth MacFarlane provide their input on this.  Yes, that's an invitation to discuss this, y'all.  I'll be expecting to hear from you soon (if you would just please, please, please talk about this and then get back to me!   PLEASE!)

            So, yeah.  Not sure what else to say, except to check out Diane Martin's Di-Hard Podcast.  Because she's awesome and hilarious.  And a band-o—YAY MARCHING BAND!!!  And  to listen to StarTalkRadio, to watch StarTalk TV on National Geographic, check out both MythBusters and Ghost Adventures, and to buy the Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey DVD/Blu-Ray because SCIENCE!  (#neilwithit)

            With that, I shall leave you with this picture.  Enjoy it, AND YOUR TACQUITOS!

P.S. In case you REALLY wanted a showdown between MythBusters and the paranormal, here's one of those Epic Rap Battles ofHistory!

NOW, we're done!  So, please, STOP TWEETING ADAM ABOUT IT!  *ninja-poofs!*

WTF?!?!?!—The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Just a warning: your mind might be blown; you could get minor headaches or migraines from thinking about what I'm about to share with you too hard; I'm not responsible for either of these things, or for breaking you to the point that requires some therapy.  Seriously, I'm sorry for what happens to you after, despite your reaction to this post being COMPLETELY up to you.

            I will be honest here: I think I'm having a little bit of an existential crisis.  It's not exactly like, "What's my purpose in life?!  I NEED RELIGIONS TO GUIDE ME!" and it's definitely not like that more familiar Midlife Crisis of "Hey! I'm not that old!  I can still do young stuff!  BATCYCLE, TO ME!"  I know I'm addressing things that are WAY outside of most people's perspectives, but I'm serious—I'm having an existential crisis at the universal we're-too-small-to-have-any-major-impact-on-the-whole-of-the-universe-and-are-helpless-at-this-point-in-time-being-at-the-mercy-of-our-solar-system level.

            Please, allow me to explain….with the (optional) theme song being "FarCentaurus" by Nigel John Stanford, the guy whose Cymatics music video was so AWESWOME!

            Just recently (as in, this past weekend and prior to), I indulged a bit at the library, checking out Discovery's How the Universe Works and Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.  Just a quick bit about these two shows: the former, sometimes having blogger-and-discovery-of-dark-energy-assist-master Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) in it and voiced overall by Mike Rowe (#NerdCombo #NerdDrool), and the latter written by Stephen Hawking, with voice-over segments done by Benedict Cumberbatch (#SQUEE!).  Both of these shows are very well done, but they both also changed my perspective quite a bit.  And when I say quite a bit, I am really saying BY A FUCKLOAD!

            What I gathered from these two shows is that we, the denizens of the planet Earth (Sol-3), are not exactly the creation of a deity.  We're not living in the only solar system that exists in this universe (If you need more proof, just look at science headlines that go along the lines of "NEW EARTHLIKE PLANET DISCOVERED!"), and our physical selves did not just come out of nothing.  We're made of STUFF, these different elements such as iron, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, iodine, sodium, etc, that did NOT exist at time of the Big Bang.

            Instead, we're the product of a series of VERY fortunate happy accidents.

            Think about it: we're probably in one of very few (out of an infinite number of) universes that actually supports the existence of life, that mysterious chemical reaction that results in organic multi-cellular beings, with each one made of an uncountable number of molecules, making up a shit ton of cells that are able work together to function as a whole system by itself.  This universe was able to form out of matter and not antimatter, just because particles of matter simply just happenedto outnumber antimatter particles.  The universe that then formed after this cosmic battle of matter-vs.-antimatter (which results in the destruction of both particles, by the way) just happened to be uneven enough for gravity to attract these particles to each other, enough to form the first stars.  These stars just  happened to create the elements (out of hydrogen nuclear fusion) necessary to build us.

            Yes, we're not made of regular dust just like the Bible states in the Book of Genesis; we're made of stardust!  Which is pretty neat, if you think about it long enough; it's kind of romantic, in a sense.

            Anyways, some of these stars just happened to explode, creating enough material to form our current solar system, and the sun (Sol, of course) just happened to form successfully, and in just the right size in the PERFECT spot in the Milky Way Galaxy: not too far from the central supermassive black hole, but also not too close to whip us around at impossible speeds, expose us to deadly radiation or to suck us into the black hole.

