If I got a second chance at life I want to be water. It's like God just got bored and threw in all kinds of cool special effects into water that we will never explain, just to show off. (Or that are very hard to explain at least.) I have to say God gosh I'm real impressed down here and wouldn't mind being water if you could arrange it somehow.
Like check this out. Get in a calm swimming pool. Let your hand stick straight up out of the water, and then smoothly and quickly submerge it without splashing. If you do it right you'll see perfect little vortices spin off. Eventually they will die out but this sometimes takes a while. Beautiful to watch. Now, the question in my mind is whether or not the shape and size (ie the boundary conditions) of the swimming pool affect their lifetime. Perhaps with still enough waters and no boundaries in at least some directions you would get a vortex that just kept spinning. Like the red spot on Jupiter huh? There's something in Chaos about a simulation that discovered the red spot effect.
Posted by Alan at July 7, 2003 10:56 PMWell actually aren't you like 90% water as it is. Maybe God already gave you your wish. And that 10% is a trade off for consciousness and senses.
Posted by: Nicky at July 9, 2003 10:46 AMWow yeah you're so right man. Except the state equation for human flesh is probably a pretty boring one because of that 10%, at least I in my present carnal flesh would freak out a bit if I could set off leetle vortices on my skin. I suppose it's a fair compromise to be able to appreciate it though.
Posted by: Alan at July 9, 2003 11:07 AM