            And, in addition to the whole "What the Fuckery?" I just laid out, the Earth formed in just the right spot in the solar system, at just the right size with the perfect amount of gravity and elements, AND survived the Hundred-Planet Demolition Derby that took place after the sun first formed.  Not to mention that enough comets hit the surface of this rocky and hot world to give us exactly the right amount of water (give or take a few litres) to cool it down to exactly the right temperature.  Plus, the atoms of specific elements successfully created these molecules that formed the first cells and, therefore, the first forms of life!

            And to top it all off, Jupiter, our big tough super-strong super popular planetary brother, formed far enough away to not affect us, but also to act as our bodyguard, deflecting and/or attracting in-bound comets and asteroids that would've hit Earth and prevented our existence otherwise.  Plus, the moon formed and took its spot at the right distance for us to land on it, and gives us almost the right amount of light at night so we can still see just enough to be able to not trip on something in the meadows and grasslands.  (Well, in my opinion, at least…)

            AND, to top it all off, that comet/asteroid that hit Earth millions of years ago wiped out all the dinosaurs, to allow US, the mammals, to survive, and evolve into creatures that can understand and map the universe!  We are simply the product of a series of accidents who can create abstract ideas that have no solid tangible presence in the universe, and extremely large solid objects made up of the same stardust as us that DO have such a presence!

            Which.  Is.  Weird!!!!

            What the hell?!  What is humanity's purpose in the universe?  Are we really experiments, something that just SO happened to form as part of a simulation (which I suspect due to the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, or the Keyon, as I like to call it)?  Or are we the creation of the universe itself so that this (possibly sentient) universe could understand itself—making us its neurons in three-dimensional space?  I have so many questions, many of them being "WHY….?" and eager for an answer that doesn't just have any basis in statistics and probability.

Perspective: Now You Have It

            It's frustrating and scary to see how we have all of this amazing stuff going on and NONE of it is the primary focus of the human race!  We're all on the same spherical rocky iron(ic) boat, orbiting the same star, paying witness to some of the same awesome stuff in the skies (including the moon), and yet we're too busy bickering with each other about police brutality and who crossed which lines in the sand, eager to collect all parts of an abstract creation of ours, an idea that we place numerical value upon, despite it having not a lot of purpose besides being a tool that we use in a system that we set up, and fighting over how people see other people who are different from them (Sunni vs. Shiite and Middle East vs. America—everyone wants to be right, nobody wants to be wrong; it's pointless to force your ideas of how people should live/think/function onto someone else, and that goes QUADRUPLE to the (tel)evangelists and racist fucknuts out there!).  Why do this, when we have a whole other realm to explore?

            And why destroy the planet we're all living on?  IT'S THE SAME PLANET EARTH!!!!  The climate-change global warming deniers (read: idiots) are poisoning the same air that everyone else is breathing and relying on for survival, only because they're not educated enough or they don't believe that we're all going to destroy ourselves as the result of our own actions.  We're making each other sick, we're killing each other, and we're ruining ourselves because of disagreements and bullshitting.  (Also, any deniers are NOT going to be allowed in my boat.  You cause it, you suffer the consequences—have fun either treading water or drowning or dying from dehydration!)

            Why fight?  Why destroy things?  We could be the only witnesses to everything the universe is showing us, and yet, we're staring at the ground and our cell phones and computer and/or television screens, and glaring at everyone else.  We're unhappy narcissistic creatures that are intent on focusing on ourselves and our own problems.  Our world-view is small, limited to what we each see around us, when we could just look up together and learn what we have yet to know about everything and everyone.

            Why don't we just do this right?!

            This is all I can say right now.  That is the gist of my sort-of existential crisis.  That is the result of watching those two shows on DVD—and I think everyone else should do this, too.  It would be good for you, at least, to realize what I have learned: we're a miracle that isn't acting like one, and should start in order to save itself from the extinction we've forced on many other creatures that live on the same planet we do.  If we do get our act together, cooperate and accept everyone's differences (including the colors of our skin, the religions we practice, and the fact that many of us have Autistic Spectrum Disorders and other disabilities), we can do incredible things, which can help us understand the universe (that can be scary due to the sheer size and scale of it—but only if you look at it that way) and also ensure the survival of the human race in case the universe decides to butt-fuck us again, with Apophis or whatever else is out there.

Random Thoughts Are Random

            I know: I was "thinking like a crazy person" (despite being completely reasonable) prior to this part, so why not share some thoughts that I had amidst this whole existential crisis I'm having and before?

Aw, @Macys! Plz use "Question!" next yr, if not to promote critical thinking, then to have buildings across the st. do "Answer!" in reply!
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) December 1, 2014

to me, right now, a lot of things don't just not "matter" to me--actually, they #antimatter to me. HAHA! #neilwithit
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) December 2, 2014

I wonder what would happen if you stab someone with a #unicorn horn. What magic would take place? @TheBloggess
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) December 1, 2014

            That's all for now, folks!  Keep sharing this blog, and ENJOY YOUR COSMIC TACQUITOS!

War Horse: A Tale of Bravery and Magnificence

            Still no word on a completed guest post about superheroes (JESSE!  THESE PEOPLE ARE WAITING!) so how's about a review of a movie sans the Broadway show?  For this post, it's the (optional) theme song of the full War Horse Soundtrack.

            If anyone's ever heard of War Horse, they might think of the Broadway show, with the amazing puppets, and the brilliant actors making it all seem so real.  But the movie is just as spectacular!  You get all of these great shots where even the scenery gets to be the star of the show, where these 6-star actors (out of five, mind you) make your wildest dreams come true, and you are just taken on the journey, like a spirit witnessing the miracle of a horse surviving World War I, that many people thought was the War to End All Wars.  It was utterly brilliant!

            Not very many people realize that Steven Spielberg directed this movie much like Vincent Van Gogh created his paintings; he used the skies of Devonshire to his advantage, the moors like a landform just waiting to be used as a backdrop for an epic movie, he used the landscape to its advantage, the surrounding areas as part of this great beautiful story, and it seems that he sees it all in his mind and just HAS to make it real.  It all came together very beautifully as a work of art that tells this war story, this journey of a horse from birth to war to home again, who is a character in and of itself, that had to be trained to run into battle instead of away from danger.  In fact, Tom"Loki" Hiddleston, who played Captain Nicholls in this film, was witness to how Spielberg directed and constructed shots for the film; it might be a lot of hard work to other directors, but it was like "water out of a tap for him," because it would just flow with ease.  If I couldn't make it as a director for my Polar Vortex film, then I probably would've co-directed with Spielberg, because he's just.  So.  Brilliant!

            The acting was incredible, the horses were probably trained extremely^2 well to act properly, in the way that was just not only natural, but also like they are also the stars of the film, having to bear many a rider from many backgrounds on their backs.  And what's also great, having ridden horses myself until my teen years, is that they never had one shot in the film be of the horses taking a piss or a shit.  I'm serious, it isn't fun to have to wait around for the horse to finish their business for me to continue with dressage riding.  BUT(T)!  Squirrel moment aside, they were beautiful and they deserve their own stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and knighthood in the UK.  Of course, the knighthood will be up to Her Majesty.

            I have to spoil it a tiny bit.  Because there is just this one beautiful scene, one where I will not reveal where it lies in sequence of the film lest I spoil it for everyone who didn't watch it but SHOULD….  It's a scene where you're on the moors of Devon, and the skies are awash in the fiery sunset glow of the sun.  It's so beautiful, like the skies are awash with flame, and everything is lit in the firelight of the sky.  You can't help but just go, "Oh….my….GODS!  Someday, this HAS to be the setting for a photo shoot!"  (Heh, you might not go "PHOTO SHOOT!"  But, I confess that I actually did.)  But it was just so beautiful, like Spielberg's version of Van Gogh's Starry Night, with the color temperature thermostat set to warm!  All those oranges and yellows just giving it the right sense of amazing jaw-dropping BEAUTY!

            I also have to admit that I did not realize that it was a book FIRST…  I would LOVE to see the Broadway show for sure, but now I have to find the book and read it!  Because Mama always told me to read the book first!  However, I don't think Spielberg could do the book any more justice than he already did!  He did excellent with the firing squad scene, with the shot construction and execution, Tom Hiddleston did excellent as Captain Nichols, Benedict Cumberbatch was wonderful as Major Jamie Stewart, and it was just the right amount of jaw dropping beauty mixed together with emotions and storytelling and character AND DELICIOUS CHEEKBONES!!!!!  Even I would nominate this movie for every Oscar category, including made-up categories I'm still trying to come up with for @midnight's Hashtag Wars!

20 PLUNGERS OUT OF TEN!!!!  AND I COMMANDETH YOU ALL:

GO WATCH IT NOWWW!!!!!